THE COMMON ROUND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19261, 27 August 1924, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND.

Bi Warfares. For the last few days wo have boon inhabitin'; Mars, at. least in wistful imagination, optimistically hoping to establish an inter-astral comity, not to say a League of Stars. The astronomical experts have clone their -very best, but it has to bo admitted that up to date the results have hcon disappointing. As a newspaper headline truthfully puls it, “ the Martians preserve silence ” ; and a continuance of this churlish taciturnity may lead to unpleasantness. If they won’t say “how-d’ye-do?” to us after all our polite endeavours, wo shall be disposed to leave them to their own sullen devices. We read of “dots” —“ curious noises, harsh long dots in groups at irregular intervals,”—but apparently they are not more intelligible to anxious observers than were the “ little damned dots ” of the decimal kind which a Treasury official placed under the wondering eye of Lord Randolph Churchill, newly ensconced as Chancellor of the Exchequer. And now, it may bo supposed. Mars is off again on its travels, maintaining the perennial attitude of unfaltering insolent disdainOnce upon a time, in the dear dead days beyond recall, the bright humours incident to suburban council meetings ranked among the choicest of local amenities. Amalgamation, working on lines of dull utilitarianism, has almost robbed us of the old joy. Where are the representatives of the exclusive, self-contained municipalities of South Dunedin. Caversham. Koslyn. Mornington, North-East Valley, who “drank delight of battle with their poors’’ when the looks were still thick and brown upon my head ? Gone with the snows of yesteryear, —gone like so many blessed things which we did not properly appreciate when they were with us. “Oh 1 while my brother with mo played, would I had loved him more!” But let us cling the more tenaciously to what is left to us. Wo still have the St. Kilda Corporation. standing out in solitary but proud independence, over the graves, as it were, of its defunct associates. As regards St. Kilda, I am a pronounced anti-amalgama-tionist. Let this last relic of self-govern-ment bo preserved to us, if only in the interests of the common gaiety. “I will roar you as gently as any sucking Dove,’ says Bottom in the play,—though Shakespeare may not have used the big D. The motion was carried, the Deputymayor (Cr Dove) using both his votes and making the voting six for and five against. Cr Longworth (to the chair); By Jove, you’re pretty hotl Cr Dove; I’m quite within my rights, and I am acting according to precedent. “By Jove, you’re pretty hot!’’ It is a phrase worth bearing in mind as a “precedent,” though Mr Speaker Statham would cry, “Order ! Order !”

“Mummy, what a lot of adjectives that man knows remarked a little girl on (he way home from church, where a preacher of the flowery persuasion had given a free rein to his rhetorical propensities. And what a lot of weird words of wondrous length and thunderous sound — adjectives and substantives and verbs—the scientific pundits of the present day do invent, to be sure! There is “paidocentralism,” for instance; and there are also bnthophobia and sideroromophobda. “Paidocentralism,” we are informed by an eminent visitor from abroad, is the centering of interest in the individual rather than in the subject. , An excellent theory, no doubt, but as regards its practicability it might be interesting to have the views of a Dunedin teacher in charge of a class of over TO pupils. As regards sideroromophobia. etc., consider this explanatory posy, culled from another source: Science has discovered that the sense of fear, when it become intensified, tends to produce a well-marked condition known in medical term as a phobia. There are agoraphobia, or fear in crowds; monophobia, or fright of being in a confined space; anthrophobia, or fright of society; bathophobia, or fright of things falling; sideroromophobia, or fright of railway travelling.

I am not consciously suffering from any of these forms of morbid apprehension, but I have my own fearful malady, to which some pseudo-scholarly scientist might kindly give a name, framed on sideroromophobic lines. The chief symptom is a dread of words comprising more than seven syllables.

A correspondent, properly anxious to supply suitable material for this column, asks why the mothers of Otago should be antagonistic towards the astronomical research fulness of the Otago .Institute. The query has its origin in the terms of a newspaper advertisement.

Otago institute ASTRONOMICAL BRANCH.

OPPOSITION OF MARS. Weather permitting, the Observatory (near Rattray street tramline) will be open to the public on Friday and Saturday Evenings from 7to 9. Admission to nonmembers 6d. Children under 12 must be accompanied.

A little far-fetched, perhaps,—all the wav from Mars, in fact,—but you see the point. Don’t say you do see it if you don’t. I myself was dense for a moment. Mars and Ma’s. Quite sure you see now? Then all’s Jake; that’s that. By the way, it is a sound proposition that children under 12 should be “accompanied" at evening entertainments —if not by younger children, then by their unscientific Mas. Opportunities of overcoming maternal “opposition" to astronomical studies, and of widening the genera] outlook of the “Ma” mind, bo to speak, should not be neglected. Of course, it is not always advisable for a young person to invite his or her mother to form one of the party. First Flapper: “What sort of play is it? rather risks', I am told.” Second Flapper,: “Not particularly eo. Still it is hardly the sort of thing you would take your mother to see.”

Smoko? ‘T smoke something like 10 cigarettes a day, and each time I take a match from this holder I will be reminded of the returned soldiers of Christchurch," said Lord Jellicoo, in acknowledging a presentation of a greenstone match-holder, made to him at the ox-servicemen’a farewell Ton a day may not be an exorbitant allowance, but it is ample. Indeed, the doctor who consumes 20 or 30 “fags” per diem might advise the GovernorGeneral to moderate his allowance. Moral precisians might deprecate the implied endorsement of what thd* greatest of contemporary cranks, Bernard Shaw, terms “a dirty, doping, and demoralising habit.” Even I, exclusively addicted to the harmless necessary pipe, am an carnpst member of the righteous company of anti-cigarette preachers, and naturally resent the suggestion that I am also .of the company of those who i“compound for sins they are inclined for by damning those they have no mind for.”

Taking my periodic penitentiary purview of the plethoric pages of Hansard, I thought for a moment that I had Mr J. W. Munro entirely with mo in regard to this matter of tobacco. In the debate on the Financial Statement the member for Dunedin North said: “I wish to put in a protest on behalf of the working classes who are consumers of tobacco. I do not care if yon reduce your tariff on cigars, hut we want cheap tobacco. It may be a luxury; it may even he doing injury; but wo have- got to recognise that the working man is the greatest user of tobacco. You may say, ‘Well, he need not smoke; nobody compels him to use tobacco.’ Certainly, that is so. Nobody compels ns to do many things. It might bo said that you could live on bread and water, and you might live on water for a considerable period, oven without the bread.” Sound social philosophy and common sense; and I, as a working man, began to regard Mr Munro as a veritable Daniel come to judgment. But, alas ! all of a sudden ho let. mo down sadly. “I say." he concluded, “that the Customs taxation on tobacco, and especially cigarettes, is absolutely un justified to-day.’’ “Especially cigarettes,” forsooth. Viscount Jellicoo may agree; but, oven so, with duo loyalty, not I.

“At this stage of the discussion it is very difficult to find new topics upon which to speak. The subject has now been threshed out for about ten days, and the main points are getting somewhat threadbare.” With that candid remark Mr Edie. member for Clutha, commenced his speech in the Financial Debate; and then, instead of suiting the action to the word and sitting down, ho proceeded to rc-thresh the grainbare straw to (he tune of 15 Hansard columns. We know now why it is that these conventional cnrroborecs attain such a dreary and wearv length. It is because some members stolidly insist on speaking on subject* about which there is nothing left to say. Rut let criticism have an impartial range. Let Labourite and Liberal and Reformer share alike. If Mr Munro is unsound on cigarettes, and if Mr Edie does not fully appreciate the golden virtue of silence, the Prime, Minister is too lax in observance of parliamentary regulations. There were some interruptions while Mr Pldie was engaged in his re-threshing. Twice the warning word of ‘ Order” came from the Chair, but even

then Mr Massoy ventured upon an additional remark, and Mr Speaker administered a pointed reproof: "I must remind honourable membors that when the Houso is called to order it is very disorderly for members to continue to interject. It 13 practically defying the. Chair."