PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14377, 21 November 1908, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

To what extent the polling results ot Tuesday last modify our political outlook cannot bo known till they are revised and corrected by the polling results ol Tuesday next. At Dunedin North Mr Jiiirelay is in deep waters; Mr Macpher6on ditto ditto at Tuapeka; at Chalmers Mr U. 0. Alien, who thought himself safe ashore, has been liung tack into the yeasty waves, where may be ecen, bobbing up and down, the heads of other luckless kinktoralists, rari nantcs in gurgite vasto, destined some of them to go under, for a certainty. Such be the surprising effects of that, masterpiece of Ministerial ingenuity, sagacity, and perspicacity, Hie Second Ballot. And yet never before was tliero General Election that gave such general satisfaction to the parties to it, satisfaction all round, judging from the tone they take. The Opposition, having won some Seats and lost none, is natAirally in the mood for pipe and tabor, lute and harp; which instruments of jubilation, strange to say, aro simultaneously claimed for the Government, though Opposition gains aro of necessity Government losses. Mark Tapley isn't in it with some Ministerial editors. , Thus we read that " the Liberal Goveijiment has once more added to its long series of victories nt the polis,"—tho victory this time including the defeat of the Minister of Lands and of the chief Government Whip. Next come tho out-and-out Socialists—they of the red necktie—who failed for certain Christchurch. seats and mostly forfeited their deposits. Yet the Socialists, like the Government,, have scored "a great and glorious victory." I quote the words of Mr Thorn, a representative Socialist, handsomely defeated at Christ-church South. So everybody is pleased, and all is right as 'fight could, he. We are a wonderful people. Tho results oi the licensing poll are too plainly lop-sided for any pretence of cheery optimism in the Liquor party. So one would say. And' yet Mr i\ Al. Smith, organiser for the. Wellington liquor interests, "is not downhearted at the results of the local option polling, for he thinks it a passing phase." In which particular Mr f. M, bmith doubtless thinks right.' Monnsticism, the principle of which is the principle of no-ircense, had at one tinle all Christendom in its grip, yet was only a passing phase. Unhappily it took a, long rime in passing; mueeri the nolicenso movement is evidence that it has not altogether passed yet. For my own part l am prepared for: a return of tho Dark Ages (men live through them, somehow) and agree with Mr A. S. Adams and other chief rabbis oh that side that the date is not remote. For which reason when Mr Smith attempts the Mark /l'apley vein I am unable to follow him. Mr Smith says it is clear that the vote for the whole country has b:en remarkably small, and that tho No-license ,'paity has managed to do a great deal of iteuiage on a .much smaller poll than it obtained three jj'ears ago. In {act, nolicense has really not advanced at all, but rather has gone back. If it continues to go back in the same fashion Mr/Smith's occupation as organiser of liquor interests is as good as . gone. Presently there will be 110 liquor interests to organise. Xhe trhth is we are being ruined by the benevolent but totally unintelligent vote of .the women. Few women understand. politics, but all women understand what a publichouse is, and What a drunken man is; and most women believe 'that the way to. cure the drunken man is to shut the publichouse. They are woefully Mistaken; but whilst' they get the backing ol ministers of religion, not to mention the testimony of undergraduate babes and sucklings from the University, they are little likely to discover their mistake. The methods of Christianity are too slow; freedom and self-control is an ideal too far away; and so we .go back to mediaevalism and the cloister. Of couree the phase will pass, though we- must wait; and, this may be the manner of its passing. • Hermi't .lioar., in solemn celi, Wearing out iifo's evening gray, Strike thy. bosom, S<ige, and' tell What is bliss, and which the way? Thus I spoke,, and spsaking sighed, Scarce repressed the starting teir, When the.hoary Sage roplicd: * Come, my hid, <md urink some beer.

The lines are Dr Johnson's. It is sad to think that a man so grjuit and good was accustomed not' only to drink beer and. wine, and other spirituous liquors, but to drink them " on fcho premises " —of the vendor, at the Mitre, or the Cock, or other Fleet Street tavern.' It never occurred to Dr Johnson, or to any of his generation, that the, sin of sins was tippling, nor that regard for the public health and wealth demanded the suppieaiion of tin? drink traffic. From the men of that period these things were , hidden. In l)r Jolineon's time, we were on the eve of great -achievements. We were about to bent the French _at the Nile, at Trafalgar, and on many a triumphant field 1 in the Peninsula, filially puttiiicr them to rout at Wateiloo. We were about to conquer Irnjia, to establish the colonies, to found the Empire. We did these tilings, and we did them- when demoralised and degraded by the drink traffic, when as yet there was not so much as a teetotal society to bear witness against it, : The conditions of national life and health must have changed for l-lve »«fse if we are now perishing because of the publichouse. What Dr Johason in his simplicity would have thought about no-license may bij inferred from whit he said, times and oft, on the subject of taverns, their pleasantness and tiheir utility. " No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn." He then repeated, with great omotion, S hen stone's lines— Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, Where'er his stages .may have been, May sigh to think ha still has found His warmest wclcom* at an inn. " As soon," said he,-" as I- enter the door of a, tivern I oxperionco an oblivion of c-aro, and a freedom from solicitude. Wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free - conversation, and an interchange of disburse with those whom I love. I dogrottise, and am' contradicted; and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I fiiid delight." Other tidies, other manners. The Bishop of Stepney, otherwise Dr Cosmo Lang, by origin a Scotchman and a Presbyterian, has been made Archbishop of York. With another Scotchman, Dr .Randall Davidson, in command at Canterbury, the English Church has the look of beiig singularly weli-olticered. Union is nearer than we thought. If when the lion and the lamb lie down together the lamb is inside, it is dear that the lamb may get a good place inside, This York appointment should 6eem to Bishop Nevill prophetic, and the Presbyterian General Assembly might well have recognised it by a motion and a doxology. Not long ago there was a 'Macla.gan at York, and he also I suppose was. a Scotchman. Before or after Maclagan there was a Magee, plainly an Irishman, the chair of York, evidently being common to the Three Kingdoms, To Archbishop Jlagee is attributed the great saying, "Better England drunk and free, than sober and enslaved." But, like Johnson, Magee is now out of date. The New Zealand nolicense voter cannot so much as conceive liis point of view. I have another story about Hagee which will he more easily understood. Says Mr -T. P. O'Connor My readers will remember that picture in Punch representing a bishop in a third class railway carriage pompously rebuking the flippant freedom of a farmer who had thus him: "Curate, I suppose"i W as a curate once " Urink, I suppose?" suggested the farmer, as the only conccivablo explanalioii of liis having to bo & curate. This, Sir Drnniniond Wolff assuros us, was a real experience of Archbishop Magcc's. What is the root of all evil? In St. Paul's time it was love of money. But if St. Paul were a minister of the' Gospel in this Pominion, and wore put to the question, his reply would have to echo tlio Archbishop s farmer-" Drink, I suppose." " I suppose I may now remove this eye and take out my teeth," simpered the middle-aged bride in tlie first hour of real intimacy., "Thank H:avcn!" exclaimed

the well-preserved bridegroom, dashing off his wig and plucking out the pads from under his waistcoat; —"that's a relief!" This Punch witticism needs bringing up to date. Nowadays the bride might detach her ncso or her cars, whilst the bridegroom unscrewed a limb or two. A London newspaper describes a Medical Exhibition at tho Horticultural Hall, Westminster, where it is shown that the visible ! framework of a man may be rebuilt from the ground upwards. His bones are reinforced, if not complexly replaced, by lions pegs, moulded silver (as in trepanning), and platinised sled. There are artificial oyeß which may be so accurately fitted that tho muscle l ! will move them in sympathy with the living eye. Missing skin (after extensive burns) is replaced by " Cargilo membrane," which may bo obtained in "dress lengths." Flesh itself is simulated by,/sterilised paraffin was, which, introduced under the skin (or .'Cargilo membrane), will turn a human skeletor into a Faistaif. Artificial ears and noso3, made of delicately tinted; semi-trans-parent rubber, are supplied for the sur-geon-made man from a, guinea or so upwards. One company exhibit# what i! practically artificial blood (or our artiiicwl man; rimply a saline solution for injection into the veins. They can supply him with an artificial ear-drum, a false toe of tinted rubber and celluloid nail, and, [or £15, with an articulated leg having strong rubber muscles, which will walk without a, limp. Applied science moves rapidly/ and one hardly knows what to believe. It has been said that you cannot put old heads on young shoulders. But the difficulty is moral rather than physical. The ov>ncr of young shoulders would certainly disliko having them, topped off with an old head, and the owner of an old head might conceivably object to part with it. Otherwise the thing might be done. An enterprising surgeon with a forajpi name has transposed and transplanted the heads of two dcys, each for each. The operation was a qualified success. The died, it is true, but they died intelligently, each using for that purpose his new head. So say tho newspapers; but then one never knows what to believe. j Of more practical import is a discussion j that took place at a recent meeting of the j British Mcdical Association en the attitude j of modern surgery towards tho human! appendix. TIIO only known use of the ! human appendix is to furnish occasion for j a surgical operation. This being so, there j fieems sense in, the maxim offered .to. tho ; surgeon by Mr, Fye-Smith, Professor of Surgery in the University of Sheffield, '.'Whenever you see an appendix, cut it ■out," What else is it there for? But when does a surgeon see an appendix? Only when .his lancet is exploring' in the neighbourhood. Then I for one object to a surgeon's seeing my appendix; and the objection would be widely upheld. Of course the case k altered if tie appendix itself is setting up trouble. Not that even then you need proceed at once,to heroic measures. Read the following paragraph: A professor of surgery has been expressing qualified approval, at the meeting of the British Medical Association, of the suggestion that everybody shoiild have his or her appendix removed " during the . quiescent or interval stage, when an attack of appendicitis has been recovered from without, operation.' j He insists, however, that; " in order thM -this line of treatment may be carried out, it is nooessary that .the patient should survive the illness"; and it is understood that many of his learned colleagues agree with him in this stipulation. .. But since it i 6 conceivable that the patient might not survive, we are thrown back 011 the only real remedy, that appendix be cut oiit, vi'et airmis, in a stato of health. The Socialist commonwealth of the future will see to this. There .will' bo a local option poll,. perhaps, on the issue, No-appendix or Continuance. But beyond casting his vote 011 this alternative the liberty of the individual to become a danger to himself' and nuisance to his neighbours by keeping an appendix will not be allowed to go. Bear " Cxvis,"—lt was stated in the papers some time ago that a sluicing coin,pany on the Afolyneux was intending to raise water from the river by current wheels "driven by the river itself. .Has anything come of this? Why could not ' the same method serve for irrigation? I know nothing of the sluicing project, but it is certain that current wheels on so powerful a river would pump water, anu pump it automatically day and night. Moreover there might'be a current wheel every fifty yards without harming tho current. The Government, who for ever talk big about irrigating Central Otago and for ever do nothing, may have considered this method and dismissed! it a£ valueless. I do not know. But, apropos of water running away uselessly, I may get in here a story, which story may be taken to have a bearing also on the Government dairying regulations. A group of visitors, at Niagara were expressing with unanimity their wonder, exoept- that one man was heard repeating, in fnelancholv tones, "What a waste I What a waste!" I perceive, sir, from your depression at this waste of water thai you are an electrical engineer," said someone. "No I am not," was the response; "I am a, miJkman, Cms.