THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18723, 29 November 1922, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By W/TFABES.

Champagne Luncheon Provided. “.Sixty Years Ago,” O.D.T. This, all this, was in the olden time, long ago.”—(E. A. Poo.) Who would not bo a “laudator tcmporis acti,” a wistful lover of the bravo days of old, —delectable days of the Dunstan diggings, and (ho “new iniquity,” and free champagne luncheons at auction sales.—no. not auction sales, but sales “by public competition.” They did themselves with, gusto in those vanished sixties. Wo live (if live we do) in a degenerate era. No doubt, much has been accomplished since November 25, 1862. Scan a newspaper of to-day, and you will find indications of boons and blessings of which our sires and grandsircs never dreamed,—Shipping Hold-up, League of Nations, Cost of Living Bonus, The Labour Party, “Pussyfoot” Johnson, Mr Lloyd George, The Common Round. But you will scan in vain for an announcement of “champagne luncheon provided.” You would be more likely to find “Bring a basket.” Across the many years, with retrospective admiration, I salute the largehearted vendor, John Hyde Harris, Esq., sometime Superintendent of Otago. To his memory, and to the memory of J. Daniels and Co., the firm of auctioneers “honoured with” his instructions, I quaff my chain. — my sham ginger-ale. “The North Island is now in a largo minority aa regards representation. Wlu'wt only thirty-seven members come from that part of the country, the South sends fiftyone members (o this House.” Thus Mr S. T. George, member for Rodney (where is Rodney?) in the House of Representatives on November 4, 1879. The passage makes rather painful reading for us Southrops.. in the year of grace 1922, when the North returns forty-six members and the South only inirty. Where are they, those Southern electorates of lorty-three years ago — Coleridge, Geraldine, Gladstone, Waimea, Cheviot, Dunstan, Ashley, Akaroa, Waikouaiti Oaversham, Tuapeka, Mount Ida, ColJingwood, Sehvyn, Roslyn, Heathcote, Taieri, Riverton, I'icton, Waikaia? ''-one, all gone, with the songs of Spying "nd the snows of yesteryear. Regarded as constituencies, they are wan, pathetic phantoms, wraiths of past importance, helpless victims sacrificed on the altar of Northern acquisitiveness. Bruce was last to go J”'--cd, its ghost lingers in the, present lists,— ‘Clutha (absorbing Bruce).” Sic transit gloria.

“Quite a few,” —a delicious “derangement of epitaphs” frequently to be met with in New Zealand newspapers. It is as though one were to describe something as being “distinctly indistinct” or “definitely dubious.” “Quite” is precise, express, absolute; “a few” is vague and indeterminate,—and never the twain should meet. “Almost unique” is a term which has a somewhat similar quality though perhaps it is not so i patently incongruous. It might • possibly be applicable to a phenomenon which had appeared only once before. By the way, “quite a number” is asi occasional variant of “quite a few.” How many does it take to constitute “a number”? I recently came across a phrase—“ The Destiny of the Press,” given as a toast at some journalistic function, which reminded me of a story almost old enough to be new again. Some forty-five years ago, when that notorious malefactor, Charles Peace, was executed at Leeds, the small company around the scaffold included three or four representatives of the so-called Fourth Estate. To (his little band the departing culprit, towards the close of his valedictory speech, ceremoniously turned. “Gentlemen of the Press, I think?” ho remarked with a shade of interrogation; and then, after a pause, with the slow, grave emphasis of conviction—“ Gentlemen, we shall meet again.” Let ns raise our glasses and pledge “.The Destiny of the Press.” Also, if you like, “Peace, perfect Peace.” “Private Diaries of Sir Algernon West,” published in September, is evidently a book to bo read. The diarist was Unofficial Secretary to Gladstone (“the Prime Minister’s Prime Minister”) during the term of the great man’s fourth and final Government. lie was a hero-worshipper, but there is an element of judicial candour in some of his observations. .For instance, ho notes the “vein of hardness” in his chief’s nature. I was saying to Welby how, when old, a man does not seem to fool the death of his friends, and told him how, when I went down to Hastings, after Lord Granville’s death, Mr Gladstone talked about it sadly for ten minutes or so and then apparently put it aside, as you would a book one had closed. Welby said his experiences after F. Cavendish’s death were the same, and put it down to Mr Gladstone’s looking on life as a battlefield. A general in battle lost his A.D.C.’s, but could not bo overwhelmed by their Joss. The closing clays of the G.O.M.’s protracted public career were embittered by serious disagreements with some of Ins most prominent Cabinet colleagues, but the fate of his eyeglasses was the really tragic matter. Mr Gladstone considered that ho had never had to deal with such troublesome young men; “never before had he had such personal difficulties as those with Harconrt, Rosebery, and John Morloy in lii is Govern mon t. ” These periods of excitement [said Gladstone] are very distressing, for in my interview with tlarcourt I broke one pair of glosses, and in my interview with .Spencer another pair, and then lost a third !

The Times remark's that. Ibsen might have been glad to claim those words for one of his grandiose egoists. “These are my troubles, Mr Wesley !” Talking of diaries: Mrs Asquith—the mercurial and mischievous Margot is “at it’ again. The serial publication of the second part of her autobiography commenced in the Sunday Times on October 1. (A clipping from Punch may be inserted at this point. Would that the accompanying picture could also be reproduced ! Farmer: “Ay, she be eighty-nine an’ a wunnerful ole woman; but she do suffer from delusions terrible.’’ Parson: “Oh, what are they?’’ Farmer : “She thinks she's got. a diary wots goin’ to be published in the Sunday noospapers.”) Even after struggling conscientiously with a prejudice, against Margotisrn, I am constrained to say that there is nothing specially interesting in the opening chapters of tins sequel. Of a lady I would never say, “D—----her I’s!’’ but the “I” clement is provokingly persistent. The Elizabeths of Dunedin may he entertained by a passage anent the naming of the first, baby:— After reading a life of Goethe’s mother I thought that if over I had a girl I would call her Elizabeth. Had my choice been M ary Jane, baby’s name could not have been more condemned. I could not have handicapped her from the. start by calling her “Margot,” and personally I love the name Elizabeth. In Hebrew it means “God is my covenant” ; Eli—God; Shnbcth —Covenant. It is reminiscent of old houses, finely-mown lawns, and valueless pictures, and has a kind of square grace which will work well in the future, whether she is plain or pretty. Apropos to strikes, and particularly to Miss M’Swiney’s hunger-strike (which denotes a family idiosyncracy), it may ho mentioned that. Mrs Hinkson (Katherine Tynan), in her now hook “The Wandering Years,” tells of an Irish cook in London who relieved her outraged feelings by promptly downing tools on its being reported that, someone at the dinner table had doubled whether (Lord Mayor) M'Swiney's fast was genuine. Another passage lias a more thought stirring quality: They had all gone to see tile funeral of Terence MacSwmey—that strange pageant in a foreign city, passing through the incredibly tolerant London crowd, who were hats off as it passed. If it [London] had boon more intolerant one might have hoped more. . . . Oh, if we could only make them angry ! Mrs Hinkson can claim to have done her best to provoke the stolid Londoner to irascibility. She held up long queues of customers in a Kensington bank while she discoursed on the wrongs of Ireland to the polite officials, behind the counter; but no! the impeded crowd perversely refused to he made angry: adding insult to injury, they wore “iidcrohtod and appreciative.” Well, since that time, the onus of governing (he distressful country has been transferred from Dublin to the 'Flee ffiafe Government., which appears to be not quite incapable of anger. Mrs Ilink sov tells a good story of the Marquis of Linlithgow. At a miner’s meeting which ho was addressing, a very big and ugly miner got up and inquired: “Whaur did ye get ver blinkin’ land, Hopetoun?” “Same as you got your blinkin’ face—from Daddy.”