PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12445, 30 August 1902, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

The London papers, or some of tliem, ai'6 uplifted at discerning, as thy think, the beginnings of a disposition in the I'reach to take a saner view of the Doer w»r. Not as respects its morality,—that question is waived; though it will be long before the French cease to chargc the British with piratical aggression—but judged from the point of view of a military critic. In the Kevue des Deux Moudes of June 15 the place of honour is given to an article headed "Lessons from the War in South Africa." Contrary to the usa^e of the Revue it is an unsigned article, discretion being the belter part of valour: but the author is said to be General de Negrier, a distinguished soldier. lam sorry that lie should be a distinguished •soldier; for, in my view, he writes himself down a consummate ass. The misspelling of piopci' names and foreign technical terms is a French trait so uniform, so consistently exhibited in any and every French newspaper, that I lay little stress oil that. Imagine an English journalist writing of the French President—whose name is Loubet—and calling him sometimes Boobey and sometimes Looney. That would be a fair parallel to the mishandling that English names get from the average. French editor and also, sad to say, from General de Negrier in the Revue des Deux Mondea. With technical terms the case is as bad; some lie indents, others transmogrifies. Thus the British, in presence of the enemy, have a formation which they call awaitixu SHlii.T,; this is before they attempt a TUitNiNi; movmtwt. They' lire "shrapnels"; also they use "pom-poms," which pom-poms are from la maison Wickers et Maxim de Londres. Here we come upon French puzzle-hcadedness over the letters W and V, A V they make W; Yiekers becomes Wickers, and the Natal Com-mander-in-Chief is Sir Redwers Buller. Contrariwise and wice versa, if o, name begins with W they "spell it with a wee." Thus poor General "Waueliope as known to General de Negrier is General Vanchope; and at Maggorsfontein (two g's), in a combat which lasted six minutes and left. 650 men upon the ground, "le general Vanchope est tu e." After this, the maltreatment of British regimental names is a slight thin». The Dublin-fusilcers get off with the loss of a capital F; the .Borders—that is, the Wdcrers—lose a syllable; in compensation the Welsh are awarded am additional 1 and an unnecessary c—the Wellsch. Strange that they were not the Vellsch.

But to come to the marrow of the matter. This distinguished soldier and military critic, acceptcd as such by the principal French review, seta down the total number of combatant Boers as 12,000. And this in an article dated June 15, that is, after the peace, and after it was known that the mere remnants then surrendering totted up to 18,000! However, lot us proceed. The patriot Boers being 12,000, against them comes up an array of 240,000 soldats Anglais; but, "to be just," says the conscientious Frenchman, "it is necessary to add to the 240.000 a force at least equal of employes, serviteurs, Caffres, and Indicns." Nevertheless these disproportionate armaments balance each other (se fout equilibre). Effect of the new weapons, you say; doubtless;—but chiefly their moral effect. The British, though no cowards, experienced a malady suspiciously near to cowardice. "The* invisibility of the adversary, the sentiment of t he„unkno Wn , weighed down the spirits of all. This peculiar heaviness (ambiance particuliere et deprimante) they characterise by a special name; they call it War Cloud. It would come over them when advancing against the invisible enemy's rifles, and bring them to a halt—" nouvel arret, Wah Cloud, deja indique." Contriving to get under cover and lie close they might shake off Wah Cloud for a tune; " Derriero ces positions abritees s eeonle dans la inaction la phase du War Cloto." In short it was Wah Cloud as much as the Boer resistance tliat spun out the war. Is it believable that General de Negrier could write this insufferable rot.' Distinguished soldier he may be; judged by his Revue article he is a French donkey of the first quality. 'This judgment is confirmed when we read his description of a, British charge up the face of a kopje, "The order fix-batonkts is heard," he says, " and the cry God save the Quebs !" With that we may leave him.

Our British toleranca ut free speech, abusive speech, from politic;)] malcontents is a virtue, no doubt,—argues a lofty and contemptuous magnanimity. No 'other nation lias it in an equal degree; few have it at all; most foreigners fail to underi{? n '\ i(i ; Tllis virtue ' exploited chiefly by the Irish hitherto, we shall now have an opportunity of displaying towards the Boers, To suppose that all is going to be chanty and goodwill on the part of our late opponents were mere silliness. They were ready to embrace Lord Kitchener over the signing of the peace, and they cheered lor the King. These were but natural expressions of relief after tension. Wait a little longer! Kruger is dictatinw his memoirs; we needn't mind that, provided only he makes a dep breast of it. But, also, De Wot is writing a history of the war. It were too milch to expect that a history of the war by lie Wet would be in all ■ respects pleasant reading. Then there is Mr licit::, who vapours to the Continental press abotlt the £50,000,000 (hi 6 from us for ravaged Boer homesteads, . bis heroin determination never again (o land in Month Africa except in company with a rifle. It is not neccssatv thiifc Mr Reitii should st;iy on the Continent thai. ( he muy say tlie.se things. Thoro is nothing to prevent- his saying them in England, tor all the good they arc likely to do Mr Iteitz or the Boers they arc hardly worth saying anywhere; and certainly thoy are not worth tlio cost of cabling (hem 16 (lie end of the earth. Nevertheless, if it is a relief to Mr lteitz to "unpack his heart with words," let him go on unpacking. The British Umpire can stand it. I don't think a malcontent of this quality should bo permitted to land again in South Africa, rillc or 110 rifle; hut there can be no harm in his continuing to amuse the gobemouehes of the Continental press.

1 he Bible-in-schools ballot or reforendnln engineered by the Hew Mr Gibb and his friends may come out, probably will come out, with a large, and impressive vote on the side of Mr Gibb and his friends. I'lrcy will have engineered badly if it doesn't. But the number of sleeping dogs that the Rev. «ihl) has contrived to wake up and to set barking both at himself and at each other is a portent of evil omen for Bible-in-schools when it hits to run the gauntlet: of the hustings and of Parliament. Naturally tin/' Rev. Uibb barks with the rest—if I may be permitted the figure; indeed i don't know why I should apologise for it. What saith the poet? ■ ° "t'is sweiit to Ilea.' the limicst watchdog's bark. ■Sweet lo my ears it, is not in the present instance; but let thai pass, and let ine escape I'rom these confounded metaphors! What- I wanted to say was that all our local ('lirislcndom is i'u internecine strife over Bible-in-schools. The Rev. Gibb insists that everybody shall desire what lie desires; the Anglicans assert that tliev already desire all that and insist on desiring more; the Rev. Hinton insists that he neither can nor will desire what the Rev. Gibb desires; the secularists insist tliat nobody shall desire anything at all. Outsideof this detestable clinosVe the Roman Catholics whose cue it is to lie low and say mitfin. assured in their minds that it the Rev. Gibb gets what he desires, or if anybody gets any thing, they are bound to gel all they ever asked for. This is the present condition of what is known as the. Bible-in-schools question; if the approaching candidate for Parliament can see Ins way thfouj;!i it, lie is a cleverer mail than 1 have usually found him to be.

AVere von brought up on the Mother's Catechism? You were not? Neither was 1 : let us rejoice together! Neither was the Her. Gibb, and that is well. ■ As reported in Monday's Daily Times he was precise on this point.

In passing, lie nude reference to the Mother's Catechism. The book, lie s»id,.wa« unknown to Presbylcrianisiu as such. Some teachers m 'oht use it. D? or liilnoclf he hail once, lie believed, aceu the outside of a copy, but hail never road a. line of it,

1 sympathise with this disclaimer. To twke my own wise, it is possible, barely

possible, that once, just once, I may have seen the outside of Voltaire's " Candide :l ; but that I ever read a line of it I defy you to prove. Which is as good as saying that to lia\e read a line of Voltaire's " Candida would be no credit to me. That is how I understand the Rev. Gibb's disavowal of the Mother's Catechism. If report may be trusted, the Mother's Catechism is a book devised bv the enemy of souls for the making of inli'dels. It teaches little children to believe what they will be unable to believe when they grow" up. In particular it terrorises their imagination by threats of hell. This is a species of inhumanity that invariably '' rouses my conuntion," as the Scotch say, and" kindles within me sentiments that', as I find, Kip. ling has expressed very fairlv in " 31' Andrews' Hymn." Firm, clear and low-no haste, no liale-tkc ghostly whisper wont, Jusl statin' cevidontial tncts boyon' all argnmont: "Yonr mither's Cod's u graspin' deil the shadow o' yoursel', 1 "Clot out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven and Ilcll, " They mak' him in the Broomielaw, o' Glas<»ic cold an' diit, "A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only etrong to hurt." , Poor M'Andrews, it would seem, must have been brought up on the Mother's Catechism. It is a comfort to be assured, on the word of the Rev. Uibb, that this pernicious and soul-destroying book is " unknown to l'resbyterianism."

Into one comprehensive, save-all note I sweep a few trivialities of correspondence. "What is the connexion between 'ball,' a dance, and 'ball,' l a sphere or globe?" iin is !l of c l» e stion that I resent, Why should I be bothered about etymotogies? Are there no dictionaries? "Ball," a dance, is from a Greek word that means to fling your aims and legs about, which is what the Rev, Dr Torrey, whose campaign opens presently, particularly objects to, I'm sure I can't see why. "Ball," a sphere or globe, is another word altogether, with another genealogy, and it denotes something round and swelling, like a boil or a. bulge, or,the head of a conceited politician. The next inquiry is little better. Dear Civis, —I have had a discussion on little matter about which, if you can spare & moment, I should like your opinion. It is on the question of whether a person who travels by sea, and is unaffected bv the motion of the vessel, can bs called a'good " snilor or a good M sailor." The dictionaries -which I have consulted throw no light on this particular use of either word.

The ship is a sniler; the men tlmt navigate her are sailors. It does not follow that because you are never never sick at sen you are a good sailor; the chances are that you aro merely a doubtfully good landsman. There are good sailors who are always sick at sea; Nelson himself was one. All that you can build on so slender a foundation as your immunity from nausea is that you aTC a good sailer. Roma locuta est; causa finita est; One more.,

, Cvis, —It ig a singular and incomprehensible fact that when the Cassian question Cui bono?" is used in a newspaper, it. is invariably employed as if it meant" what- is tho good of it?" when in fact the actual meaning 2 S ains by (who has a motive for it?) The cui is :,ot in agreement with bono, but it is an interrogative pronoun dependent on bono—cui, to whom? bono, is it aa advantage? The blunder is fully discussed m John E. B. Mayor's edition of the 2nd Philippic, note to p. 35 line 11.

It is not age, experience, scholarship, that speaks_ in this authoritative rescript, but a novice just escaped from pastors and masters. "Cui bono?" is the "double dative of our youthful primers, the "predicative dative" of scientific grammar; literally the phrase is, "To -whom is it for a good? I -,tsed it in last week's notes j and, with all deference to this same learned 'Jheban who here puts in his word 1 used it correctly. Cms. '