CASUAL COMMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 19847, 21 April 1928, Page 2

CASUAL COMMENTS

SWEARING, CURSING, AND BEATING JOSSES [By Leo Fanning.] Hotspur: Como, Kate, I'll have your song. Lady Percy; Not nunc, in good sooth. Hotspur: Not yours, in good sooth! Heart, you swear like a comfituiakcr’s wife! Not you, in good sooth; and “As true as 1 hvc ” and “ As sure as day.’' And giv’st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths, As if thou never walk’dst further than Finsbury. Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, A good mouth-filling oath; and leave “in sooth” And such protest of pepper-ginger-bread To velvet guards and Sunday citizens —‘King Henry IV.,’ Part 1. In Shakespeare’s view of Hotspur the fiery nobleman would have liked his lady to shout: “No, you,” or “No, and bo d d to you,” or something much more mouth-filling. This Shakespearean fragment anticipated the theory of recent moro-or-less scientific writers that, in certain circumstances, the mind, body, and soul of man need the relief of an eruption of wrath expressed luridly and loudly. The allegation is that if the inner turbulence is repressed it will swirl about in the dedicate psychic and physical organism and do some damage. Comparisons have been made with the safety valves of steam engines and volcanoes. Mon in the mass would not try to understand the scientific explanation of the matter, but they have long believed that it is lawful to swear on more occasions than those which the clergy would countenance. Ift * * Cu.-ung is a more serious matter, b-.t happily it is not so much in the air as it was several centuries ago, when many millions of people lived in dread of the evil eye, still feared by peasants in some European countries and by natives of Polynesia and Melanesia. Many a poor old woman, half-witted, mun.b ling unintelligible jargon to herself, has been burnt as a witch because superstitious neighbors believed that she had blighted or mildewed the amps, or spread disease among sheep or cattle or human beings by casting an evi’. eye upon them. It was an easy, out cruel, satisfaction to the community to set fire to the alleged ally of the devil. t* * * ¥ In those days, before experts in efficiency and scientists had various explanations for the of life, it was the habit of an individual to blame anybody but himself for his troubles. 'Ho preferred to think that he was under a curse, and he was more interested in trying to find and conquer the imaginary cursor than in mending his own ways or mending his business better. » # * * “ Blame tho other fellow ” is a worldwide instinct or impulse of persons in trouble. The other day I saw a funny sketch titled ‘ His First Lie.’ It was a drawing of an infant barely able to walk and unable to talk. Ho had been playing with a scuttle of coal, which he had upset after getting his hands, face, and clothes in a mess. His mother is scolding him, but he is pointing innocently at the cal sitting near the scene of mischiel. » * * » “Pass it on” was one of the feelings which prompted the custom of the ancient Israelites in loading the scapegoat with* tho community’s burden of sin and driving it into the wilderness. Tho same kind of thing today in different ways in all countries. Europeans affect to laugh at tho Chinese practice of “ beating the joss. The common belief is that when a Chinese, after the burning of tapers and other stuff and saying prayers before an idol is nob satisfied with the results, he takes the joss into the backyard and thrashes it. Thus ho gets the personal relief which an outburst of expletives m i K ht give to a European. But there is more to the Chinese worshippers stern measures with the little wooden or brazen god. The punisbraent is a warning to the joss that it it does not give the devotee a better run for the money spent on scented sticks ho will get another joss. * W * * H the opponents of malted, tormented, and spirituous liquors fail to win at the next poll, will they bo seen kicking cocou tins nbout the stiGcts. If the licensed trade loses, will it play football in .public places with hogsheads and casks? » • ♦ * The most conspicuous recent case of joss-heating in New Zealand is that of the Prime Minister, Mr Coates. His win in the elections of 1925 was not a party victory', but a national success, He had the support of many farmers and manufacturers, Freetraders, and Protectionists, advocates of Prohibition and stalwarts of Continuance—a huge cohort of conflicting interests and factions. “He’s my horse; where’s ray dividend,” was the cry, in effect, of each group. Mr Coates was expected, therefore, to bo a superhuman Prime Minister, with a superhuman policy, one which would please all groups all the time, and fill them with praise and thanksgiving, Really, it would bo easier to fool all the people all the time than to please all tho people all the time. A leader who wins on a straight-out party programme can satisfy his party, but it is a very different affair when the party is prac tically the whole country, with its diversity of theories, views, aspirations, nnd expectations. On the top of the popular anticipation—yea, oven demand—for miracles came a slump. The wicked old outside world, wilted by somebody’s evil eye, was not paying enough for New Zealand’s produce. Why was this thus? What was Air Coates doing about it? Wails went through tho land, and the joss-beating began m town and country. But the laugh is finally with Mr Coates, in the middle of the comic wave of pessimism >'o had sufficient faith in “ God’s Own J-jim-try ” to predict that the devil of despair would ho driven out by tne . u - - fioys and Holstcins and other hardworking friends of Now Zealand. Mell, tho cows and sheep have wrought well and truly, and the baneful influence of somebody’s evil eye on tho overseas markets has been lifted. The country has a favorable trade balance of about thirteen millions sterling, a flood d money which will sweep away the gloom of many joss-bcatcrs, and put a new complexion on things political. « » * " If the cows and sheep had not done their job so well, and if the evil eye’s sinister business had persisted. Mr Coates could have been pardoned for an impulse to twist the tails of the mild-eyed Jerseys and to kick tho woolly Corriedales. But, as Shakespeare or Bacon has said, “ All’s well that ends well,” nnd the turn of the tide in the marketing makes things less easy for the joss-beaters. It’s the fortune of politics. e * * * While the advocates of new regimes —not yet very clearly specified or defined—are looking for new causes to curse Coates, it is well to refer to minor cursing. For example, motor cars curse, and arc cursed. The rude honk of some cars sounds like “ Get out of tho way,. you,” or

simply “ Skiddoo, you.” Cats curse, of course, and so do parrots (apart from the profanity which they learn from mankind). Indeed, animals and birds altogether seem to have even more belief than mankind in the relief obtainable from wild noises. Even plants may get the bad habit, as Emerson hinted in his essay on ‘ Nature.’ An extract can be a fit finale for this rather rambling article; — “ Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigour; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness. The trees arc imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted to the ground. The animal is the novice and probationer of ■a more advanced order. The men, though voung, having tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated- The maples and ferns arc still uncornipt; yet, no doubt, when they come to consciousness, they, too, will curse and swear.”