Clippings.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 219, 20 November 1875, Page 6

Clippings.

SUBSTITUTION OF WRONG WORDS

It may be, however, that not only are the right words forgotten, but wrong ones are substituted. The mother-in-law of a medical man (we are told by Dr. Trousseau) labored under a very singular intellectual disorder. Whenever a visitor entered her apartments, she rose with an amiable look, and, pointing to a chair, exclaimed, “Pig! brute! stupid fool!” Mrs. B. asks you to take a chair,” her son-in-law would then put in, giving this interpretation to her strange expressions. In other respects Mrs. B.’s acts were rational, and her case different from ordinary aphasia in that she did not seem to grow impatient at what she said, or to understand the insulting expressions of which she made use. Crichton mentions the case of an attorney who, when he asked for anything, constantly used some inappropriate term. Instead of asking for a piece of bread, he asked for his boots, and if these were brought, he knew they did not correspond with the idea of the thing he wanted ; therefore, he became angry, yet he would still demand some of his boots or shoes, meaning bread. One gentleman (a patient of Sir Thomas Watson) would say “pamphlet” for “camphor.” Another would say “poker” when he meant the “ fire.” Dr. Moore, of Dublin, has recorded the case of a gentleman who completely lost the connection between ideas and words. On one occasion the Doctor was much puzzled by his patient saying to him, “ Clean my boots ! ” Finding that he was not understood, he became much excited, and cried out vehemently : “ Clean my boots by walking on them !” At length it was ascertained that the cause of disquietude was the shining of the candle in his face ; and that the object of his unintelligible sentences was to have the curtain drawn. When this was done he appeared gratified. In this case, it will be noticed, the patient formed complete sentences, the power of co-ordination and articulation was perfect, and the intelligence was apparently unimpaired. But sometimes, when articulation may be retained, what is uttered is perfect jargon. A gentleman in Dublin, after an attack of apoplexy, was thus affected, and in the hotel where he stayed was mistaken for a foreigner. Dr. Osborn, with a view to ascertain the nature of his imperfection of language, asked him to read aloud the following sentence from the by-laws of the College of Physicians : “It shall be in the power of the college to examine or not to examine any licentiate previous to his admission to a fellowship, as they shall think fit.” He read as follows : “An the be what in the temother of the trothtodoo to majorum or that emidrate ein einkrastroi mestraits to ketra totombreida to ra from treido as that kekritest.” Several of these syllables are difficult and unusual.

There are well-authenticated cases of persons who suddenly found that they could not remember their own names. An ambassador at St. Petersburg was once in this case, when calling at a house where he was not known by the servants, and he had to apply to his companion for the necessary information. The names of common things are sometimes strangely forgotten. The wife of an eminent jurist who consulted Dr. Trousseau, of Paris, told him that her husband would say to her, “ Give me my—my —dear me ! my—you know,” and he would point to his head. “Your hat ?” “Yes, my hat.” Sometimes, again, he would ring the bell before going out, and say to the servant, “ Give me my um—umbrel—■ umbrel, oh, dear,” “Your umbrella ?” “Oh! yes, my umbrella.” And yet at that very

time his conversation was as sensible as ever. He wrote or read off, or discussed, most difficult points of law. A patient will often use a form of circumlocution to express his meaning ; thus one man who could not remember scissors •would say, “It is what we cut with.”

THE LORD’S DAY ACT OF 1871. (From the Pall Mall Gazette.) Attention has been drawn to the Act by which the Brighton Aquarium has been recently closed on Sunday. The debates which took place in the Commons and the Lords when the Bill was carried through both Houses are interesting and amusing.

In May, 1781, the Solicitor-General Mansfield, moved for leave to bring in a Bill for preventing certain abuses and profanations on the Lord’s Day called Sunday. Dr. Porteous, the Bishop of Chester, had been the first to move in this matter. He had been shocked with a Sunday promenade that had lately been opened in Soho-square, and with certain Sunday debating societies. Ho would have himself brought a Bill into Parliament if he “had not been prevented by the rules and practices of the Lower House, which would not consent that any Bill for levying money on the subject should originate in the House of Lords, and a Bill of this nature would be deemed a money Bill, because it was to operate by way of fine.” The SolicitorGeneral, in attacking the promenade said, that “for the evening purpose of walking and drinking tea and coffee, persons abandoned to all sense of shame, of decency, and religion, made it a point to resort.” in the debating societies, he said, “ religion was trampled under foot by ignorant people who wished to acquire a reputation for eloquence in an assembly composed of the low, the vulgar, and the illiterate.” He read two advertisements—the one for a Theological Society iu High Holborne, where the existence of the Trinity was the theme proposed for discussion ; the other for a Theological Academy at the Museum, Springgardens, for bringing forward a “dissertation about the existence or non-exist-ence of purgatory.” Mr. Turner opposed the Bill with great warmth, “ as being little better than introducing an inquisition in religion. King William had disgraced himself by intolerancy or tyranny in religion. This was a blot in his escutcheon ; and he would declare it, though he wore his buttons.” A few days later Mr. Turner presented a petition from the proprietors, Thomas de la Mayne, Esq., and Thomas Creaser, gentleman. They had spent £4OOO on the rooms “ as a place of society and exercise, which were visited and continued to be visited and frequented by the first nobility of both sexes—the clergy, justices of the peace, and other respectable characters. They admitted no singing or music whatever, dancing, or any kind of play or gaming, nor any drinking of wines, beer, or spirituous liquors, nor any kind of exhibitions, transparent or moving pictures. The institution had become a recreation usefid to society where innocence, taste, and politeness can engage visitors.” They ended by asking that if the promenade was to be closed some adequate compensation might be made them. On the second reading of the Bill, Mr. Turner, in renewing his opposition, said “ he wished to read them a chapter from the Bible. It contained doctrines which he loved better than the sermon he had heard preached in his Majesty’s chapel the Sunday before. He here read the fifteenth chapter of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, with comments and explanatory notes, and recommended every verse of it to the House. He pressed the House to reject the bill, saying it would be the forerunner of other bills, which would once more cause a deluge of human blood.” Mr. Powys “disapproved of all such meetings on Sunday evening. If the poor people wanted amusement they might, for a shilling go to the devil at Sadler’s Wells ; and if persons had half-a-guinea to spend, they might go to the Opera House, and sec a man stand upon one leg who could stand much better upon two ; but he humbly conceived that the half-guinea would be as well disposed of if given to some man who had only one leg to stand upen.” Mr. Iloilo “ wished the Bill had gone further. The gaming-houses that were open every Sunday in the neighborhood of the palace ought not to be suffered, and yet he understood they were frequented by some of the first men, in point of rank and ability, in the two Houses of Parliament.” When the House divided, the ayes were 64 and the noes none ; there being no one against the Bill but the two tellers, Mr. Turner and Mr. Alderman Sawbridge. They were, on going into committee, joined in their opposition by Mr. Martin, who said that the Act should run in this manner :—“ And it is hereby enacted that all his Majesty’s subjects shall bo permitted to exercise their reason and use the utmost freedom of inquiry into religious opinions for six days of the week ; but on the seventh, which is called Sunday, their understandings shall be in a state of rest. And it is further enacted that six months’ imprisonment and a fine of £2O shall be levied on every man who shall profane the Sunday by exercising those rational faculties with which God has endowed him.” Sir Joseph Mawley took the same line as Mr. Rolle, and wished to close the gaming houses. “The morals of young men of fashion were well worthy the consideration of the House.” Mr. Hill also wished the Bill went further. He talked of a newspaper being put into people’s hands just as they were going into church, and took notice of the old custom of debating in that House upon religious subjects which prevailed in the first Parliament of Charles I. He hoped he should be pardoned for having the very first time he presumed to rise, spoken on so serious a consideration, and the rather as, though religion had lately been adverted to one day out of seven, generally speaking, it was not mentioned there once in seven years.” Mr. Turner again attacked the bill. “He hardly approved of anything suggested by the long robe ; half the countries that had been ruined

were ruined by the men of the long robe. He made a distinction between ministers who were -worthy good men, and ministers who were proud priests, wealthy, wallowing in preferments, pluralists, deans and bishops. The curare of his own parish had but £4O a-year, and he was glad to see him at all times. His table was open to him every day in the week if he chose to come to it. The bill had originated in the crude ideas of the musty fellows of a college, who, loving a pipe, a bottle of port, or a bowl of punch better than either pulpit exercise or a walk in the air, wanted to prevent others who could not make themselves so comfortable within doors from going abroad for the purpose either of improving the health or of tunoceut recreatioe.” In spite of all opposition the bill was rapidly carried through the Lower House, and penalties were fixed as follows :—The master of each house where the meeting prohibited by this bill should liereaster be proved to assemble to forfeit £2OO ; the moderator of every such meeting to forfeit £100; and each of the servants who should be proved to stand at the door to forfeit £2O. In the Upper House Lord Abingdon opposed the Bill in a speech which the Bishop of Chester not unfairly described as so indecent that ho thought it unworthy of a reply. It is reported at full length in the parliamentary history, and is interesting as showing the change which has occurred in the tone of the debates. The second reading was carried bo twenty-nine contents to three non-contents. On going into committee Lord Abingdon moved an amendment “ of the title-page, which being ‘ A Bill for preventing certain abuses and profanations on the Lord’s Day, called Sundays.’ 1 would wish after the words ‘ profanations ’ to insert the words, ‘ as on the days of the week,’ and then the title will run thus £ A Bill for preventing certain abuses and profanations as well on the Lord’s Day, called Sunday, as on the other days of the week.’” This amendment being rejected, he then proposed “ a clause of proviso : ‘ Provided also that this Act does not extend nor be construed to extend to Quakers’ meetings on a Sunday evening, inasmuch as these meetings, being silent meetings, they cannot in any sense be said to fall under the meaning and intention of this Act.’ ” This clause was also negatived, and the Bill passed. It is curious that part of the Bill which struck at free discussion of religious matters met with no opposition from the great Whig leaders. Sheridan, indeed, who had entered Parliament the year before, did speak : but merely to attack the public lotteries. “If,” he said, “the vice of gaming was to be suppressed, he hoped that most pernicious species of it, the advertising in lotteries, would be the first object of attention; this, it is true, was patronised by the legislature, and yet nothing could be more detrimental to the morals of the people.” Burke, a few years earlier, in a letter to a friend, had said : “ My ideas of toleration go far beyond even their (the Dissenters’). I would give a full civil protection, in which I include an immunity from all disturbance of their public religious worship, and a power of teaching in schools as well as temples to Jews, Mahommedans, and even pagans.” Yet neither he nor Fox took any part in the debate. Still stranger was Wilkes’ silence. Only two sessions before he had stated in Parliament that “ Deism—sound, pure Deism, has made a rapid progress not only in this island, but in every port of the Continent. It has almost become the fashiouable religion of Europe.” Perhaps by the year 1871 Wilkes was, in his own words, no Wilkite. ON WHISTLING. {Overland Athcnceum and Daily News, Madras.) The human voice is said to be the most perfect of all instruments. If it is I lay no further claim to musical taste. I abhor music in its highest forms at any rate, and prefer the abused barrel organ and kettle-drum, or the Hebrew lyre. I would rather have revived the instrument which was loudly sounded over Egypt’s dark sea-ee-ees, the sackbut and other obsolete instruments, than have to listen to the occasional vocal efforts of desultory musicians. How long the efforts of a Philharmonic concert are iu dying out ! They are continually bursting up out of throats whence they are least expected. Oh give me really classical music at a concert ? I love it less while I am listening to it than for the satisfaction I feel that my friends will not be continually warbling it out of their seraphico-comie countenances, while, peradventure, they move their arms as if in a state of levitation. Popular songs may bo nice, so is champagne, so is flirting, but the consequences ! Of the first we can speak feelingly and strangely, of the second we have heard a great deal, of the third we may have read in the Madras Times. How I have wished my friends would go bounding through upland and woodland and vale, and pitied any one who accepted the invitation to live with me [not me] and be my love. A precious lot of pleasures they would have to prove. I could wish that some of Annie Laurie’s admirers would lay down and doe. After all, there is an end to these echoes. The dabblers themselves get tired of being among the barley, or repeating confessions of inability to sing the old song. But some of them never can surmount the habit of whistling. It amounts to a disease, which has not obtained sufficient attention from the medical faculty. Whistlers differ as stars differ from one another, but we never heard one who could whistle equal to three pie worth of bamboo, or a pennyworth of perforated tin. It is said that whose habitat has been elevated, often scratch their heads when the necessity for doing so no longer exists, and so we presume that men whistle inadvertently long after, they know that whistling, except during the period of tubbing, is not in accordance with one’s duty to one’s neighbor. We have heard of men who considered whistling a fine art, and would accompany their labio-pneumatic efforts on a piano. Generally speaking, we should have preferred their being accompanied out of the room. During the once popular mess chorus to “There

was an old farmer in .Sussex did dwell,” we have in our haste wished the whistlers where the farmer wished his wife. These bands playing iu an evening are responsible for any amount of whistling which we should be afraid to estimate. They put snatches of melody into the hollows of the heads of wellmeaning men, who not only persist in blowing them through their lips, but asking you what it was they blew. They blow and they blow until the phrase is distorted out of all pretension to melody or scale. Considering the vast annoyance caused to men and women by the prevalent vice of whistling, we may well ponder on the question, why do men whistle ? Women do not, although we could well tolerate anything from their lips, but determined refusals. What impulse leads a man to enclose a circular space with his lips, then by sheer pneumatic force make the noise called whistling ? If the lips looked more elegant in this form there would be a plea for whistling. But this is very rarely the case. Granted a moderate-sized mouth with the upper lip rather small, the personal appearance of the whistler may bo tolerated. But granted a big mouth and a pent-roof upper lip and the whistler presents to you a facsimile of the extremity of an elephant’s trunk. Strange to say, the latter class of whistlers are by far the more prevalent, and if whistling be a fine art, and not one of the ills that flesh is heir to, the big-mouthed are the most inefficient though the most persevering performers. We could read with greater comfort and interest between two large saws that were being sharpened than near an inveterate whistler. Unless the power of whistling were given for the same purpose as some suppose tongues are, for enabling the human species the more effectually to annoy each other, the proverb “ practice makes perfect” is the opposite of true. It is those who have the most practice who whistle the most excruciatingly. We once knew a man, given to boasting of the performances of his feet and hands, and it must be said, as it has been said of other great men, that he will leave many marks behind him, and perhaps carry some behind him also. His hands and feet, however, got somehow entangled in the law, and he accordingly wreaked his wrath on his fellow-creatures by whistling. We do not say that he ever meant to do more than experiment with his hands and feet, nor do we mean to insinuate that whistling was the result of more than constitutional vice. Lips were made to be used and so were lungs, and the simple combination is, we imagine, had recourse to when no more rational combination of the human functions occur to the whistler, just as men rattle their finger ends on a table, crack their joints, or exhibit other symptoms of at least temporary intellectual imbecility. Yet the whistler is not altogether irreclaimable. We never recollect hearing anyone whistle in church or at a funeral, and yet many whistlers are pious men. We often bear them humming the Old Hundredth, St. Ann’s, Rockingham, and others more lively. If the most experienced whistlers can thus restrain themselves, the spirit of restraint might be carried further. It is too true, however, that the dread solemnity of Cutcherry is insufficient to impose uniform restraint on whistlers. We have known some whistling at, in an attitude suggestive that they were talking to, ladies. It is impossible to lay down any salutary rule which whistlers could bo expected to follow. They would whistle at it. We would recommend their medical advisers to prescribe brainial diet as a last resource. APING SLAVES. (From the Liberal Review.) Mr. Darwin is, we think, one of the most unpopular of men in the country. The reason is that he has chosen to argue that men and women are more closely related to apes than they are pleased to imagine. Now an ape is not an agreeable animal, so it is natural that people should not like to be reminded of their points of resemblance to it. Still, it is just as well that they should occasionally be so reminded, for, to a great extent, it rests with themselves whether they continue to resemble their brutish prototype in many of the said points or not. For one thing—and it is perhaps the most important thing of all—they need not, as the ape is, be absurdly imitative ; there is no occasion why they should remain copyists of the most servile sort. As a matter of fact, it is pitiable in the extreme to see a lot of persons stifling their individuality and ignoring their best instincts in order that they may do as certain of their neighbors do ; especially when it is remembered that, in nine cases out of ten they do all this -without receiving any reward except the reward of being made extremely uncomfortable. There would, perhaps, be little ground for dissatisfaction if individuals imitated only that which is good, but as they exhibit a preference for imitating that which is foolish and positively bad, there is reason why they should bo condemned, and the spirit of imitation should be heartily protested against. It may be well to indicate what this spirit of imitation induces people to do. Well, it causes them to dress according to certain arbitrary rules, not of their own making, in defiance of the fact that they annihilate their comfort and make so many scarecrows of themselves. It is only necessary for a shopman to tell most of his customers that coats are all cut this way, and hats that way, that “ they” are making a lot of this, that, and the other, and the customers will at once abandon whatever ideas they may have upon certain matters, and let him do with them pretty much as ho pleases, provided, of course, that he does not cause them to look singular. There is no reason to doubt that if some great person took it into her head to wear a ring through her nose it would not be long before a large number of ladies would similarly ornament themselves. Seeing that they wear ear-rings, that they have passed through the age of crinoline, and that they don high-heeled boots which cause them to limp in a fashion the reverse of graceful, there is no ground for supposing that they would object to the discomfort which the adoption of the course indi-

cated would entail upon them. Then again, the imitative spirit leads people to paint their faces, to powder their hair, to use vulgar slang, to eat and drink that which does them harm when that which would do them good is ready to their hands, to indulge in amusements of a questionable character, and to do many other senseless things. It leads to all sorts of manias. Now there is a gymnastic mania, then there is a religious mania, a swimming mania, a dancing mania, a burlesque mania, a drinking mania, and so on. People seem afraid to do just what they please, and what they think right, for they have a horror of appearing singular. It requires a strong-minded man to say that he likes a play which has not been voted a success ; that he enjoys reading a book which has not secured the approval of those critics whose opinions ho respects. Most persons, if they do not fight shy of the play and the book altogether, see the play surreptitiously and read the book on the sly. Perhaps they are discovered doing these things : then, of course, they make haste to remedy the gross blunder of which they have been guilty, and quickly establish their claim to be considered people of correct taste, by speaking of the book and the play iu the contemptuous terms which they have heard employed by others. At the same time, so far as their judgment goes they are forced to confess to themselves that the play and the book when they made their acquaintance pileased them greatly. So one might go on cataloguing examples of how people sacrifice their judgment and play sad havoc with their feelings in the persistent attempts which they make not to stand alone. Most bad habits are the result of the imitative instinct. That of smoking is an example in point, for it cannot be pretended that it is indulged in in the first instance because it is a pleasure. Indeed, to most young smokers smoking is nauseous to the last degree, and they only continue to smoke in order that they may be like others. The habit of drinking, also, is the result of the imitative instinct. In proof of this it may be said that beer and most spirits are unpalatable to many of those who partake of them for the first time. Other and more reprehensible habits have also their origin in the cause indicated. There are a lot of helpless beings who are nothing if they are not imitators, and who are never happy except when they are imitating sundry models whom they have set up before them. Perhaps the said models ape singularity, but in aping singularity they are, unfortunately, as untrue to themselves as are those who sacrifice everything in order that they may swim with the stream. They act differently because they wish to appear different from their fellows, and not because they desire to let their natures have free play. Thus, they will wait to see what you are going to do before they will decide upon what they will do, and then diverge as much as possible from your path. But in all this they have some revered example before their eyes, and they arc no more original than are those who never set up any claims to be so. Indeed, they are among the worst class of imitators, for they have the assurance to set a portion of public opinion at defiance without the courage to strike out a path for themselves. They dare not run counter to their particular set, and they are afraid to bo singular except in ways that render them more or less objectionable to many of those with whom they are brought into contact. The unhappy mortals who imitate these fellows fall into excesses and vices of various kinds. . . .

People being imitative, originality and genius often do not get justice done to them, and this is one of the most terrible evils of the day. Nothing is appreciated until by some fortunate fluke it has become the rage, the bulk of people seem incapable of forming a judgment of their own. It is dangerous to be novel or to disseminate novel opinions of any kind, but so long as a particular folly is the rage you may descend to any depth of idiocy and still be considered amongst the salt of the earth. If you dress as pleases you best, without reference to the fashions, if you honestly say what you think, if you go where you like, how you like, and when you like, if, in a word, you fight shy of all shams, the chances are that you will bo called eccentric or mad, but if you torture your body so that you may appear like other people, if you, instead of saying what you think, say ditto to your neighbor, and if you only go where it is the “thing" to go, though by so doing you miss many gems, you will be called a man of sound common sense and be considered fit to act as a trustee or a town councillor. THE DIGGER INDIANS. The wigwams of the Digger Indians arc built throughout of red-wood bark, and are round in shape, which can be bettor explained by saying that they are in shape of a bowl turned upside down, with a smaller one, placed also upside down, on the top. There are no windows, and, aside from the aperture for entrance, which is about two feet square, and a small opening at the top to allow the smoke to escape, there is no opening to this conicalshaped enclosure. To cuter one of the huts, it becomes necessary to get down and crawl in. Once inside a strange sight greets the eye. The majority of both sexes go perfectly naked, and, being scrupulously particular, each one does his or her own cooking. They sleep in a circle in hollow places in the ground, with feet to the centre. Their cooking apparatus, which consists of good-sized rocks, hollowed out, is in convenient reach, and the Digger need not rise to prepare his breakfast. This food consists of bread made from acorns, which are first buried, then roasted, then pulverised, and lastly mixed up with water and baked. This bread is said to be very nourishing. Their mode of preparing squirrels, hares, &c., is to take them just as when killed, pound them to a jelly, and roast them. Another article of food very common with them is known as the “ fish-worm.” The Digger is an inveterate gambler, and his principal game is very simple, consisting of holding both hands behind him,

in one of which in a stick, while another bets he can tell in which hand he holds it. It is stated that they scorn cheating, and after lints are made never change the stick from one hand to the other. Their money consists of little round shells, with a hole in the centre, which one of their number is selected to manufacture. No counterfeiting is ever attempted. Each shell represents about half a cent American money, and is taken by their tribe as greedily as gold.