CASUAL COMMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 20056, 22 December 1928, Page 2

CASUAL COMMENTS

ORDERS, ADVICE, ETC.

[By Lko Fannins.]

Hare a good limn.—Anon

Fear not, dear friends, that I shall try to put a, blight upon your Christmas bloom with an untimely homily. Far from it. The order of tho day is: Eat, drink and bo morry to-day, and leave enough in tho bottle for to-mor-row (if you have not another bottle). Jazz about, arm in arm, with Santa Claus. Bo as frisky as lambkins and kittens. Thus will you make Dark Caro fold up his tent, and leave you free to be sunny children again, in a bonny world as unruly for a spell as a Punch-and-Judy show.

In a city street this week I ran into a friend who looked jaded. “ You need a holiday,” I said. “ Oh, holidays! ” “You prefer to go on working?” “ Oh, work! ” ‘ What do you wish to do, then? ” “ Oh, doing anything! ” “ Do you wish to live? ” “Oh, life!” “Do you wish to die?” “ Oh, —— death! ” “ Do you want a drink? ” “Yes.” (emphatically). You see. he was just “ sickening ’’ for the Cnristmas spirit. Probably if I met him next Monday I. would find him a very boisterous optimist, tremendously glad to be alive, and kicking his fantods into the far beyond.

It is wonderful what that Christmas spirit will do to people. 1 have heard of a very rigid and frigid prohibitionist who, at Yuletide, is moved by tho Devil —or an angel—far put just one drop of wino in a pint, of water, and he gets so much exnilaration temporarily from that tiny tot—or, rather, from the thought of it —that some of his friends have suspected a serious lapse. But they are wrong. Tho man has a yearning to be innocently wicked, and he has his heart’s desire for one day, before he resumes his role of setting the world to rights. He has some_ remorse about that annual drop of wmc, but next Christmas lie again tinctures tho pint of water in tho same way.

“ You simply must take a long holiday,” a grave doctor said to a friend of mine the other day. u You must go on a long quiet sea voyage to a peaceful place, preferably to one of the South Sea isles.” . “1 will, right gladly,” my friend replied, ** if you can order also a good street day to raise the money.” Wasn’t there a wangling of a street day for tho impecunious Ukridgo in one of Wodehousc’s books? No doubt, plenty of people, when they; buy the protective badge for a shilling, wish they could scheme for a successful street day for themselves.

That same doctor—who happens also to bo a friend of mine—has another patient troubled with a sprained or strained liver and a kink in auothei organ with a long outrageous name which I always fail to remember. 1 know it’s hard at this time of _ the th© doctor sivid to tuo patient, ‘‘ hut you must not take more than a spoonful of beer on tho average per diem—and, as for plum-pudding, you might as well take a dose of prussic acid. A few inches of pudding may give' you six feet of ground in a very quiet suburb where tho wicked are at IC “’Will he act on,that advice? ” the doctor remarked to me. “He will not. I’ve given him that same advice for the past twenty years at Christmas time, but he goes his own obstinate way, and survives somehow, by a miracle. Faith in old banta Claus does it. Old Santa looks after his own. Xf the man had boon doing that kind of thing at any other time of the year I. would have lost ono of mv best-paying patients long ago.

“ You will Lake your own medicine, 1 Ka icl iu a tone with which I tried to give an impression that the clod or would ho very abstemious. Jde laughed. “It’s queer,’ ho replied, “ but 1 have exactly tho same inner troubles as that patient, and I’ve had them for about the same tune twenty years. 1 consulted another practitioner, and he gave the same advice.” _ , “You took it S' ’ , “At Christmas time:' Aot on your life, nor mine.” “Well, we have nil to thank old Santa for something.” “Too true.” • » * * At tho moment I am thinking of ordering myseli to work in the garden all Christmas Daw except the reasonable lulls for meals. It might look a little theatrical, if not eccentric, to the neighbours, but the nobility oi such a deed appeals to me. let I have just remembered that .1 had a similar feeling a few days before Christmas last year. Did I work in the garden? I did not,

Dear friends, just think of the orders you would like to give, if you had Mussolini’s power, during the next tew days! Nobody would lack full employment with knives and forks, spoons, and other favourite weapons, such' as the cup, the mug, the jug, and the flagon. The devil of dyspepsia would be put to flight, and solemnly _ warned and cursed off tho five or six Christmas courses. Playful bishops would have the impulse to exchange their gaiters for the silk stockings of cheery girls, who would look very chic in ecclesiastical spattees. Sportive curates would wear their coats back to front, and the jazz hands would play their tunes backward. The Prime Minister, the Leader of tho Opposition, and the Chief of the Labour Party, lovingly looped together, would go along Lambton quay, lotting off crackers and chanting popular ditties. All bearded men would assemble in public places, and strive for prizes in bobbing at treacly buns. All presons whose positions ordinarily are beset with importance and pomp would wear motley and play leap-frog m the streets. In short, the pepple would have undergraduates’ frolics on the grand scale lor a day or two—and feel better for them.

There is not enough of tho carnival spirit nowadays, not enough pageantry. In days of old tho monarchs knew the value of an occasional merry time for the public. This jollity delayed the evolution of the popular franchise, but it was worth it. Plenty of people today feel that is is hardly worth while to he motored to a polling place, but they would all turn out on foot for a revival of decent frolics. Of course, there are “ high jinks ” in some cabarets, but that excitement is out of the public eye and ear, and the only news of it comes from a curate or canon who thunders at it occasion ally. “ Community singing ” was an attempt to restore tho old community joyfulness, but you cannot command people to sing. Give them the right kind of thrills, and they will sing all right. Also—but tbis is getting too serious for Christmas,

“ Are you going away for Christmas? ” a friend said to me. ■ “ Yes.” “ Far? ” “ Verv far.” “ Where? ” Back to boyhood;”