NEWS AND OPINIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22382, 4 July 1936, Page 2

NEWS AND OPINIONS

PRECOCIOUS ORATORS ’ “When I stood for Hertford,” Lord Balfouy said to Mrs Dugdale, “ 1 had only twice been on my legs in public ” : n 6 cTj t i me at a tenants’ dinner at Hatfield. That was an unusual reticence for a future, statesman. Gladstone started at the age of three, when he was set upon a chair after dinner (Mr Canning being present), and was directed to address the company, “ Ladies and gentlemen.” Lord Carlisle tells of Fox’s eloquence at Eton, and both Pitt and Macaulay seem to have orated from their cradles. An unexpected name in this’ form of precocity is Huxley’s: “I remember,’^he says, “ turning my pinafore wrong side forward to represent a surpliqe and preaching to my mother’s maids in the kitchen one Sunday morning while the rest of the family were at church.” And was it not Ruskin who.addressed to a similar audience that, sound epitome of morality: “ People, be good”?—‘Observer.’ A. E. Housman had an outstanding gift of vivid and pungent phrase, and, from the point of view of English literature, it is to be regretted! that his field was so specialised. Here are one or two of his comments on commentators:—

Elias Stoeber saw the light in 1767 . at Strasburg, a city etill famous for its geese. ... His mind, though that is no name to call it by, was one which turned as unswervingly' to the false, the meaningless, the unmetrical, and the ungrammatical, as the needle to the pole. ’ They say he was born of human parentage: but if so he must have been suckled by Caucasian tigers. Manilius, the one Latin poet who excels even Ovid in verbal point and smartness, is constrained (by an incompetent translator) to write the sort of poetry which might have been composed. by Nebuchadneraar when he was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen. . . . And (serious) critics are blamed for rashness and capriciousness by gentlemen who use MSS, as drunkards use lamp post*—net to light on their way, but to dissimulate their instability. . _ Perhaps the typical story of Housman is his alleged remark, when asked his opinion of his eiew University, that he “ found Cambridge an asylum in more senses than one.”— ‘ Observer.* JESTERS TS THE END A correspondent calls attention te the curious coincidence of the appearance of these two paragraphs in papers of consecutive days:— He (Labou- Voltaire. . i . chere) died, as he Voltaire tu had lived, ,iri a certainly a delijester’s cap and nite Theist. If bells:— his last ", words On Sunday are taken as afternoon, Jann- without irony ary 14, he was be was a believer dozing, when a hell-fire. A spirit lamp on i a m P suddenly the table bv his flared up hear Ins side was knocked bedside, and he over and flared up. ’exclaimed. “ Lea His eyes opened: flammes—deja?” “Flames?” he He never ' spoke murmured: “Not again. (‘Daily yet, I thinkiV - -- Telegraphy He chuckled and dozed off again; and •«*- before midnight on Monday, the 15th, his eyes closed for the last time. (‘News i Chronicle.’) i ■

It seems : that the humorist wilt never be denied his joke, even if he hat to spend his last breath in making* it; and even, if. it is the very oldest joke in its particular department.—(‘Observer.’) ITALY’S GROWTH OF POPULATION. According to the first provisional statistics of the census taken on April 21, there were then 42,438,104 Italians resident in Italy. These figures no not, however, include the soldiers and "workmen now serving abroad or any persons who were temporarily absent from Italy on the night of - the census. Comparison with the statistics of, 1931 shows that the population is increasing by an average of 400,000 a year. ; . The largest city is Rome, with 1,178,491 inhabitants, and the second largest is Milan, which has now passed the million mark with 1,114,104. LATEST GROUND FOR DIVORCE. When Mrs Beatrice ;. Greenhouse’* husband (Oakland, California) wanted to annoy her be used to' fain, her out in their Car, and drive in. a’Bystem of stops and ’ starts. , “ There would . come - a short; quick jerk thab would jerk me back'and then forwards, and he would keen' on doing it,” she told the judge in tV Divorce Court at Oakland. •

“ Divorce granted,” said’ the judge, “and 50 dollars (CIO a'fnonth alimony as well.”— * Obierver.’