Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

PASSING NOTES.

I knew something of Lieutenant Freeman, whose iiiiinc and fate lend a tragic interest to this week's Siunoan news. He will be. remembered by many in New Zealand who never, exchanged a w.ord with him, nobody who once saw him being likely to forget his magnificent physical proportions, his bright and cheery face. My last recollection in connection with him is that of■■ someone asking me, "Who is thai; distinguished looking naviil officer?" Lying in his iSiunonn grave he is iiiot the more lo be pitied because he was distinguished looking. Yet, somehow, the fuct that he made so,gallant a. figure of a man increases one's regret, and nt the same time quickens one's disgust at the stupid tragiccomedy in which he, along with other brave men, has lost his life. The question in debute iv Samoa is, which of two unbrecehed barbarians shall bo set up as a puppet-king. Warships of the Great I'owors argue this momentous question with shut mid shell; Englishmen and Americans g3t themselves miserably killed in a tropical swamp. We do not grudge our soldiers to death in a great cause; but this is not a great cause. It is true no doubt, and I don't forget it, that the Great Towers are obscurely at war with each other iv Samoa; that their jealousies and competing ambitions are at the back of the whole absurd embroglio. ISut not even with this fact added do I find the cause iv which Freeman and his comrades perished a great cause. The three lowers, one and all, ■now profess themselves " annoyed at the fighting." Well they may be; and ashamed of it too. As for the Samoans, it were better if we left them to compose their dynastic squabbles in their own way. Samoa, no doubt, is one of those countries in which civilisation has to go forward in a powder cart. But at present civilisation is not going forward. It is only the powder c;irt.

Being a pillar of Conservatism, as everybody knows, I should be the very last to encourage heresies, so no one will imagine for a moment that I sympathise with the Reverend Hectoi Ferguson, of Northcoto, whoEu work entitled "Spiritual Law Through the Natural World" has set the Melbourne faithful by the ears. (Uy-tlie-by, isn't colourable imitation of a title an indictable offence? If not; why not? Is your patent medicine man more worthy than your literary artist?). Heresies must be wrong because-—because they are heresies. Majorities always know best, the old and tried is always better than the new and unproved—everybody knows these things, and no one but' a-madman would attempt to differ from his fathers. The Reverend Hector doubtless deserved all he got from his Achilles, whom wo sadly hear to be laid up since tho encounter with im affection of the throat, and what he might have easily foreseen. Still, though my sympathies are all upon the side of law mid order, 1" must be permitted a faint smile at tho expense of the committee of .inquiry. This judicious and judicial body got off some very good things in the course of their report. Dismissing their victim's scientific status with an airy wave of the hand, they proceed to this.'large statement: "The book showed not the slightest trace of any other philosophy thun the fantastic speculations of Swedenborg." With all due deference to ihe acknowledged learning of Presbyterian divines, this sounds remarkably like bluff. Besides its claim to knowledge of the late lamented Swedcnborg's productions—which, isn't it Emerson says, "would be a £iii/ieici)i library to a lonely and athletic student! " —it would appear to claim a working acquaintance \willr all other systems. But they do better than that. They Hud Mr Ferguson's teaching on the great points of the Resurrection, the Trinity, the Atonement, and Justification by Faith, to be '" opposed alike to the doctrines of the Scriptures and to the stmUlards of the l'resbyterian Church." Never ,was claim to infallibility more prettily insinuated. Dear Civis,—ln reference to Councillor Chisholm'.s remnrks re clean shirts, what about customers of the following stamp?— ':" A PACT. < Ono of the old Scotch identities, who' arrived in tho early fifties, took up his abode nwuy. iin the interior of Otago, and there remained. Of late years he had been feeling ill, not being able to raise a sweat; beenme concerned .about himself, and consulted the neatest medical.man, who advised him to go to Dunedin and have a Turkish bath, which he did-with the following result:— ' . . . ■ After being in a room heated up.to IGO for about an hour, no perspiration;, took him into another room and steamed him; no good; laid him out on ii slab, fionped and rubbed; result, No. 1 lnyer removed; soaped and rubbed again, No. 2 layer removed; soaped and rubbed again, pieces of wool this time. The operator commenced to think Hint he had discovered the missing link, when, lo and behold, what do you Hjink tho wool was? Why, nothing more nor leas than a flannel shirt!

j A smile of satisfaction passed over the old man's face with the quiet remark, " I lost that flannel about 45 years ago, and nevcr.kent v/lnur it had ganc to afore." No Sheets. Personally, I do not altogether accept this I statement as literally true —not precisely, I circumstantial though-it is in its detail's,, and headed "a fact." I incline to regard' it as v kind of- parable or allegory, the bearings of which will lie in the application. ' Long experience of faith-healing, miracles, patent medicine testimonials, prohibitionist statistics, and Mr Seddmi's surpluses, has impaired my originally childlike capacity for believing the marvellous. Though not exactly a sceptic and a pessimist, I am verging that way. Prom this morning's paper I learn that a party of young men and young women ure just setting out from Dunedin to evangelise South America; the spectacle moves me to no enthusiasm^ A telegram from the National Council of Women, Auckland, announces the probability of our being able to get female .legislators at £40 a year — domestic servants' wages; the fact docs not, in my eyes, make the political future of this country any the brighter. You seel am a- bad case.. It would be.a pity if any guileless reader, of Passing Notes shptild, through believing everything he sees in this column, be reduced to my condition. I particularly warn him, therefore, that the story of (he Scotchman and his flannel shirt is not to be received as in all respects true—not necessarily.

The letter of "No Sheets" reminds me of a suggestion for the improvement of the Lodging-house by-law, a suggestion inadvertently omitted from my last week's note on this salutary measure. Perhaps it is not yet too late. Municipal' legislation, austere but kindly, condescends' to regulate in lodging-houses* the scrubbing and dusting, the washstands and dust bins,- the soap and the towels, the relations of tho sexes, tha changing of the sheets, all of which is to be to the satisfaction of the inspector of nuisances—a most suitable officer 1 As to lodging-house sheets, Councillor Christopher bore a testimony which recalls the compliment once paid by a. municipal orator to tho Duke of Edinburgh in proposing his health:—"Your JGoyal Highness is populous afloat, populous ashore, populous everywhere.V But my suggestion has nothing to do with lodging-house sheets; what it Ikis to do with is lodging-house cookery, and, in particular, lodging-house hashes. Of what are those hashes composed? It is a solemn question. Trying to get light upon it from Mrs Civis I have found that oracle mysteriously evasive, reticent, all but unapproachable on the subject. Not that she ever kept a. lodging-house; but she does sometimes perpetrate a hash for our own private consumption, and, as I gather, is resolute not to disclose the secret of its composition. She would prefer to perish. Now I don't assume that the wisdom of the Town Hall is equal to penetrating a mystery so deep; nor would I encourage a debate upon it, lest councillors should again be betrayed into domestic revelations of a painful nature. What I suggest is that there should be added to the by-law a clause restricting the production of lodging-house hashes to not more than, say, three days a week, and providing that every such lodging-house basil shall be made, composed, and concocted to the satisfaction of the inspector of nuisances. This clause would go excellently well with the rest, and I hope some councillor will move in the matter.

More "White .Mini's Burden." An cv ; (.■client .doss to. I his particular song is to. be found in a recent issue of the Lancet. ■ It is an account, in tragi-comic style, of j how an English s-iureou fought to cradi- j cati> Ihe plague :U M-ilegaon. (Whoever 1 finds the place without a gazetteer may send '

an application for a certificate of 'merit.) There was no hospital, so a rest-house in a Mussulman cemetery was converted into one. " Vcvt handy," writes our surgeon with sardonic touch, "for the cases usually die in five days." 'i'liruugh every conceivable obstacle born of ignorance and superstition, hostility and deception, the plucky surgeon pursued the uneven, tenor of his way, and finally reaped his reward in seeing Malegaon fra>. of plague. To 1)0 sure hia house was looted by the natives, and he himself was smitten by tho plague, but these- are details. America, having. accepted the rulo of good Samaritan in her turn, already emulates her Transatlantic prototype. In Santiago and Havana infectious diseases' are even now almost stamped out, and the deuth-rate has been reduced enormously. Complete sanitation cannot be achieved till next half year, for tho streets dare not be torn up during the rainy season, even for such a laudable end as sower building. But cnuugli has been done to show how finely the people of the Status are shouldering their self-imposed responsibility to these new portions of their empire. When the" fierce Filipinos have learned to trust their conquerors, and taken the proffered hand " without seizing precisely thai, opportunity, to stick a creese into them." the same selfless labour will be undergone in that far quarter of the globe. Apparently nations do, like individuals, rise to the' measure of their opportunities. ■ Civis.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT18990415.2.3

Bibliographic details

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11398, 15 April 1899, Page 2

Word Count
1,712

PASSING NOTES. Otago Daily Times, Issue 11398, 15 April 1899, Page 2

PASSING NOTES. Otago Daily Times, Issue 11398, 15 April 1899, Page 2

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert