PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16664, 8 April 1916, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

It is comforting to learn that the Zeppelin is vulnerable. We had boon invited to believe tliafc it was not. A Zeppelin might perish' by sjwiitaiioous combustion, might break down through internal disorders known only to itself, might bo capsized in a blizzard, get lost in a fog, fall into the sea. There were stories of Zeppelins " driven away" by hostile aircraft and retreating "apparently damaged." But a clear and conclusive ease of succumbing to enemy attack was wanting. At last we have one. A raiding Zeppelin hit by aircraft gunfire fell broken-bucked into the estuary of the Thames. Another, or it may haivc been the same, disgorging or disembowelled, allowed to drop' upon the land a machino gun, some ammunition, a petrol tanl; riddled with shrapnel, and some machinery. Those facts are prophetic. Ah airship 700 ft long is a ispacious target; smaller aircraft and nimbler will swarm about it and sting it to death. I notice' that a lady music student from Dunedin whom the war surprised'in Germany, who escaped with difficulty to England and there " had an opportunity of witnessing the effect of Zeppelin raids," tells a reporter in the oourse of an interesting narrative that "she has no patience with those who belittle the Zeppelin danger." There should be no belittling; vet I may be permitted to quote a few linos from tho Spectator of February 5 : — It may souDd strange to say that tho result of the Zeppelin raid on Monday night was, on the whole, very satisfactory. Yet that, is a perfectly truo statement. It is exceedingly satisfactory to know that six, or possibly seven, of these monsters of the air could fly over this country with hostile intent and yet do such little damage. Though these giant engines of destruction were chasing up and down England for four or five hours, seeking whom they might destroy, and, though they threw over three hundred bombs on ' six counties, they managed to kill only 59 people and to injure 101—about the number of people killed and injured in a month in our darkened streets A Zeppelin raid brings danger and death, but leaves the war, with its chances and its issues, exactly where it was.

Spite of his crimes and "his cruelties, spite of the conflagration he has kindled, the German viewed from without is mainly a figure of fun. "There are people who grow angry if you say that the) Germans are a comic people,'' writes Mr Glutton - Brock in The Times Literary Supplement. "Yet we cannot help laughing at the Hymn of Hate, and the salutation ' Gott strafe England,'.not onlv because we shall vex the Germans by laughing, but because they are absolutely and everlastingly funny." "Why are ■ these things funny? To ask the question is to accuse our own sense of humouT; nevertheless it may be answered. "The German obeys in his emotions an invisible drill sergeant. We laugh when we see a nation undergo a violent emotion at the word of command, and laugh the more when we discover that the emotion is genuine. Of course there is malice in our laughtef;—the fun is more exquisite because the German cannot see it, and would have to be born again to see it." The sum of which is that the German, dragooned and drilled in the very soul of him, is absurd and doesn't know it, and never more absurd than when most serious. The Cologne Gazette this week is most serious when alleging as the sin of the English, for which the English ought to be divinely strafed, that they "are preventing this awful war from being terminated." The absurdity of which iit-teranco may have been surpassed, but not out of Germany. Who began this awful war? And why doesn't its only beginner and begetter permit it to be terminated ? He has but to eaive in. The Cologne Gazette's lament is as though Napoleon, who attacked at Waterloo, when he found he was getting the worst of it had cried out on the wickedness of the English in "not permitting this awful battle to be terminated." In the words of John- Ruskin, quoted in this colump a few weeks back, " the German language isn't a ' language ' at all, but only a ' throatage ' or ' gutturage ' — a mode of human expression learnt chiefly •from wolves and bears." Ruskin's point of view was that of an art critic. But to appreciate the following railway station notice one needs no special nicety ,of eye or ear: — Speak Gorman! Do not use enemy language! "Adieu" is French; say instead— Gott beschutze Dich. Gott segne Dich. Auf wiedersehen. Auf baldigeswiedersehen. Auf sehrbaldigeswiedersehen. Auf ein recnthorzigesfrohesbakligeswiodcrsehon. I leave this in its native beauty. Translation might help out the humour, but would spoil the moral effect. Besides the word " adiera"—common on railway stations, for which reason the above notice—the niursery diminutives "Pa" and "Ma" axe discovered to be of alien and enemy origin. " Shall the first and most beautiful word of our family life be borrowed from the French, when we have the precious words ' Vater' and ' Mutter' ?"—the German papers aro asking. Yet for an idea moiji intimately and scandalously) German than any other the German language is unable to provide —to express it must borrow and degrade a word that is both French and Ehglish. And so, to the Kaiser, an English scribbler :— i There's still one little Foreigner. That makes your tongue impure, Sir, Trot out your biggest Howitzer, And train it on Ktutor, Sir. With nothing but "Kultur" to blazon in all newspapers as the inspiration of ■ the war, the soul of the army, the glory of the universities, and the sacred banner of the church, no German ought to be able to sleep o' nights. Any other word would better serve; —borrow the long-tailed polysyllable from the railway placard; let "Kultur" be expressed as "Rechtherzigesfrohesbaldigeswiedersehen " —any collocation of vocables however hideous, if but avowedly and shamelessly German.

Dear "Civis," —Is it rig-ht to keep up the. nickname " Tommy Atkins"~? Our ckbt to the British soldier is past tolling. A nickname, even in play, doesn't fit in with the sacrifioes wo are asking of him. But this particular nickname suggests contempt. If the soldier himself takes it so, tho newspapers ought to drop it. • "Tommy Atkins" as a familiar name for the British private soldier savours nothing of contempt, nor ever did. The story is that a soldier's .account book or pocket ledger invented by Thomas Atkins, a gunner in the Royal Artillery, was originally called a "Tommy Atkins," and that somehow the name got transferred frjm the book to the man who carried it. Credible or not,'this legend has no .suggestion of contempt.. A nickname may be. a pet name. The blackguard armies that Napoleon conducted to the sack of Europe called him the " Little Corporal," and were all ready to die for him. The British navy man is " Jack " (we all love Ja>ck!), and takes no offence, though apostrophised in song as a Jack Tar, or, indeed, as merely a " tar." Contempt for wearers of the King's uniform is not unknown—ln peace time. It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Tommy, go away " ; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when tho band begins to pfciy. . . . It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Top my, wait outside " ; But it's " Special train for Atkins" ■ when the trooper's on the tide. Yet Kipling dedicates these Barrack Room Ballads to "T. A."—Thomas Atkins: I have nw.de for a song, And it may be right or wrong, But only you can tell mo if it's truo; I have'tried for to explain Both your pleasure and your pain, And, Thomas, here's my best rcspccts t<s yoy! The name "Tommy Atkins," I imagine, will survive the war. Indeed, the war will have consecrated it. Dear "Civis," —With your permission, a word or two about recruiting music. In England nothing has been found more helpful to voluntary recruiting than the martial strains of a military band. Bore wo are missing our oppor-

tunitiee. At 'Sir Joseph Ward's recruiting meeting the other night it was right | enough to string together as on opening "Rule, Britannia," the " Marselluiso," end tho Russian National Hymn; but after that tho band lapsed into ' The Rod, White, and Blue," poor situlf at any time, and now intolerable by repetition. There ought to be a Corporation by-law against it. On this occasion L believe it was played twieo. Wo have patriotic songs in which the crowd might tie made to join—" Hearts of Oak," for example, and " When Johnny comes marching homo." Give a cornet tho solo part, let the band crash in with the chorus, and everybody would lift up his voice. "Rule, Britannia" is usually assassinated as a quick-step. The bandmaster, if he chose, could it sung. And that is the way to generate enthusiasm'. Opie, a one-time famous portrait-painter, was asked how he mixed his paints. " With brains," said he. Tho answer may be pondered by the makers of music programmes. Sir Joseph Ward's recruiting meeting was enlivened by a singer who really knew how to sing and had a voice wherewith to do it. But what did lie sing'.' You may search me, as the Americans say. Whatever it was, he might sing it a week on end, and you would forget it the next minute. Why didn't ho sing Handel's "Arm, arm, ye brave"? It seems forgotten that Handel wrote great martial music, great patriotic music. I would pay to hear in " Judas Maccabaeus " a chorus of shirkers (easy to be had) singing "We come! We come! in bright array!" and " Disdainful of danger we rush on the foe." _As my correspondent says, we are missing our opportunities.

Maori Hill. Dear " Civis,"—l am a schoolboy, and I would like to know how to pronounse the following words:— Augustine. My school teacher says it should be AuguSTINK, the accent being on " stine"; my father says it should be AuGUSline, the accent being on' " gust." Salonika. My teacher tells us it is SaloNiKA, the accent being on " nilca" and pronounced as " neeka"; and my father says it should be SaLONika, tho accent on "Ion." Thanking you, if you could find time to answer. I might refer this Dunedin boy to the Public Library, and to Pronouncing Gazetteers there available. But there are always the back-blocks to consider, and in the back-bloclcs my friends are many. To the point, then : Augustine. Talking Latin, Augustine's vernacular, you would call him " Augustimis," accent on the penult, last syllable but one. In English he is "Augustine"," accent on the new penult, as in "Augustus." Occasionally " Au-gustine " is heard, accent as in "August." But the other is the prevailing usage. Salonika. Does not rhyme with " vevonica " and "japonica." Follow the New Testament word " Thessalonica." Returning British soldiers may bring back the local pronunciation and rhyme the mime with "Eureka." But the' English sound of "i" and the example of "Thessalonica will probably prevail. A correspondent who has been inspecting the Aurora's jury-rudder " —an ingenious construction worthy of the Museum —asks the origin of " jury " in this use. " Origin unknown," says the Oxford, curtly. May have been " a jocular appellation invented by sailors." The joke is not evident. For "dog-watch," a watch of two hours instead of the usual four, there is analogy of a kind in " dogrose," " dog-latin,' * " dog-sleep," ' where the prefix implies inferiority. But how the sailor came to hit on jury "as name for a makeshift no man knows. We heard last week of a Dunedin clergyman who, after baptising a sick child, -pressed into the mother's hand the advertising card of an undertaker. This reminds a correspondent of a marriage announcement "somewhere in North Otago " : — M .—S .—On August 7, at the bride's parents, James, eldest son of J. Pj , to Madige, dearly-beloved daughter of J. M , undertaker, corner of T and E streets. Telephone S3. To which he might have tailed on the well-known tombstone advertisement: Beneath this stone in hopes of Zion, Is laid the landlord of the Lion. Resigned unto the Heavenly, will, His son keeps on the business still. | But to the incident of the advertising card there is a closer parallel—Mrs Gamp, who sicks and monthlys, in converse with Mr Mould, the undertaker and his good lady: " Sijppoging that the gent should die "—said Mrs Gamp, imbibing tho glass of rum and water Mr Mould had kindlv provided—'" Supposing the gent | should die, I hope I might take the liberty of saying as I know'd some one in the undertaking line, and yet give no offence to you, sir?" * "Certainly, Mrs Gamp," said Mould, with much condescension. "You might casually remark, in such a case, that we do the thing pleasantly and in a great variety of stylos, and are generally considered to make it as agreeable as possible to the feelings of the survivors. But don't obtrude _ it w don't obtrude it, don't obtrude it. Easy, easy! My dear, you may as well give Mrsfeamp a card or two, if you please." Mrs Gamp received them, and, scenting no more rum in the wind, took her departure. "A very shrewd woman, my dear," — moralised Mr Mould to his wife. " She's the sort of woman one would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing; and do it neatly, too!" I suggest a business undertaking of this nature between the touting parson and his client. By way of commission the undertaker will bury him for nothing. Civis.

By 35 votes to 5 Blackburn Town Council, on February 4, refused to lend the Town Hall for a meeting to be addressed by Mr Philip Snowden, senior member for tho borough. It was ■ declared that over 90 per cent, of tho inhabitants of tho town and hundreds of Blackburn men fighting at the front repudiated Mr Snowden's attitude towards the war. Thousands of men and women in New Zealand are quietly suffering from hernia or rupture, and they never for a moment sit down and think. Every ono of these quiet sufferers evidently think that he or she is tho only one in tne neighbourhood burdened with a truss. Why don't they speak about it? A rupture is an accident, but not a disgrace. Only tho energetic, pushful, willing-to-do people get ruptured. Worse still, sufferers place faith in the officacy of trusses mado for tho million, ovon when they know that no two cases are exactly alike, and what suits ono case cannot possibly suit another. Just as true as it is that the right ear is different from the loft in tho ■ ono individual, so it is also truo that no Itwo persons are tho same in body. It is because of this fact that Mr A. W. Martin insists upon personal interview in treating rupture. By the Dr J. A. Sherman method immediate relief and every chance_ of a permanent cure is scoured to the patient, and Mr Martin has records of many patients who have worn no artificial support for years, showing that his treatment has been absolutely effective. People are glad to write testimonials in favour of the Dr J. A. Sherman method of treating rupture, if only to express ftioir gratification at being freo of the cumbersome, unsightly, and often painful trusses which thov had fell: doomed to carry to their graves. Don't hug your trouble to yourself any longer, as it will only got worse. Remember, it is a progressive affliction, and he or she is wiso who takes tho necessary steps to be cured of it, as serious oonsequenccs will thus be avoided. Mr A. W. Martin may be consulted free at his Rooms, Samson's Buildings, Dowling street. Dunedin, daily, 10 to 12 noon, 2 to j 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 to 12. noon: extra hours Friday evening, 7 to 8. Booklet on rupture and its treatment posted free to any sufferer.—4^4/16.