PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18673, 30 September 1922, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

“Touch and go” has summed up the Near East crisis from day to day the whole week through. How it may be summed up when this Note comes to print must be sought in another column. Peace or war has turned on the caprice of an individual Turk, Kernel Pasha, not on the will of a Government, —Kemal Pasha being an irresponsible soldier of fortune with an army of Turks at his back, an army eager for loot and impatient of delay. Cavalry from this army, two thousand or more, strolled into the neutral zone over which we are keeping watch and ward. They withdrew on remonstrance, —didn't know it was a neutral zone. But they have come back in greater strength, bringing guns, as if bent on establishing themselves. Yesterday’s cables had it that these intruders, if persisting, were to be driven out. To-day, Friday, the word is that General Harington, after reference to the British Cabinet, is judiciously temporising. But we read also that Turkish cavalry are moving/forth-cast, apparently to cut off a British advanced post, and that a British column with artillery has left Chanak to counter the threat. Obviously a delicate situation, touch and go. Our troops guarding the neutral zone are 30,000, backed by a score or two of warships great and small. Agaijist our 30,000 may be three, four, five times the number. Mr Holland from the Labour Corner tells us in re-assuring accents that Kernel's force is nothing to speak of. But how should Mr Holland know ? To placate Kemal and to buy the support (moral support only) of France and Italy we have agreed that Thrace and Adrianople—lately , given, to. Greece, a boon that Greek double-dealing in the war time little merited—shall be given back to Turkey. The ins and cuts of this transaction will appear in duo season. France, and Italy have no love for Greece, and will shed no tears over the second exit of King Constantine, the Double-Dealer; but revolution is another. matter. No settled Government likes to hear of revolution in its vicinity. Nor will it bo agreeable to France and Italy if, presently, as the omens point, the Balkans are all ablaze. Kemal and his doings apart, the crisis on its European side is altogether a pretty kettle of fish. The Germans are hugging themselves with delight; Soviet Russia waits to take a hand in any devilry that may be going. Britain, in the Near East as elsewhere, is all for peace, preaches peace, labours for peace, is willing to fight for peace. But it is a thankless job. And the Lloyd George acts and deeds are all to a whispered accompaniment in the Lloyd George sub-conscious — The, time is out of joint; 0 cursed spite. • • i That ever I was bom to set it right! The march of intellect in British India is slow,—for a thousand years .past a funeral pace or worse, the Dead March in “Saul” a quick step in comparison. Missionaries have not improved it, nor Government schools and universities. Spite of these enlightening agencies, not to mention Mr Gandhi and the vernacular press, an eclipse of the sun is still for the people of India an, affair of dragons and demons. On the banks of the Ganges millions of pilgrims were set in motion by last week’s eclipse. From the moment the eclipse began processions went to the bathing-places to wash away the evil resulting from the fact that the sun was in the grip of a demon. . . , At least 500,000 persons participated - in the purifying ceremonies in Calcutta,' and a similar number bathed in the sacred tank at The evening was given up to feasting to celebrate the sun's escape from the demon. Elsewhere probably there would be the beating of gongs, the ringing of bells, the clashing of pots and pans, to drive the demon away—or the dragon, it is usually a dragon. These are the people that Mr Montagu, late of the Indian Office, thought worthy of the electoral franchise. Maybe; even in our halls of legislature I find examples of intelligence no higher. Mr Munro, who is supposed to represent the political thought of Dunedin North, was telling the House the other day that the Government “purposely engineered the unemployment problem,” in order to “pirate the standard of living of the working classesconsequently _ were sailing under “the black flag with the skull and crossbones;” had “nailed the Jolly Roger to the mast.” Mr Munro ought to have been outside tin-kettling the eclipse.

Dear “Givis,” —“Toby, M.P., a general favourite, has published a new volume of reminiscences, date 1922. quite up to date in fact: but some of his stories are out of date withered chestnuts; and once or twice you come upon a good story that somehow has got out of form. For example, about that charming eccentric John Stuart Blackie, one time professor of Greek in Edinburgh University; “I made the Professor’s acquaintance”—writes “Toby”—“at the house of a mutual friend in Edinburgh. One day, admitted to hear him lecture, I found his class jubilant with his latest flash of humour. The boys had the day before, while awaiting the arrival of the Professor, chalked on the blackboard: ‘The lasses will attend the lecture to-day.’ ‘The lasses’ instead of ‘classes’ was the students’ little joke. Blackie made no remark. With his forefinger he rubbed out the initial letter.” To mv certain knowledge the story as told 'in Edinburgh fivo-and-twenty years ago was this: The University notice-board showed in chalk an intimation that Professor Blackie would meet his classes at such an hour. Tho stunents rubbed out the initial c, committing Professor Blackie to an assignation with his “lasses.” The Professor, coming along later, rubbed out the initial 1, leaving the final and accurate statement thft Professor Blackie would meet his “asses.” A story, now to me, tells that King Edward once “looked in at Marlborough House to share lunch which served as dinner for tho children of the Prince of Wales,” —our George V. “Tho course of conversation was at one moment broken in upon by an eager attempt by Prince Henry, aged nine. His Majesty gently reproved bis grandson, quoting the familiar maxim that ‘little boys should bo seen but not beard.’ Bator, anxious not to wound childish susceptibilities, the King said now there was a pause in tho conversation the boy might have his turn. T only wanted to say. sir,’ said the little Prince, ‘that there was a grub on your salad. It doesn’t matter now; you've eaten it.’” New also is the conclusion of a letter to “Toby” as a personal friend from Admiral Jack Fisher about n dinner they had given him in America.: “I‘ told them that it was a damned fine old hen that hatched the American Eagle, and you should have heard them cheer. Yours till hell freezes, —Fisher.” Why is a stale anecdote called a “chestnut”? The chestnut is of mawkish taste and sapless. Edible, but at best a better sort of acorn, the chestnut, as Horace says of garlic, is congenial only to the “dura, messorum ilia,” —the tough (a monosyllabic translation of “ilia” I leave to the High School) —the tough ilia of reapers. A: for Admiral Jack Fisher, I don't knov, whether we ought to call his profanitic profane. They belong to the freedom of speech which’traditionally went with the British “freedom of tho seas.” Story for story. Here is one by an exGovernor of New South Wales. An English coujile, making the Australasian grand tour and penetrating to the New South Wales interior, came upon a lonely sheep station, where, at the homestead, they wefe welcomed with colonial hospitality. Dusty and heated after a long drive, thclady timidly asked if there was such a thing to be bad as a bath. “Why. certainly,” said the hospitable housewife: “come along.” The visitor was conducted to a shed, and duly provided with towels. “It’s a shower bath, you know,” the hostess remarked as she left the place. Having prepared for tho ablution, the lady looked ell about for tho string that in an ordinary bath would let fall the welcome shower. While still searching, she heard, from what she discovered to be an aperture in (be ceiling of boards, au unmistakable male voice persuasively saving; “Come a little nearer ma am. right under tho hole, and I’ll drop tho bucket cf water over you,”

There is nothin!; more misleading than facts, except figures. This ancient maxim is not a joke; neither is it an immoral paradox; it is a sober truth. To know the significance of a fact you must know the adjacent facts, its antecedents, its consequents; and figures, as Mr Massey tlie other day said to Mr M’Combs, the statistician of the Labour Corner, “liko soldiers, may be ipade to face either way/' As we may see any day of the week in the correspondence columns of the Daily Times. Pussyfoot and anti-Pussyfoot array against each other the facts and figures of American Bone Dry; each believes his own, neither believes the other; and tho tired-out public mutters an inverted blessing upon both. The Daily Times, editorially, keeps a ring and sees fair play. Each side gets a show. For mv own part. 1 reck not in the least of American Bone Dry facts and figures, for or against. It is enough for me that I find Bone Dry intrinsically absurd; at war with the essential nature of things; out of key with the sweet reasonableness at the heart of this universe. You can’t abolish a commodity of world-wide and age-long use that mankind as a whole nangs on to as partly a food and partly an allowable luxury. Least of all can you abolish it by parochial resolutions at the ends of the earth. Abuse? —yes; anything that has a use may be abused. The razor that shaves your beard would cut your throat; but there are a good many people who do not abuse the razor in that way. And the law maxim holds—abuse does not take away use. If Pussyfoot, ceasing from h:s attempt to take away use, would bend his energies to the correcting of abuse, how gladlv would his present enemies rush into his arms!

From Beaumont, Central Otago way: Dear “Civis,”—ln answer to the eternal question, when is a man drunk?—l have had. about twenty years’ experience on both sides of the bar and for myself, I say dunno; but for the edification ■of the Pussyfoots, Stipendiary Magistrates, lawyers, senior-sergeants, and especially young policemen, I would • like you to publish the following: (nams of’poet'unknown but it sounds like the immortal Burns): • Not drunk is he who from the floor Can rise again and drink some more. But drunk is he who prostrate lies And who can neither drink nor rise. The principle of this column is that no man should get drunk. There are influences—scorned of Pussyfoot—that. assert and maintain this principle in my own case, and in the ease of most other people. Pussyfoot’s one idea is to smash the whisky bottle and run the potential drunkard into sobriety by the scruff of the neck.

A correspondent asks what I think of “tote” for totalisator, and of “phone” for telephone. I think of them with repugnance. But a solitary dissident here or there counts for nothing. It is impossible to make head against the stream of custom. Usage, as I continually repeat, settles everything. We have*'accepted “cab” for cabriolet, and “bus” for omnibus; we have reconciled ourselves to the loss of the subjunctive in N conditional sentences (“if it be,” “though it happen” consent to “wire,” noun and verb, and to “cable,” noun and verb, in matters telegraphic; as for “marconigram,” it had never a chance, and everybody plumps for “wireless.” These things beirm so, it is useless making a stand against “tote” and “phone” and “bike.” English has happily dropped a number of inflexions that burden other languages ancient and modern. Other simplifications may come, — the law of “least action” still operates. All language is in flux, savs Horace; and Horace speaks with authority. Considering his date and upbringing, he was of a preternatural acuteness in these matters. Words are like the leaves of the forest, he says; some fall, others appear; even the forms that arq now in honour may bo dropped, “si volet usus”—if custom should will it. I agree: the thing is so. But I mav dislike what I can’t resist; it is permitted rne to be a Die-hard and a Last-Ditcher, consoling myself if I can with the many happy things to be done with words as we have them. For instance : For Sale—2o-year-old calves reared on Fatten-’em’s Calf Meal. They are fine and robust. Always use Fatten’om’s. Agreed. I will use no other. Fatten- em appears to have penetrated the secret of perpetual youth. Again, the solar eclipse as observed in South Otago, where they seem to have had an eclipse of their own. Elsewhere in New Zealand partial, in South Otago the eclipse was total, though invisible. At 5 o’clock last evening it was quite possible to view the partially eclipsed sun, but at the hour of total eclipse the sun was obscured. As might bo expected. Visible or invisible, the sun in a total eclipse is usually obscured. Givis. 1