BY THE WAY.

Evening Star, Issue 19127, 19 December 1925, Page 2

BY THE WAY.

[By Q.v.]

** Tlxs titm* has come,” the Walrus said, “ To talk of many tilings.** For a considerable and very important part of the population this week has been a joyful one. Most of the schools have disbanded, and their doors will remain closed for a month and a half—not that anyone will want to open them. For that time teachers and taught will meet, if they meet at all, on more equal terms, but the taught are the more fortunate. They will forget their troubles more completely and accept their emancipation more fully than their elders. For many of the teachers the advent of another long vacation means that the hill top, if not already passed, is getting unpleasantly close. The youngsters are happily unaware in any real sense of the existence of such a landmark. Lucky young animals, tho present hour suffices, and so little sunshine is required to make them happy. The book of verses underneath the bough and the jug of wine are unnecessary, and Omar’s lady friend would be merely a nuisance, who would probably require them to hold her hand mirror while she fussed up her hair. “ Q.V.’s ” daily round frequently leads him some of tho poorer quarters of the city, and he, with many a better judge, is frankly surprised and heartened by the good health, the good humor, and tho natural politeness of most of the children met by the way. A piece of chalk and three square inches of wood suffice to furnish them with hours of amusement, while it takes all the resources of Hollywood in depicting the cruder emotions to keep grown-ups Irom yawning. ]t seems a pity that these young things should grow up, be caught by the wheels of chance, and probably turned j into harassed and morose men and women of no importance. ] Do you occasionally suffer from insomnia? It is a distressing thing to suffer from, the more so_ as during the sleepless hours our past sins, errors, and omisions arc apt to visit us, and little comfort is gained from the thought that juosfc men are as bad and some of them worse. If you consult a doctor he will, according to his age and the notions of tho professor _ who taught him his trade, either advise Iresli air, exercise, and a due care of tho digestion t or else try to elicit tho more discreditable episodes of your childhood and put them clown in a little hook. In Urn latter case yon may have tho satisfaction of figuring in a paper read to tho local branch of the B.M.A. later on. “The family history and early life of A. 8., a patient I examined about this time, present some interesting features.” If you try some drowsy syrup on your own account yon will rue it. If you are wise you will, before retiring, select a volume from your own collection or that of the Free Public Library and read therein. But the whole efficacy of the cure lies in tho selection. If yon choose a modern novelist you will he kept awake longer than usual, either by interest or disgust, according to your taste in such matters. If you choose a work on the Bergson philosophy nr the Essays of j Mr 'Anatayana yon will faro no better, i They are too indigestible. Gibbon’s ‘ Decline and Fall ’ is excellent. So is Buckle’s ‘History of Civilisation.’ They are both sufficiently interesting to keep your mind occupied till sleep ‘ comes, but not interesting enough to repel it. Montaigne’s ‘ Essays ’ are perhaps a little too exciting, and ‘Hansard’ too dull. Technical works can be recommended; the writer has much to thank ‘ Stevens on Stowage ’ for—hut, on the whole, stick to Gibbon. * » * * “Where is there a more militant union than the British Medical Association or the legal profession?” inquires Mr A. C. Willis from flic sanctuary of the Kow South Wales Legislative Council. Indeed, we cannot say. Without a profound knowledge of conditions in “ Moo South,” we can only look" at our own records and be dumb. Perhaps a tentative plea might he raised for the doctors, who to outward seeming are on the whole a hardworking, sober, and intelligent body of artisans; but we are afraid that wo cannot with sincerity defend the legal profession. The conduct of its members dining the great strike of 19— was admitted by the cooler among them to he over the odds. _ The trouble started—as those of their clients who are still alive and at liberty will remember—by a legal gentleman arguing a case while clad in a pair of grey trousers and other tilings. The judge refused to bear him until the garments had been replaced by others more fitting. The court was, _of course, declared “black,” and in a few days j every lawyer in the dominion was out. | There may have been an odd blackleg j or two in remote country townships, hut for all practical purposes litigation j was suspended throughout the length | and breadth of the land. 'J ho suffer-1 iugs of the people wore appalling. | When the legal procession, headed by ! the K.C.s, marched down George street j most of tho shopkeepers hastily shut | their emporiums, as they call_ them, j Tho leader—now, we believe, a judge— j Ixiro a flag with tho motto “ Wo care , not who makes the ballads of a conn-1 try, so long as we draw up its mortgages.” For weeks the smallest, quantity of law, the sort, that tho legal oftico hoy supplies and his superior charges 10s fid for. was unobtainable. Ah, well! we have almost lorgolien the i sufferings of flint, terrible linm non - , and , it is little good recalling them. _ Hui one does hope that Mr Willis will lie j more careful in future.

* * » » Sir William Milligan, consulting surgeon lo ilie British Ministry ol Pensions, lecturing at Manchester, said that many workmen drank beer to minimise the effect ol ilie had cooking of i.iioir wives. There would be less drunkenness if all young women were laugh! how lo cook polatoes and roast heel' instead ol being given courses in botany and logyIf you want to raise the roys-ferer I nun m m, If yon want lo wean Ihe bibulous from beer, If you want to slop the risky way I hat some imbibe their whisky, The remedy is obvious and Hoar. We used to blame the brewer and (lie pub, And flagellate, the foulness of (ho trade. Tint it’s not the lienor swiller, nor (lie innocent distiller, By whom the Curse of Alcohol is made. For a man may be as sober as a judge; It’s a matter of the choosing ol a wife; If ho linds he’s picked a winner in the art of cooking dinner, Yon can call him a teetotaler for life. There’s a way of conking cabbages and spuds, There’s a knack in frying fish and roasting beef; And the gentle art of feeding is the only thing you’re needing, When you’re frightened that your man will come to grief. | So, Milligan, 1 lift my haltered hat ; To yon, because you’ve cut the Gordian knot; For the science of nutrition takes the ■ place of Prohibition, j And the Saucepan supersedes the Pewter Pot. No longer shall wc hear the old debate Between the Wicked “ Wots ” and , .Dismal “ Drys ” ; For the way to solve the question is to settle Indigestion (Thn’ Pussyfoot may argue other- i wise I)

The Americans arc an energetic people," “full of pep,” to use their own idiom. In tho intervals of homicide, high finaflee, divorcc-while-you-wait. bootlegging and the' suppression of bootlegging, they, are finding time to try to reform the calendar, like Omar the tent maker. One of the suggestions is for a six-day week, a six-week month, and a ten-month year. This means a working weel of five days, which, as the proposer points out, should have a wide appeal,” and. if we know anything about work, it certainly would. The scheme, however, loaves five days a t year unaccounted for, and therefore presumably available for holidajg., H is suggested that the first of these should bear a name which must not ha profaned in these notes, while the others should be called Christopher Columbus, Stevenson, after the locomotive man, Fulton, who is claimed as tho inventor of tho steamship, and Henry Ford, the populariser of th» motor car. There is a certain piquancy in the juxtaposition of the Saviour of mankind and the producer of the Ford car. Wo are afraid that we are not quite far enough advanced for that New Zealand. It is significant thaf three out of the five names selected for honor arc connected with machinery. E would seem that the gods are dead aftei aIL