THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13399, 30 January 1907, Page 9

THINGS IN GENERAL.

PERSIAN PUBLIC POLICY. According to a recent cablegram, the Shah of Persia is rigorously enforcing order in the "' Regions of the Sun and the Lion," and lie iiu.s declared that a few severed heads are the beet policemen. A poet thus summarises the position: —

tliab, loci: When I was young and read our great Omar, I searched for bints to snide me as the shall. But little there 1 found; yea, little there - .No mention of the Severed Jugular.

The Cop of old, who moved with heavy Tread Is less impressive than a severed Head. Oh! Fire the Cops and let the Handcuff's go! And buy ball-bearing Guillotines instead.

The heavy man in Blue we call the Cop Is impotent when trouble ought to atop. Dispense with him and issue this com muiul: Just take a little Something; oft" the Top.

The Star of Morning glimmers through the Sate, And finds me writing down upon the Slate The Secret of the Puzzle of the WorldThe Master-Key. the DECAPITATE.

A KOKPKNICK EPISODE. Ail the world laughed when the German cobbler, disguised as a military officer, arrested the Mayor of Koepeniek, hut now English military and naval circles have been victimised in an equally during mariner by a swindler attired as a Spanish "naval officer. He waited on Admiral Douglas, at Portsmouth dockyard, and spun a story that a »ick middy wanted to get into Haiku- Hospital. The admiral immediately granted the request, and had special. instructions telephoned to the hospital regarding the reception of Hie patient. 'Che Spanish captain was profuse in his thanks, and retired, accompanied by a lieutenant, who was detailed to «>soorf him to Kings Stairs, where the. Spaniard alleged his boat was ordered to meet him. N<> boat, however, could lie found, anil the lieutenant suggested that tho captain had better come ana dine with him at mess before returning to Cones. Charmed with the hospitality of the mess, the Spaniard decided I hat he would stay overnight on shore, and asked that a cab should be procured to lake him to one of (he leading Portsmouth hotels. Just as he was about to depart he recollected thai beyond some. Spanish coins, he had no money on him, and asked if any kind officer would oblige him by changing some of his foreign money. A sub-lieutenant promptly offered £Vl. suggesting that as the changing of Spanish money would Im> a bit of a nuisance, the. captain would treat the £4 as a loan. Protesting that he only required half the amount Undeied. the Spaniard, however, gratefully accepted the full .sum offered, and. with gushing thanks, bade his entertainers adieu till the morrow. It was not till next day that the dockyard authorities became aware that there was no Spanish cruiser at Cowes. mid by that time the Spanish officer had disappeared. Next day he reaped £4 from a boatman as. a loan, and the following day victimised the officers' mess at Woolwich Arsenal, recognised several who had visited Hie Spanish fleet at Ferrol. and had cabs-, a good dinner, and a "trifling loan" at their expense. Subsequently he victimised hospital staffs as a typhoid lever case, but was caught warming his temperature thermometer on a hot water bottle. It is not polite to mention him in army and navy circles at rortsmouth and Woolwich now, and he is now touring in France.

IN NO-LICENSE DISTRICTS. The announcement thai the magistrate at Ashburton has. at his own request, owing to unfair criticism, been transferred from the district, will occasion no surprise to those who know the prohibition areas in the South, and are able to look dispassionately on cither side. No matter bow able and impartial a magistrate might be, his decisions on licensing matters would meet with ■unfair criticism from the losing side, so intense is the bitterness and nmcour over the question of license v. no-license, in the South. It is sea reefy possible for people in this district to realise the colossal amount of per* jury experienced in some of the Southern Courts in sly grog-selling cases, and it would almost seem impossible to expect to ever bear truth in Court again in these cases. Continually it is a war of wits between police and "offenders, and as constantly as p. seller is found out someone else is devising some new method to baffle the police and. set the law at defiance. The latest developments in licensing matters, have taken place Rt lrivercargill. This is a prohibition town, but just outside it is Awarua, which is licensed territory, and three beer depots have now been established just outside the boundary. This reminds me of a story of thirsty souls in Dunedin. At the time when a man, after travelling three miles, <vas entitled to be served with liquor on Sundays, a very favourite Sunday morning walk was to one of the marine suburbs and a hotel there, now closed, transacted a magnificent trade for years. All Sunday the bar was full, and the house had a. record trade. Then someone had the curiosity to look up survey maps and discovered that instead of the hotel being three miles from the city. as was comriionlv supposed, the three-mile line was away up in the heart-of the town. and there was consternation. But how many thirsty ones who had not really walked the legal distance and yet obtained refreshments, will never be known. There must have been thousands.

MOTOR LAUNCHES. The motor launch has evidently come to Auckland to stay, and there are probably .150 now in use on the Waitemata Harbour. The sport of water motoring is as popular as motoring on land,'but there is a curious anomaly in the Customs tariff in this connection. Motor engines and launch hulls are liable to duty when imported separately, bat complete 'motor launches are duty free, i, most curious arrangement, for if imported separately the fitting up of the engines in the launches would provide local work, but as it is the tariff provision seems framed against local industry.

/HE SERVANT PROBLEM AGAIN. So profuse has been the correspondence on the servant girl problem during recent year.-and occasional reference bus been made to the subject in this column —that by now one would almost expect to see the discussion expire through complete exhaustion of arguments. A great quantity of literature, however, continues to be poured out, and from the heap one is permitted to pick out a gem: A Christchurch resident, who writes to a contemporary under the non de plume of "Medical Man," has followed out a method in regard to the treatment of the servant which has relieved him entirely of any worry or anxiety over a problem which is making many another man or mistress irritable and angry. He lets the public into his confidence by giving the appended details: "Our servant flits at our table with us. and hears us discuss many subjects of genera! interest, occasionally taking good part in the discussion. She unconsciously becomes broadened in her sympathies and enlightened in many things which .help her to understand our attitude towards herself. She enters with •v.i into evening amusements. We encourage her to save her wages, and often at her request I deposit the wages due to her in the savings bank. She is given liberty to invite her friends to call singly on her. When we get to know any of them (and 1 may say I take as much interest in her acquaintances as I Mould in my sou's and daughters), and are assured that tiefriendship is a safe one for the girl, he or she is occasionally invited into our family circle for a final or an evening's enjoyment," "Medical Man" seems to be quite satisfied with the result of this method of overcoming the servant problem, but there would appear to be some formidable difficulties in the way of its general adoption. .Mrs. Sanuel Barnett, writing in a Home magazine recently, on " How Should the Servants be Treated," advocates in forceful language,

■ the education of the servant to a proper . realisation of citizenship, and the treatment of the class with due dignity. This writer ! armies that the working women should be ' interested in matters outside their domestic ' arid family circles, and bv the aid <if gath- ' "'rings of various kinds, showing them their duty in knowing and' caring for civic matters. She contends that at present the servant's life is based on two different theories.

It is partly feudal and family, partly economic and individual. She is happy if her employer by tact and kindness can I.lend these two conflicting systems, but inasmuch as the tendency of mistresses is more towards the feudal than towards the economic, and inasmuch as experience is increasingly, demonstrating that the servant resents this attitude of mind, and shows her resentment in regrettable methods, it might be as well if in practice the employer should consider whether she could not give greater at tent in her home government to those hitman thaiaeteristies which underlie the servant's preference for the economic position, as opposed to the feudal one. Briefly they will be found in the demand for the recognition of the dignity of service, and so Mrs. Harnett pleads strongly for respectful recognition of the servant, the abolition of the practice of calling her by her Christian name, the unseemliness of frequent jokes at her expense: but she recognises that this as other far-reaching changes should be done gradually. The education of the servants as a class in the manner indicated is a high ideal, but from toe . present trend of things, is it pra/licable? 1 ARK JOURNALISTS QI'ALIMKD TO I LEGISLATE? .-" "' It anyone doubts the wisdom of the Premier of this colony in appointing a journalist to the Legislative Council, as he lias just done, on the grounds that a member of the Council should have had legislative experience, that doubter is lacking in knowledge of the extent and variety of matters which a journalist is called upon to elucidate or to adjust. It seems, too. that a. journalist must be especially careful in advice tendered, else, like the editor of M.A.P. (as recorded by cable in the Heuai,i> of Monday), he runs the. risk of being mulcted in heavy damages for negligently misleading the seeker after information. A London journalist tells his readers in a recent issue that within a week or two he had been asked to recommend a matrimonial agency and a cure for kidney disease, to name the winner of next year's Derby, to settle a dispute at bridge, and to say whether two partners who have not a trump between them can both count chicane. He also had to answer about 50 inquiries respecting advertisements in the daily papers; to explain what relation the Herman Emperor is to the King of Norway: to inform somebody what salary the Duke of Manchester (sic) receives as Master of the Horse, and on what dates he gets his cheilites; to advise a lady who having ordered a bootmaker to make up a pair of slippers which she had worked for her husband, found that they were too tight when sent, home, and did not know what, to do: and to calculate whether when a pack of cards is dealt into four hands it is odds mi or odds against one hand containing only one card or no card of a single suit. These questions arc nothing to those sometimes propounded, hut are given as examples of variety rather than the profundity of the knowledge expected of editors. Who will dare say, after perusing this list, that a journalist has not the equipment, nor has bad the requisite experience, to legislate - '

A "BUNCH" OF SLANG

One has only bo stand with tin* fringe of j crowds on the racecourse, at a cricket match, in the public streets, or mix with a ; holiday party or listen to conversation in a train, tramcar, 'bus, or ferry steamer, to find what inroads slang is making on pure Anglo-Saxon words. The ear attuned to felicitous language must receive many painful jars, and the owner of that car has most probably reclined in an easy chair, with arms folded and brow knitted, wondering what fate the colonial will consign the King's English to in the Slang expressionsmany unique and forceful—like. the smoke from manufacturers' chimneys, float over this city, metaphorically speaking, in big clouds, unchecked and uncontrolled. We who do not grasp the significance of many of the latest novelties in expressive language—real "snorters," or "corkers," a.nd "clinchers," as 1 have learnt they may be termed according to the imprinted book of the modern classics-will .soon be hopelessly, iguominiou.-'ly beaten in the race unless we have the assistance of * s-lang dictionary. In the meantime the visitors' book at the Exhibition may serve as a public educator, slang having tripped freely from the fingers of women and girl' who" have thought tit to record the;; opinions in it. Half-a-dozen of these feminine critics reach the acme of their powers of appreciation by saying that the lair is the "juicy oyster," and others, pros ed for time, have merely written "J. 0.," the initials of their sisters' classical phrase. " A snorter, boshker." shrieked another fair critic. That ugly word " bosea." which is not yet accepted by professors of English, and "has yet no definite form, appears in several guises—bosko, boshker, boshta. bosca. Gentle- hands have also written " scrumscious," "not half bad," "not so rusty," "just the fixing," " scrummy," "just the feller," "just the ticket," "not 'art." " let her go." This is a very fair advance instalment to be mastered before a complete compilation is made by some enterprising author.

LATIN GRAMMAR AND USAGE. Sir Robert Stout, Chancellor, pointed out at the annual meeting of the Senate of the New Zealand University last week, that there exists a curious discrepancy in the order of the initial letters in the titles of our degrees. He said it is » question partly of Latin grammar, and. parrtlv of usage. On the one side we have 8.A./M.A., B.Sc, JD.Sc, 8.E., B.Com. On the other side are LL.B., LL.D., M.8., Ch.B., M.D., Mus.B., Mus.D. The title for Doctor of Literature is wavering between LittD. and D.Litt. Other universities show similar fluctuations. .Some seek consistency bv writing A.B. and A.M. for Bachelor of Arts and Master of _ Arts respectively, and so in other cases. The point (added Sir Robert Stout) is only thrown out for consideration. Whether it is worth while now to disturb cay; familiar titles for the sake of uniformity, it is for the Senate to decide. Perhaps, as there are precedents on both sides, it would be better to fix on Litt.D for Doctor of Literature. The General.