PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13544, 17 March 1906, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Consoling the Council of Churches for the scant success of their prohibition campaign, Mr A. K. Adams the other night grew poetical. The sun was lighting the eastern hills, said he,—that, or words to that effect. It is the setting sun that lights the eastern hills, as Mr Adams may ascertain by personal inspection any evening when in Diinedin we have a sun at all. The Pawning gilds our western hills, otherwise the Town lieit; but Signal Hill and the Peninsula, which are to the eastward, glow at, the close of day. These astronomical and pbysiograpliical facts may be to Mr Adams as a, warning against

dropping into poetry on a subject essentially unpoetlefll; Personally I would gladly believe, if I could, that for prohibition (he sun is lighting the eastern hills— though the metaphor nauseates me. If we must have metaphor, I should say that prohibition is one of the diseases of childhood—measles, mumps, or chicken-pock — that we have the premonitory symptoms, and that the sooner it is over the better. I take little comfort from the snub administered to Mr Adams and his friends in the Dunedin licensing election. That was a detail, a triviality. More to the purpose is it that prohibition will be permitted to work its will at Oamarti and Invercargill,

bigger communities than any hitherto sub' jecte-d. I await the result in hope.

Lord Randolph Churchill once remarked of Mr Gladstone—very unfairly, I thinkthat he was " the greatest living master of the art of personal political advertisement ;—Hollowa.y, Colman, awl Homibrook were nothing 'compared with him." Holloway advertised pills, Colman mustard; Hornibrook's specialty, if I don't mistake, was tea; but all these taken together, with Mr Gladstone thrown in, Pink Pills and Bile Beans as, well, come wofnlly short of our Mr Seddon. The Glasgow Herald, in a copy received by this mail, acknowledges a Christmas card from the Right Hon. Richard John Seddon, Prime Minister of New Zealand. There can bo no reason why the Glasgow Herald should bo. singled out for distinction; the Right Hon. Richard John, we must infer, lias been showering Christmas cards on the universal British press. And the style of them! I summarise the Glasgow Herald's description:

Contral cartoon;—Mr Seddon with his coat olf wheeling a barrow of earth: " Taming: the first sod, Port Chalmers dock."

Next page;—Mr Seddon with Giis cont on and his hat olf; "Laying the foundation stone, New Zealand International Exhibition."

These views of Mr Seddon, front and rear, in various stages of denudation, may have been accompanied by memoranda of elevation, girth, and cubical contents. But on these points tho Herald says nothing. Let us proceed 1 :

View of a New Zealand Slate Workman's Home-, with lawn in front and " a realistic representation of smoke issuing from I lie kitchen chimney."

View of five nurses with their arms full of infants;—"A Long-felt AVant Provided. Msternitv Homes: Great Success; Cradles ■\Voll Filled."

There is more, much more, but as it is all of the same sort we may imagine it. Tho whole headed and tailed by "Kin Oral" — respecting the meaning of which phrase the Herald professes "profound ignorance." Nevertheless, "not to be outdone in civility," says the editor, "we reply Kia Oral" This is decent of him. In the case of other British editors it will be found, I am afraid, that Mr Seddon has cast his pearls before swine.

A year ago the Westminster Gazette, apropos des bott«s—that is, .of nothing at all, remarked that there eiisted in Melbourne a venerable actor-manager who had been on the London boards before Sir Henry Irving was born, to wit the Hon. George Coppin.

Mr Coppin, who will soon be 87, was bom at Steyning, Sussex, the child of strolling players. At the age of four he made his first appearance in a child part and was a " juvenile prodigy" on the violin as well. In 1843 he emigrated to Australia, where ho has played many parts—«dor, M.P., gold-digger, bank director, steamboat owner, philanthropist, eta. He was once nearly killed by a nugget of gold thrown from the gallery to the stage by an admiring digger. $ And so on, through other.particulars not given in this week's obituary notice, which notice Australians everywhere, young and old, will read with kindly interest. They all knew George Ckippin, more or lees, and nobody knew any ill ol him. His very name predestined him to the stage, to the transpontine stage for choice, Dickens's "Vincent Crummies" smacking less of tho footlights than ."George Coppiu"; yet, when he became the Hon. George, and M.L.C., his elevation seemed no satire upon Victorian politics. The Victorians themselves did not so understand it. He was cast for a new part, but everybody was persuaded that he would hear himself well in it. And after-SO years his exit has been with honour. He' was the child of strolling players, says the Westminster Gazette. This genealogical fact will not greatly impress any one of us.

Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well yonr part,—-there all the honour lies. This respectable old tag is strictly ad rem; you cannot imagine for it a more fitting use than that of moralising the singularly picturesque career of George Coppin. '

Election canvassing in the Old Country appears to bo done with great thoroughness; naturally it is done very much on the old lines. No one great party bpss blusters from stump to stump, north, south, east, west, .posing as Jupiter Omnipotent;, his wallet chock-a-block with 'roads, bridges, and other material good things. In this development of bribery and corruption—the most recent, the most scientific, and the most effective—an old country will naturally lag behind New Zealand. Undue influence takes the timehonoured form, of blandishments by fascinating women, a form much to be preferred. It is old fashioned, but effective,— regiments have been raised by a kiss, as 'we know, the Gordon Highlanders for instance ;—the Gordons, was it, or the No matter. Speaking for myself, if shut 'Up to the alternative of being blandished by a pretty woman or stump-speeched by Mr Scddon, 1 should, with the British elector, choose my bribery and corruption in the more agreeable form, With her own sex also, though her own sex is voteless, the petticoated canvasser has a function. If children are to be patted and fondled, 6he can pat and fondle more intelligently than a man:—for,' as an experienced practitioner, at English elections observes, "it requires some cleverness to pretend that a particularly dirty child interests you more than any other child you ever met." Unfortunately " the interest must appear, to be genuine " ; "hence," he adds, "I should advise the ordinary man canvasser not to pretend too much interest in the children, for mothers are very quick' to distinguish "between the real and the affected." Just 60. .It takes a woman, in short, to fret end with success; hence it' is a woman's part to persuade the voter's wife, leaving the wife t» persuade the voter. '

In a British election the candidate himself is expected to go the rounds/ showing himself in every house, beaming fatuously on the domestic interior and its contents.

But with the babies let him not unadvisedly meddle or wake ;—he may come a nasty cropper. Here are one or two typical confessions; I remember patting a grubby little head the other day in the hope of ingratiating myself with the wife (the husband being out), remarking at the sumo timo what «■ sweet child Tommy was. "Go on, you fool!" was the answer; "it's a gir! and not a boy, and a troublesome little brat at that.; There wm nothing more to be said after this, and since then I have always been very careful in alluding to children of a tender ago. The word "alluding" in this connexion strikes one a 6 neat. Another candidate, Sir George Newnes, got far beyond alluding; he got to kissing, with a result equally disastrous. He was told that he must kiss some of the babies. It was said that the mothers would like it; and remembering that "the hand that rocks the- cradlo rules the world, he started on u. baby-kissing expedition. The first one he tried to kiss set up an awful yelling directly it left its mother's arms. It struggled, it wriggled, and it screamed. But he had to do his duty, and so ho determined to kiss that baby at cost. Finally ht> got in, a. kiss somewhere behind the ear, but the mother was very anj;ry, because, he liad made the child cry. She tgld him that it was the besttempered baby that ever lived, and his comi miltee afterwards told him if he kissed any 1 1 mors babies he would lose (lie election.

As I am on election quips and cranks this will l» Ihe place to bring in the Wind puppy story. In Ihe election for 1885, when the Liberals suffered the catastrophe which after 20 years overwhelms the Conservalives, there was a legendary blind puppy that played a leading part on both sides. For, 'as the Saturday Eeview rehearses, " both sides ran it hard. It, was like the cat which Max Adder and his enemy next door flung backwards and forwards over the wall to each other till the remnant had to be buried." The blind puppy story, like most great inventions and all really effective works of art, is simplicity itself, presupposing merely the English custom of election colours—bine for Tory, yellow for the other side.

A Radical is seen -one day with a blind puppy wearing Tory blue. Next day the puppy is wearing ora.nge—tor it lias opened its eyes. For use by t'no other side the thing is ot course put the other way about. The puppy wears oiange to start with if ho belongs to a Tory, and blue when he opens his eyes.

A really admirable story this, capable of becoming all things to all men—"like Ciesar's wife," as the civic orator remarked. "We believe it influenced many electors 20 years ago," says the Saturday Review; "it has been told amid roars of laughter on many platforms during the last fortnight, and we have no doubt it will be winning votes 20 years hence." Likely enough;—and why not? Votes are won by arguments, so called, that have as little of logic as the blind puppy story and a- good deal less of humour. Blackwood's Magazine, which is Tory, packs the logic of the CampbelMSamierman victory into a sentence:

"When wo demand of the people whether it would htvvo Freelrad© or Protection, it replies, "You shall not strike a Chinaman," whose, skin was never in danger, and then, no doubt filled with generous impulses, gees home and beats its wife.

Referring to my notre of last week on the literary oddities of Mr 6. K. Chesterton, journalist, essayist, novelist, and what not, a correspondent submits " for consideration and comparison" the following extract from Blackwood, July number, 1905:

Mr Chesterton's favourite artifice lor making himself heard is (he paradox. . . You tako a common saying, you transpose .a couple of words or you change the sense of one, and the trick is done. A few specimens of Mr Chesterton's craft will show how easy and irrelevant it is. The sentence " There is nothing that sr.cceeds like success " is .so familiar thftt no glory can he got by quoting it. But change " succeeds" into " fails," and thore is your paradox ready made: "There is nothing that fails like success." Isn'ti it daring? Will anyone ho rash enough to "question its originality? "Thero is nothing that fails like success"! It is true that it ha 9no meaning whatever. But that doesn't matter. Don't yon seo it is a paradox and therefore endowed with a subtle merit of its own? Or take another specimen which will doubtless be hailed as a masterpiece of ingenuity, "A good bush needs no wine." It is nonsense, but the poverb stands upon its head, and that is enough for Mr Chesterton.

Well, after considering and comparing as requested, I find in Blackwood and in Passing Notes rt comfortablo identity of sentiment. Cajsar and Pompcy bery much

alike, specially Pompey. Blackwood got his word in-hrst, no doubt (July, 1905); but that is. his only advantage, and I don't in the least resent it. Percant. qui ante nos nostra, etc.—? Not-at all! Prophetic plagiarism from Passing Notes I accspt .is a compliment. Whoever chooses may attempt it—no offence taken. ; Any good thing of mine • that turns out to have been said in advance, by .somebody else comes with double hallmark, its merit established in the mouth of two witnesses. Turning up the Black-' wood article I find the remark that "to make verbal paradoxes [as Mr Cliesterton makes them] is a mechanical trick which n monkey might learn in a week." This good 'thing of Blackwood's failed to occur to me; but in other respects, particularly for terseness and point, my criticism may be backed against his;—J get over more ground in less space, as Mr Chesterton might say.- And .it is just as well I hadn't seeii the Blackwood performance, or it might have discouraged ine from doing something better of mv own. Cms.