THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18456, 18 January 1922, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By Wayfabeb. i A time of carnival is a time of revelry boisterous, unrestrained—a time of fun and jollity devoted to Sport that wrinkled Care derides And Laughter holding both his sides. Dur own period of Carnival in Dunedin is so close at hand —three weeks or so away —that we know something of the programme : Item.—Unveiling of a memorial to tho d<md. Item.—Sale of Clydesdale horses at Tahuna Park. Item.—Salvation Army band at the Fountain. All tho makings of a trulv riotous week! Tokio. January 10. Prince Okuma has finally died. It was only a tentative death that was recorded a few days earlier —a sort of preliminary cantor, a dross rehearsal. But the prince did not have the satisfaction of reading his obituary notice, much less that of recovering damages—as was the experience a few weeks ago of an eccentric genius, to the tune of £IOOO, at tho expense of the Northcliffe Press —for being libelled in an obituary notice! It’s a hard world, my masters, and for none, say what you like, harder than for those upon whom, by reason of their office, a fierce light remorselessly beats. When the vital interests of Europe were at stake Mr Lloyd George felt it a good opportunity to teach M. Briand golf. At other times the pair spent their time at the Carlton, Cannes, watching dancers performing to a jazz band, The French have not always been a censorious people. It will, however, have been a severe blow to their “ amour prdpre ” that M. Briand. their Prime Minister, should learn golf at the hands of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, when M. Briand’s own Government included a Minister of Sport! Yet it is rather a strain one one’s imagination to suppose that a day or two later M. Briand ceased to bo Prime Minister simply because he played golf, or tried to play golf, with Mr Lloyd George and because the two of them, a scapegrace pair, visited a cabaret in Cannes when their minds should have been occupied with serious things-—but there you have it. It must ■ be because of the sentiment expressed in it—because it was introduced at a time that was peculiarly ripe for it—that a song named “The Tears of an Irish Mother’’ has ‘‘caught on” in the halls at Home. That the words aro exceedingly commonplace may bo judged from tho chorus “There’s tho tear of\an old Irish mother As she kneels by a vacant chair; There’s the teas - bom of joy—as her wandering boy Returns to that fond mother's care; There’s tho teoiiof Iho angels for one who has strayed I And the lover, when quarrels are o’er; But the best tears of all are the ones that will fall; When there’s peace in old. Ireland once j morel” But peace in—in—old Ireland I Are we quite sure of that? “ The arrangements [for postal services] had been hampered by tho substitution of motor transport for horse traffic.” This statement, which is apt to cause one to rub one’s eyes, is reported to have been made by a postal official whoso duty it was to attempt last week to soothe the outraged sensibilities of settlers in the Waihemo County, condemned to submit to postal services ho better, if not actually worse, than existed sixty years ago. It is odd that the poor, despised horse should be a better servant to the settlors in tho conveyance of their mails than a motor vehicle is. Odd though it is, fact it is. A horse took one day to carry mails to ‘ the end of the line of settlements included in the contract of delivery, and returned next day to the point from which it had started. Thus, the settler had the opportunity of replying straight away to the letters he had received. The motor vehicle, however, goes all the way to the terminus and back before the midday meal, so that a settler, receiving letters by it, must wait for the next trip, perhaps' three days later, to answer the letters he has received. Admiral Sir Percy Scott, in a letter in The Times, says he regards the advocates . of wasting money on battleships as lunatics. Why, he asks, is the country’s purse controlled by lunatics? A very pertinent question, if Sir Percy’s premiss is correct. But his case would be none the worse if he 'were less intemperate in his choice of words. He challenged tho world, he asserts, in 1920 to tell him what was the use of battleships, and he received “only one sensible reply.” It was from a midshipman, who said, “They are no damned use at all.” With this midshipman Sir Percy Scott agreed. The best brains in the Navy may not, however be this midshipman’s and there are at least some distinguished officers who believe that battleships do possess a certain value. The downrightness and the outspokenness of Sir Percy Scott’s language may have nn attraction of their own but it is not wise any more than it is polite to describe as lunatics those who differ from you. To speak and write like this is provocative. It may provoke a retort that may sting. The word “damned” approvingly quoted by Sir Percy Scott is acquiring a fresh vogue if not a now respectability. It is receiving the sanction of authority in high places. Mr Arthur Griffith, president of Dail Eireann (vice Mr do 'Valera, laid on the shelf), passionately declared a few days ago that he _ would not "reply to any damned Englishman”—Mr Childers being thereby indicated. Rather a disconcerting statement when one remembers; that Mr Griffith is at the head of the Free State with which wo are to live on terms of amity and mutual confidence! But that is by the way. It is with the word “damned” that we are concerned. Even Mr Woodrow Wilson baa not disdained to use it. It has been made publto by Mr. Tumulty, his secretary during his presidential term, that Mr Wilson declared that ho would not be rushed into war, “no matter if every damned Congressman and Senator stands up on his hind legs and proclaims me a coward.” One would hardly have believed the ex-president capable of an outburst like this. It is plain that ho is more human than was generally believed. It might even be human on tho part of some Congressmen and Senators to relish being damned from White House. What rage fer fame attends, both great " and small! Bettor be d d than mentioned not at alll While the word “ damned ” will bo found boldly printed in full in newspapers nowadays, there arb other words of common use in certain grades of society upon which journalism frowns and which it refuses to admit into its - : pages. For example, an extract fr.om tjio report of a libel action brought by a wild Communist in England against the Morning Post and the Duke of Northumberland; — Mt Justice Darling (to the plaintiff): In a Trafalgar Square speech did you say, “We would juat get hold of Winston Churchill and screw his neck?” Witness: I deny using the word “ As a friend of mine has remarked, this method of introducing the missing word puzzle into the law report of a “cause celebre ” may have its advantages, but lucidity is not one of them. It is really very trying that when the United States are technically or theoretically dry, the water procurable in New York, the greatest city in the States, should be unfit to drink. The cause—that the. water supply is infected with a protozoan organism which gives the water tho tasto of ripe cucumber—is a matter best left to scientists. If vou refer to a dictionary in the hope of learning in popular language what protozoa are, you will probably read something like this: Protozoa. —A phylum of animals whose chief characteristics are that the body consists of only a single cell (in a few cases of several or many cells connected to form a colony), and that they reproduce, not by eggs or spermatozoa, but by the fission oi the body (usually by a process of mitosis) into two or more new individuals. Tho mischief about these definitions of scientific terms is that, reading one of them, you generally have to refer to the dictionary several times to ascertain tho meanings of words that are used in it and that as these meanings are themselves couched in scientific language you are little wiser at the end than when, with a loudab’e zeal for self-instruction, you began your researches. On tho other hand the fact that water is undrinkable is one which the meanest intellect may appreciate. Fortunately for everybody, it is not summer in America. In the American summer tho very first thing that is set down before j;ou at breakfast, at luncheon, at dinner— Whenever you sit down at table—is a glass

of iced -water, which you drink with great satisfaction. Very refreshing it is; but while it momentarily quenches your thirst it induces a strong desire for further libations. The pollution of the water supply in Now York is not the least of the blows encountered by Mr Pussyfoot—or by, in the French version, which appeals to me personally as the preferable. Mr Catfoot. For, when -prater is undrinkable in New York, what is one to drink ? Wood alcohol is an unsatisfactory alternative. I have an impression that it is not palatable. Moreover, it is demonstrably deadly.

From South Africa. I have received a paper containing the report of a banquet at which Mr H. C. Bennett, manager of the Stpringboks’ football team, was entertained on his return from New Zealand. In the course of his speech ho said that New Zealand had a great admiration for South Africans and the statesmen who did bo much during the war, but there was one drawback to this admiration to which he could not refer to in New Zealand, but could mention before a Kimberley audience. "We were looked upon as the dcsccndente of those who fought the British in the Boer war. We were praised and congratulated for the manner in which we stuck to the Treaty of Verceniging, and this was rather embarrassing at times, for often an old soldier of the New Zealand contingent in the Boer war would apologise for the part he took, saying that if he had, only known then what he knew now he would never have taken up arms.— (Laughter.) But let that pass. We know that it was spoken with a good heart.” Two questions suggest themselves. Why should any New Zealand soldier in the Boer War apologise for having taken up arms? And why was this subject regarded by Mr Bennett as one to which he could not refer in New Zealand?