PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17942, 22 May 1920, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

It is not wholly to tho disadvantage of Dunedin that slio is placed where she is, and that she camo last, or nearly last, on tho Prince's itinerary. There is a, decided advantage in having the northern mushroom towns to act as her pacemakers. They inspired her by their successes and warned her by their mistakes, and 110 good Dunedinito is above profiting by both lessons. Having made this concession to northern susceptibilities, wo can justly claim for ourselves every other item of credit for the success of tho Royal visit. But in our self-congratulation, for heaven's sake let us not use tho expression " Dunedin excelled herself." Such a compliment ia a poor one unless we know something of tho previous standard. A man might do a, hundred yards in 20 eecondsj and a friend might say "Well done! You have excelled yourself!" Let us merely say " Dunedin has crane up to our expectations," and leave it at that. Let our feeling be the stem joy of the warrior who sees some of the enemies' illusions being dispelled. From what we know of northern opinion, we can safely conclude tliat the recent visitors were well coached in tho belief that, in Dunedin, " to the dour all things are dour"; that Dunedin weather sometimes " excels itself " ; that Dunedin enthusiasm is a damp squib; that in the matter of celebrations Dunedin poses as the strong, silent man. Does not the Aucldander, in describing Dunedin, merely say, "Huh?" And the man from Wellington " Ha, Ha"? And the man from Christchurch " 'Aw"? This week Dunedin set out to prove that in all three cases the premises were wrong, the argumentation fallacious, and the conclusion quite unwarranted. And she succeeded. The man who uses metaphor is playing with fire, and sometimes burns his fingers. Between metaphor and fire there is a dose resemblance. Both are good servants but bad, masters. Both require to be kept under control by a practised hand, and— though this is ■playing with fire—both can get. the bit within their teeth and defy bridle and curb. The resemblance is seen to be still closer when we realise that metaphor is itself a kind of fire—and the fire of enthusiasm is as intractable as any other. The press reports of the Prince's visit dragged us through such a morass of metaphor that it will take us days to clean up. ■ To keep up columns of metaphor without being entrapped into mixing some is a task that boats tightrope walking into a cocked hat. As a mixed metaphor the following is good: " Now, Sir, we have cleared the barb wire fences, and are in smooth water at last." And tho mixing of metaphors is not the only abyss that yawns at the feet of the unwary. There are the incongruous metaphor, the illuminating metaphor, the nonsense metaphor. A carelessly-con-structed metaphor easily becomes a bull. Said once a fervent preacher:

Kemember, I beseech you, brethren, never to forget that wo are all sailing down the stream of time, and will inI ©vitably land in the great ocean of eternity. An incongruous metaphor is another pitfall. If live members of the Otngo Harbour Board oome as a deputation to the City would the leader of the deputation be described in the daily press as "the big toe" of the delegation? Such a metaphor would be incongrupus. It would be congruous only if applied to a deputation of ratepayers. Or again, if I break down in a speech, can J announce that tlie " bootlaces of my mind have.become loose," or that "my mental braces have broken " ?

Inspiration for the above Note came from a description of the reception of the Prince of Wales in Dunedin: The Brine© toxin riots to-day in the veins of every spectator of last night's pageant. In Dime din's historical purview it waa the greatest exhibition of enthusiasm ever fused by a single personality. A toxin is not bacteria, but poison secreted by bacteria. "Any poisonous ptomaine " is its dictionary meaning. Toxin cannot riot through any vein. ITo associate the Prince's visit with toxin, and to make matters worse by introducing the ill-omened ■word " riot," savours of the Moariland Worker. Moreover, can an exhibition be "fused"? "To fuse" means to melt with intense heat, to reduce to liquid. I protest. Was the feeling of the Dunedin crowds on Monday night, such as would fuse any exhibition? were the Dunedin crowds reduced to liquid? What ugly inference are we to draw from this unholy conjunction of liquid and toxin and rioting and fusing an exhibition ?

Ever since my childhood's days I have wondered what was said when' one potentate meets another on some great occasion. When a royal personage enters a city, does ihe governor surrounded by his bodyguard sayl: " Hail, Sire, be thou thrice welcome. Fifty thousand of thy subjects, with one heart and voice, greet thee. 1 . . Not a bit of it! These bigwigs show a noble simplicity. The press report of the Prince's arrival on Monday fays: The Mayor on the station asked, "What sorfc of a day have you had?" The Prince replied, "A very nice day, thank you;—rather trying. And are these your councillors?" Mr Begg replied in the affirmative. Mr Mayor, how could you? "What sorfc of a day have you had!" Was it your aunt or your second cousin who was paying you a visit? Or a friend returning from a day at Wingatui? "What sort of a day !'' Where was your grammar ? No wonder the Prince* as he saw you -with your councillors standing in line holding one another's hands felt constrained to ask, "And ara these the children?" And when you answered in the affirmative, did you say " Yes, this is Johnnie, this is Algie, and this— ? They would come, your Highness. They got so cross at home that I could not leave them. They always come to the station when I have to meet someone—they like seeing the trains come in. They're a great trial to me, your Highness; what with their noise and quarrelling and pushing and shoving, I thought I should have lost some of them in the crowd. And they would wear their best things, and everything so dear nowadays "! In fact, Mr Mayor, what sort of day had you had?

Recent Notes on rabbits and shooters have brought in a correspondence as prolific as the subject with which it deals. I am charged with championing the dishonesty, the unreasonable selfishness, the unauthorised maraudings, tho reckless destruction, " the multifarious, nefarious, burglarious crimes of felonious shooters of sheep and cattle, of thoughtless burners of bushes and gorse hedges, of predacious peqietrators of vandalic malfeasances " too numerous to mention. An appalling charge-sheet! The cyclonic fury of one correspondent makes me inclined to run before the gale : • Notico that for the ferocious and rapacious dogs of lethal poison will bo repeatedly laid on this estate; and that local and peregrinating rabbits may be subcutaneoualy inoculated with tho virus of a zymotic disease, transmittable to irresponsible) and_ censorious paragrammatists, like "Civis," and other disingenuous, illogical, ill-informed, ©ophistiwd, and fault-finding. irresponsiblcs. How is a man to stand up against this tirade? In sympathising with those who kick against the abolition of timehonoured privileges, I am adjudged an accessory after the act, worthy of bsing inoculated with the virus of a zymotic disease. This correspondent is out for my blood, and with diabolic ingenuity, lays the following bait for me : If you would like to have a day's venary sport at Waitati, I would be pleased to guide you to where you could get a day's rabbit-shooting, wifch r out any danger of being arraigned for trespassing. Should- you feel inclined you might bring ferrets and two or three trustworthy shooters with you. At Jacob's Well I have a bilJio which is about big enough to make tea for torVj or four m in-diabetic, zm-dips> wnMO* dcqtiexc.

He beguifes me with hope® of tea and a picnic! Truly the most unkindest cut of all. ll.ivo niy services to tho public deserved such a jibe as this ? Lethal poison for rabbits, and tea for ino! Hie same fate reserved for us both. No, thanks; invitation declined. Another correspondent writing on tlie samo subject sends an extract from an American paper :— A Novacla subscriber bewails tho loss to tho tables of tho country of 1500 jack rabbits which he saw just aftej they bad been destroyed by poison. This huge pile of good food, he says, • might have helped out on tho meatless day or tho day after. This systematic poisoning of rabbits by the Biological Survey should be abandoned in favour of some loss wasteful method of ridding the oountry of these pests, which furnish, really good eating. This is tho point. Is poisoning the only method of killing rabbits wholesale? Every pound of eatable food in tho dominion is part of the wealth of the country. Every pound of eatable food destroyed or not utilised is so much of this wealth wasted. A man sallies forth with dog and gun to get some moat for his table, perhaps for his poor starving children! Think of it, and let tho pathos of the situation sink in. He is warned off this estate, off that estate, until he sadly turns his stops homeward—empty handed and hopeless. He greets his wife with a cry torn from the lips of anguish, "Nothing! They threatened to kill me!" A correspondent sends the following cutting :— Bobough of St. Hilda. PUBLIC NOTICE. Residents of the borcrugh picas© tako notice that, owing to Tuesday and Wednesday, 11th and 12th, being holidays on account of the visit of 11. R.H. the Prince of Wales, the ashes removed on those days will not be removed. . . . He pointedly asks whether ashes removed on certain days could at the same time not be removed. Depends on who does the removing. Some of my ashes are removed on certain days, and on the same days somie are not removed, but are left for me to sweep up from before my gate. But pass for that. The notice is a delightful example of the ease with which the big and the little come into conjunction. The Heir Apparent to the throne of the greatest Empire the world lias ever seen visits Dunedin, and Mrs Jones of the Flat cannot have her ashes removed till he goes. Years hence, Mrs Jones will be able to fix the date of the Prince's visit for her grandchildren. " I remember it well : it was the week in which the man did not come to take away my ashes." Ashes seem to be a source of great worry to unamalgamated St. Kilda. Did I hear sackcloth mentioned? Crvis.