PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10495, 19 October 1895, Page 2

PASSING NOTES.

WHAT-tha ania-liquorpszfcy^owthinik of IIV Saddon may not ha put Into wordi Personally I am willing to believe that Mr Seddon did not "Tig the market" in the Council against his own bill; but.then I don't belong to the anti-liquor party* I have the miuforrana to belong to no party at all; heaca am capable of believing that the Council, in nroiSaring the Liquor Bill be.yond. recognition, were within their rights, as a branch of> the Legislature equal and coordinate with tie other branch;'also that Mr Seddon is honestly aghast at the result. That is not the view of Messrs Hatohiscn,phe etfils, nor of Mr Earnshaw.- nor of Sir' Sobers Stout. But these are all party men, or anti-liquor men, or both. The heroic? dE Mr Bamshaw strike me as rather stagey. Mr Sarnshaw " challenged the Premier to meet* Wra face to face on this' temperance' question on a DunetMn platform." He was' ready "to stamp the country frorS the North Gape to the Blufl along with a hundred others and to fight this question.oui to a finish." This squaring up and doubling', of fists is a cheap form of advertising and means nothing. UwPromier will not come down to Dunedin to meet Mr Earnshaw face to face'on a temperance platform; Mr Earn-; ahaw will not be called upon to stump the' country from the North Cape to the Bluff.' What amuses fn this braggadocio is that it is directed against, the unfortunate Premier for (the reason tout the Conncil murdered his bill. ."But the Premier plotted and"oontrived that murder." " Do you think so ? It is to pay a high compliment to the Premier's' profundity1 and astuteness. In fact, Machiavelli were-a baby to him.

Tfie political lady is going to; educate herself. Anyhow that is what she says'. I? also the political gentleman won,ld educate himself, we might be happy yet< But the political gentleman, as soon as he sees the' programme, will discover that- .he has" elsewhere. Here is the programme—l take it from the report of a meeting of political ladies -denominating' themselves the Southern Cross Society :—

• Political economy, as the management or administration of the revenues of a nation, or* 'the ■science which investigates the principles, objects, and results of sound national finanee^.especially', the regulation of the expenditure' and the adjustmsht of taxation with due regard to the amonnt of realised property; amount of .flostteg capital employed in manufactures, ■trade, agriculture, &c. ; the amount-of skilled ■or nnskilled labour and its productive worth ; the current rate of wages,; and the marketable; 'value of the ordinary and necessary articles of consumption. . , >~;:. ;. '

"Our education on all these subjects will" take some little time," remarked — with unintended pathos—the political lady by whom ttjis syllabus of: studies' was propounded. Yes, It will take some little time.' Meanwhile the political gentleman, in the -House ana out of it, never having attended to his own political education in the smallest degree, will continue to mess and muddle ashe has always done. What does he know about the principles, objects, and results oi jsonnd national finance, the regulation of the expenditure and the adjustment of taxation ■with due' regard to the amonnt of realised property, the~er-—&c., &c., as above;—what does" ha know about it 7 Echo answers, What? I do conjure and entreat .the 'members of the Southern Cross Society to hurry up with their political self-education 'and 6aVe the country. Let not any question of babies or servants or dresses or afternoon teas stand in the way. What are these things in comparison with the principles, objects, and results of sound national finance ! the adjustment of taxation "with due I regard to the amount of realised property J , Mere trivialities. '

It seems a pity that General Booth cannot - live for ever. Ha would Bay, with his costomary smartness and ha Is about as smart as they make them—that to live for erer is precisely what he means to do. All the same, the world will read his obitnary notScesome day nothing surer; and who is to oome after ?• Is there any provision for electing a new pope % The General will say that he is not'a pope, but a.general Even so, —let him be a ' gezteralissimo, an Alexander the Great; the case, alters not for the better, but for the 'worse; the precedent is of evil omen.' Alexander the Great died like lesser mortals, .and when he died his empire went to .pieces. His chief fighting men.carved out of it,kingdoms for themselves and took to fighting with each other. However, this is .really none of my business. I have no,rei Bponsibflifcy In the Booth succession. I apologise for introducing the uncomfortable topic, and leave the General to ennb my Impertinence at his discretion. If he has , not yet conquered the world, he has at any Tiate; conquered the newspapers. Withns he is no longer a turned-comma ''General." '.The dropping of those incredulous, satirical, ■ a nd contemptuous quotation marks is'better ■oiddenca of his triumph over prejudice than "ttte hollow benedictions of Mr Seddon, or thi'ai mobs at the railway stations with torches and banners.

Apropos of the one and, only General's presq nee amongst us, I may here set down a feat \of -war reported of his forces in Paris. .1 shsiU be told that the story is not true; -that i aay be; my defence is that I take it from Jin Engliih paper. At the Cafe dcs Ambast'aaeurs, a Paris music hall with a ' fepntati'on for risky songs, the audience oil a recent occasion induced "a number of •corions-ilooking men, awkward and badly dressed, each of them accompanied by a 'aheep-feC'ed girl with flat hair." They were tajten for tourists—a batch of Cook's cheaptrippers Who, by mistake, had been "personally conducted " to the wrong entertainment. A stony indifference was theif -riemesaoax for a time; presently appeared the principil singer and began the principal song.

~ Suddeidy&man, one of the supposed tourists, got up, and, stretching forth his arms, interrupted her by a terrifying volley of maledictions. The singer shrugged her shoulders and went On, the man being dragged "away by an official.; but soother one rose in the cornet opposite, and with a voice of thunder accursed her .again, while the women, at a sign of their male companions, softly started a slow hjmn, yfiich thtfjr sang all the whiU, despite theiussing of the zest of the audience.

3?or a tbno the singer straggled on; then, "in a fit of rage she shut her fißt, pnt out he* tongue, ecneamed at the. top of her voice a ebaplet'of coarse words, and ran off the .fetage, to coflspse in the arms of- an at-

Ittthe-honse the tumult was ttemendons fot a, Urn minutes, the disturbers having at IbbS decfalred themselves to be a detachment of the ■warlifee Salvation Army, sent by the headquarters to anathematise the queen of tha ca&e'pncertß, those antechambers of hell.

JThawv is a little too much colouring matter here\; anathemas and raaiedictioos are cot jKcacily in the Balvationist style. What • leafly, happened, I should fancy, was that the Army detachment began a prayer meeting. And this is how they carry on the tfar in Paris! Others countries, other manners. ' 1 Have men and heard in Dtmedin a chorus .of street Bvangelistg, men and women, sing- ' ing hymns at the pit entrance of the theatre, but apparently they were not Salvationists, and certainty they did not venture inside. ' There are, I fancy, dramatic managers who would soap at the idea of an invasion by the Army. If advertised, there would be money in it.

.The Hebrew word fef "inn," says Mr R. N. Adams, is malon, and it means simply " a lodging place for the night." The Greek word for "inn" is Ttatalmna, and,it means precisely the same thing. There is nothing in either word to show that grog was sold; therefore" grog was not sold; and the Biblical " inn ".- was clearly a prohibitionist accommodation house—merely that and nothing more. -* Excellent logic, and capable of wider application. Thus . <(1iotel" is hostel, hospital, a place for receiving guests; "inn" is a place you can get into for ehelter—that is aQ; " publichouse" is a house that is public and not private. There is nothing in these words to show that grog is sold; therefore grog is not sold; the modern hotel, inn, or publichouse is a prohibitionist institution— strictly that and nothing more. O sapient Mr Adams,, with yoor Hebrew and Greek I—why do yon venture into the^e philological deep waters? *

Neatly discriminative is.Mr Adams on the subject of distillation. No alcoholic liquors were Bold in ancient Biblical inns; and why? Because alcoholic liquors were not aa yet invented: ■■■-■'"- ' :

age. t will further assert that, in the sense in which we now use the word "Hqnor," there wai no liquor in those days, for tho "art of distillation" was unknown.

There was no " liquor " because there was'co " distillation " I Then wine and beer, being only fermented and not distilled, ore not "liquor"; on wine and beer it is impossible to get 6*runk. If Mr Adams in his assertivenejss will " further a^ert " as muoh as this, which is the most necessary of consequences, the prohibition controversy will be agreeably simplified, and the brewing interest consoled. But he won't, you'll see. His neat distinction—more neat than ingenuous—between the products o£ distillation' and the products of fermentation draws after it no sort of consequence, except that Mr Adams, when he made it, was in a tight place.

There was no distillation in Bible times ' sa >"s w Mr Adams. Well, I haven't the smallest interest in contradicting" him, and I am sure I don't know anything .about it; go let us suppose (ibat there wasn't All the same, there was that whereby and whereon men might get drunk, was there not! Otherwise how did the patriarch Noah get drunk ? lam afraid it must be allowed that the patriarch Noah got drunk on "liquor," and on " alcoholic liquor," albeit •' the art of distillation was unknown." It is hard to believe that Mr Adams never heard of this historic case; and yet on another Biblical point he gives himself away very suggestively. "Wffl •A. M. B. kindly tell me where he finds that the • Jews were enjoined, when absent from home, to buy wine and strong drink'? I would like to see the injunction." Whereupon "A. M. B." blandly refers him to Dent, xiv, 22 to 26 : " And if the way be too long for thee . . . thou shalt turn it into money "... . and bestow that money ... for oxen or for sheep or for wine or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth." What Mr Adams thinks of this unfortunate text he has not yet informed us, nor how it came about that a pundit in Bible Hebrew and Greek should seem to have, been unaware of its existence.

T *^ de?the heading, " Books I Have Stuck I°,"—to borrow a phrase of Andrew Lang's —I,am reluctantly compelled to set down Dn Manner's " Trilby "—reluctantly, becauao' most other people. Including so competent a novel-reaaer as Mrs Civis,. profess to find "Trilby" enchanting. Taste is a personal quality ,• an idiosynpracy; everybody is entitled to his own. Still, one doesn't like to be singular, and I have been trying to explain to myself why I stuck in the middle of " Trilby " and only won through by dint of unscrupulous " skipping." I think it must have been the flippancy, the smartness, and the, Agnosticism—particularly the Agnosticism. I survived the slangy French, though I couldn't always translate it; the Bohemian life of the Latin Quarter I thought Interesting, because evidently Da Maurierhad been there; the plot,—but plot there is none-— the account, then, ot Trilby's hypnotic subjection to ther Polish .Jew musician was not more nonsensical than a theosophy lecture by Mrs Besant; it was.the perkiness and the preaching that did for ma. Why go many other people should bo fascinated by tho book I find hard to explain, except in the case of the Americans. In "Trilby" you are much in Pans,—Paris the gay and the disreputable, the Pans of art students and grisettes, of the boulevards, the theatres, the restaurants It is this Paris that is the American Mecca, or worsfi, the American paradise. • Is there not a saying that good Americans go to Paris when they die ? Let no one think it surprising that "Trilby" has been the tsga in America, however surprising H may stem that here and there a sober-minded Britisher has stnekin the middle of it. Cms