PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18625, 5 August 1922, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Irish, affairs are still a Witches’ Sabbath; the word is still “Round about the ca]dron go!”—its contents thick, and slab. Ireland does not change; or it might have been for Ireland that the French saying was . invented—“ The more it changes the more it is the same thing.” It is quite Irish that Mr Erskine Childers is trying to prove that he is not an Englishman. May he succeed! True it is that all the ■world’s a stage, and one man in his time plays many parts. The first part played by Mr Erskine Childers was as the writer of a book exposing Germany’s plots and plans—“ The Riddle of the Sands”—and a striking book it was, all in the interest of Britain and the British Empire. This book was years before the Great War, in which conflict he served as a British intelligence officer. Also, he fought under the British flag in the Boer War, but is “sorry for it now.” He was educated in England, and in the process “Britonised,” alas! but his mother was Irish, and his present home is in Wicklow. Moreover, it was he who “brought the guns to Howth and made Easter Week possible,”—Bishop Liston’s “glorious Easter.” On all the facts, he maintained, he was “not an Englishman in the true sense of the word.” Cheerfully I agree. It remains for Mr Do Valera to make a similar back-out. Let Mr De Valera, who was born in New York, whose father was Spanish though his mother was Irish, and who has wrought more woe to Ireland than any other half-breed known to Irish history, confess that he is not an Irishman in the true sense of the word, and the situation will be greatly relieved. Visitors from America, accustomed to the broad spaces of halt a continent, find New, Zealand scant of elbow room. They move about warily lest they step over the edge. In Dunedin last week an American buyer of rabbitskins, having found New Zealand rabbitskins better than all other rabbitskins, was able to put in a kind word for our “good little country.” Much the same an American talking to reporters in Auckland —he was surprised by the existence of this “fine little country” where he had expected only Pacific Ocean and cannibal islands. We have to acknowledge that New Zealand is a little country, somewhat Httler even than Great Britain, and only a little bigger than Greece and Rome in their palmy time'. In the history of this planet most of the big men have come from the little countries; but no American swell-head can be expected to recognise that. Of course there are exceptions. Oliver Wendell Holmes, though a representative American, a New Nnglander, and eko a Boston man if I don’t mistake (Boston; being, as we know, the “hub”) shows rio tendency to national swelled-head, and has left some graceful lines in proof:— His home!—the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it; This little epeck, the British Isles? "Tis but a freckle—never mind it! Ho laughs, and all his prairies roll, Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles; And ridges stretched from polo to pole Heave till they crack their iron knuckles! But Memory blushes at the sneer, And Honour turns with frown defiant; And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant. “An islet is a world,” she said, “When glory with its dust has blended; And Britain keeps her noble dead Till earth and sea and sky are Tended!” It is a drop from this to Dr Isaac Watts of the “Divine and Moral Songs.” In linear measurement Dr Watts was a little man ; yet says he, and with truth : Were I so tall to reach the. pole, Or grasp the ocean with my span, I must bo measured by my soul: The mind’s the standard of the man. Hear, hear! The same principle holds of countries.

Pussyfoot this week is in a divided mind,—doesn’t,know whether to resent the Licensing Committee’s report as an insult, or to turn it off with a laugh. The drink traffic is under a Pussyfoot sentence of death for December next, yet talks as though it were to live for ever. Which ■situation recalls the criminal led for execution on a rainy morning requesting an umbrella that he might avoid taking cold. But Pussyfoot, of a Puritanic sourness by nature, sees nothing to laugh at, and resorts to had language,—“utter selfishness,” “unblushing effrontery,” and the like. See the correspondence Columns of the Daily Times, Tuesday. In all attempted reforms Pussyfoot has assisted, we are told—fewer licenses, sounder liquor, six o’clock closing, and so on; yet the- sale of malt liquors and spirituous liquors is as “debauching” and “demoralising” as ever. But there is one reform that Pussyfoot has not yet '• attempted—the giving of due measure in a ninepenny “nip.” Dear “Civis,”—The papers up north ■say that a publican is able to dispense 52 ninepenny nips out of a bottle of whisky that costs 15s 6d. When my friends come along to see me the bottle refuses when asked to dispense cheerfulness more than fifteen or sixteen times. Nothing doing after the sixteenth,—that is of course assuming there had. been a sixteenth. Wherefore this disparity ? Thirty-two ninepenny nips out of one and the same thirteen-and-sixpenny bottle of whisky! How many millions a year must these "nimble ninepennies and this Inexhaustible Bottle be costing New Zealand? Pussyfoot has never given a thought to it. Pussyfoot, in prophetic vein, and persuading himself that he feels cock-sure, is impressive. In the distance I hear a shout. It is the electors, the common jury of the country. They have given their verdict As sure as death, and aa certain as the grave, it is, victory, prohibition. What can be surer than this cock-sureness! And yet is there not such a thing as making assurance doubly sure? There is; —wherefore (from San Francisco) this cable: — Dr Mary Harris Armour will sail for New Zealand on August 4, in order to take part in the Prohibition campaign. Good; let Doctor Mary come. We are somewhat tired of the Pussyfoot we know; we shall welcome a Tabby. “Orthodox! orthodox! who believe in John Knox,” what do you think of this: — Next day at noon, John Dime, one of the ministers of Leith, and Archibald Steward, who were among his most intimate acquaintances, came into his room. Perceiving that ho was very sick, they wished to take their leave. But he insisted that they should remain, and having prevailed with them to stay dinner, he rose from bed and came to the table, which was the last time bo ever eat at it. Ho ordered" a hogshead of wine which was in his cellar' to be • pierced for them; and, with an hilarity which he delighted to indulge among his friends, desired Steward to send ton some of it as long as it lasted, for he would not tarry till it was all drunk. Nor did he tarry. Ten days later he died. Who, pray ’—who is it that we arc talking about? We are talking about “brave old John Knox”—as Carlyle calls him—“one of the truest of the true,” and I am quoting from the standard “Life of Knox,’’ by the Rev. Thomas M'Gric, D.D. It was on a 14th November that Knox’s two friends wore at dinner with him, and on the 24th of the same month Knox died, leaving the wine to be drunk by Steward. The orthodox who believe in John Knox, but have sold themselves to Pussyfoot as Faust sold himself to Mcphistopheles, will read this story with some heart-searchings. Better were it had they, each of them, in his cellar a hogshead of wine with practicable spigot, or at least a ten-gallon keg of beer. An American who has written much on the English language, Mr Brandcr Matthews, Professor in Columbia University, mentions in one of his books that he was born of a Massachusetts father and a Virginian mother, and tha-t for three-score years ho has been a New Yorker by residence. A good American record, but no qualification for discriminating the niceties of English speech. Consider an extract from his “Essays on English” : The British seem (o be in doubt still whether “hotel" is really an English word; and they writ© and speak of

‘■’an hotel,” renewing the silent h of the French. Perhaps it is cine to the cockney trick of dropping (he h that the British say “an hospital,” and that Mr Rnclyard Kipling entitled one of his short stories “An Habitation Enforced.” Americans would not more write “an habitation” than they would write an house or an home. In saying ‘‘an hotel” the British pay no respect whatever to the French silent h, (never heard of it, perhaps!) and they do nrtt say “an hospital.” Nor had the cockney trick of dropping the h—on which American funny writers luxuriate—anything to do with shaping the title quoted from Kipling. Look at these juxtaposed phrases:— a history an historical work a harmony ' an harmonium a hero an heroic deed a habit an habitual fault a hostile act an hostility a hostel an hotel The rule is obvious. When the accent is on the first syllable, the'vocal effort needed for the. accent suffices also for the aspirate; —result, the h is sounded, and the indefinite article ,is a. When the accent is on the second syllable, the law of least effort—always operative in human speech—brings about the dropping of the h, and the indefinite article is an. “Rule” and “law”—whence come rule and law in such matters? Not from the grammar books, but from the. will of the people, an authority against which there is no appeal. For, as the French Academy has pronounced, paraphrasing Horace, “There is only one master of language, w’ho is king and tyrant; this is usage.” And usage is another name for £he will of the people. Bigamy by law established is the latest promise of twentieth century civilisation. At Prague, which is Jugo-Slav—or CzechoSlov —but Christian, a Bill before Parliament would compel every married man over 50 to marry ,a second wife. Population is unequally divided, there is a surplus of women; apparently there are no bachelors, for, naturally, the bachelor would first be sacrificed. History affords ample precedent for a plurality of wives; ana Turkey, a working example, is not far east of Prague. Nevertheless the idea will not catch on. For I’ve a wife an’ baimies three, An’ I’m ho sure how ye’d agree, lassie, says the Scottish wooer, teasing the girl he intends to marry. That will be the point at Prague; wife number one ,and wife number two, will they agree? No assurance. Quite the other way. Artemus Ward at Salt Lake City, after ascertaining the extent of Brigham Young’s plurality, asked him: “How do you like it as far as you’ve got?” It is not clear that Brigham Young liked it at all. Another wild-cat marriage scheme reported from Italy is a freak of the myth-makers;—Roman Catholic priests are said to be asking permission to marry. Too thin. Anyhow, nothing so reasonable would pass the Vatican. Recalls an old story now figuring again in the London papers:— Cardinal Vaughan ■ and Dr Adler, the Chief Jewish Rabbi; wore next to one another at a luncheon. ‘‘Now, Dr Adler,” said the Cardinal, ‘‘when may I have the pleasure of helping you to some ham?” lire Rabbi replied without a pause; “At your Eminence’s wedding.” An equation of impossibilities; yet each of them clean contrary to human reason. For ham, _ adequately cooked, is wholesome meat;’ and he that findeth a wife findeth a good thing. Civis.