PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19505, 13 June 1925, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

Our new Governor-General finds himself very much at homo in Otago. Though not the land of brown heath and shaggy wood whence he derives, Otago is the nearest thing to it in this hemisphere. The original ‘‘old identities,” Scots in blood and bone, brought Scotland with them—its language, its traditions, its pride of race, its instinct for education and for “cultivating the Muses on a little oatmeal," its Galvanism, and its devotion to 'Robert Burns. They also brought an inherited faculty of adding one bawbee to another. Under any sky where you have these things you have Scotland, or an authentic piece of it. In Otago the '‘old identity” stock lias perforce accepted alien elements, but not so that the salt has lost its savour. Quite otherwise, —it has savoured the lump. By the side of the “old identity” the intruding Englishman has been Scotticised somewhat, and —which is a harder thing —even the malcontent Irishman who is by nature ‘‘agin the Government.” Both have at least learned to add one bawbee to another. English Scottish, Irish, we arc now all one people, the Scottish savour and flavour predominating; and Sir Charles Fergusson when “in our midst”—as the Scottish pulpit phrase is—may quite easily think himself among his “ain folk.” Lot it be permitted me to say without suspicion of impertinence that our new Governor is good to look at, and good to listen to. Also ho is of good principles — has ho not, as he says, been all his life a soldier? For the soldier, principle is summed up in “service before self.” This was the text and burden of the Governor’s “sermon”—-his own word —to the Returned Soldiers’ Association. In compliment to their military service, he came to them in the full fig of a general’s uniform, good to see; but his talk was simple and familiar—nothing of the “brass hat,” not didactic even, but merely a comrade’s talk about matters that speakers and hearers alike held in esteem —esprit do corps, or regard for “the honour of the regiment,” discipline, and duty. Here Sir Charles might have quoted Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty,” and if ho had been a hardened pulpit sermoniser probably he would: Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead’s most benignant grace; Nor know wo anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their hods, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. The stars in their courses are true to duty, or the most ancient heavens would all go wrong. At the official reception, the Mayor of Dunedin, always equal to the hour, welcomed their Excellencies with a dignity and grace befitting Iris office, said the proper things and, in addition, imparted some valuable statistical information touching the history, growth, and wealth of the city. Lord, gie us a gude conceit of oorscls! With these proceedings may be bracketed an incident of the early days for which I have to thank a correspondent : A certain town up Central way had just risen to the dignity of a borough. The Mayor and councillors were duly elected. Shortly after they had assumed office the now Governor was due to arrive. Intense excitement prevailed. Elaborate arrangements were made to entertain the distinguished visitor. The Mayor, more at homo amongst the cows and pigs than sitting in tho civic chair, prepared with great pains and much scratching of head a fitting speech of welcome, which he learned by heart and decided to render as if it were impromptu. • The Governor arrived. The Mayor, so ho thought, was ready for the occasion. “Your Excellency! We are delighted to welcome you. Er-or-er-or—-and how is the Governess? Wo hope she is well. Er-or-er-er-or—ah ! Como and have a drink!” Nothing could have put the new Governor more completely at his case. An official reception,—yes, and a shining success. Commenting on tho deportation of Lyons from Now Zealand, tho Federal Solicitor-General (Sir Robert Garran) said that Australia under its own migration laws had power to refuse to admit anyone who was not an Australian citizen. Ho considered that once having accepto<l a deportee ns a passenger tho responsibility for petting rid of or keeping him meanwhile lay with the shipping company,—(Melbourne cable, Juno 8.) Unhappy shipping companies! They are to carry about the undesirable deportee as the Ancient Mariner carried the albatross he bad shot, —slung round bis neck. The alternative is a game of battledore and shuttlecock—New Zealand sending the undesirable back to tho place from which ho came, and the place from which ho came sending him back to New Zealand. And so on, repeating da capo. Humorous this, but uneconomic and unsatisfying. Dante’s Inferno has a special limbo for undesirables—within the entrance gate that bears tho tremendous inscription, “All hope abandon ye who enter hero,” but on tho hither shore o e dismal Acheron, where Charon ferries across the souls bound for the nether pit. Here are collected the betwixt-and-be-tweens, rejected alike by heaven and hell. Cacciarli i Ciel per non esser men belli, Ke lo profondo inferno gli ricevo. . . . but we had better resort to the translators, Carey or Longfellow,—Longfellow for choice: — The heavens expelled them, not to be loss fair; Nor them tho nethermore abyss receives, For glory none the damned would have from them. If this resource is not available, I suggest that we maroon our undeportable deportee at the Chatham Islands, even at the risk of his getting up a ham-and-eggs revolution among the Marions. A warship might take him there. From Owaka Valley: Dear “Givis,” —You must really stop baiting “Pussyfoot” in your column; it is beginning to trickle into our Primary Schools. For instance, yesterday I got this from one of my pupils in an essay on tho death of Arcito the Athenian: “Tho beer was carried by tho noblest men of Athens.” Nothing very wrong, perhaps. The bier with an “i” and the beer with double “ee” would both bo there. Funeral bakemeats and funeral drinks are of immemorial origin. When tho Athenians didn’t drink beer they drank wine. Another ingenuous howler comes from an Australian Sunday School. After a lesson to a. class of girls on the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the teacher asked, “What do we learn from this beautiful story?” Prompt answer bv one of the girls; •‘Each of us must look out for a bridegroom.” In this frivolous connection I mav bring in one or two more oddities. First, a. new specimen of the New Poetry; This I believe: that if I do not will the Universe stands still. I and those of whom I am the part built it and changed it in oe'.r heart, not out of mud, nor stone, nor seas, but out of that in which all these begin, are all, and naught—the deep desiring thought. Note the music of it, the grace, the rhythm, the profundity of thought, the mystic incomprehensibility. There are three verses, but when yon have read one you have read tho lot. This conundrum appears in a respectable London paper under the heading “Poetry.” Next, we have all heard of “the most eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience.” Take in compensation this story fresh from Scotland; Two ministers were present at an important function. One of them was asked to say grace. The other was much chagrined at being ignored, and, thinking to avenge himself, remarked: “Dr APTavish, I did not, hear what you said.” “My remark- were not addressed to you,” was the reply. Next, in correction of the nnhygcnic practice of complimenting a lady by drinking from the glass from which she lias firstsipped.—as in Scott’s “Lochinvar : The bride hissed the goblet the knight took it np Ho quaffed off the wino—etc. etc.

Tlie late King Edward, when Brinco «1 Wales, visiting a lancv lair, was minded to drink a cup of tea, "How much to pay';’’ lie asked the young lady at the stall. She, mincingly, after putting the cup to her lips, 'Tlali-a-guinea —now! “Here’s a guinea, ’’ said the Prince; "and give mo a clean cup.” In two little letters to the Editor (Daily Times of Tuesday) I am rebuked on two widely different counts, first, that I fail to recognise the pure and elevated teaching given in Socialist Sunday Schools; next, that I am equally blind to the Ixjauties of the Moffatt Bible, its music and poetic rhythm, and the new light it sheds on almost every verse. Tire first complainant has personally visited a Socialist Sunday School and seen nothing amiss. It is the case of Sam Weller in the witness box at the Bardell trial when asked from tire bench if ho oonld sec his father, Mr Weller senior, who had interrupted the Court from somewhere in the back. “If you could point him out I would commit him at once,” said the angry Judge. “No, my lord, I don’t see him,” said Sam, staring right up into the lantern in tho roof of the Court. In like manner, I suppose, one might look hero and there in a Socialist Sunday School, yet fail to discover a catechism of this tenor: Question; Whnt is God? Answer: God is a word used to designate an imaginary being which people of themselves have devised. Question; Is it true that God has over been revealed? Answer: As there is no God, ho could not reveal himself. Question: Who is Jesus Christ? Answer: Jesus Christ was tire son of a Jewish girl called Mary. Question; Is he tho son of God? Answer: There is no God, therefore there can bo no God’s son. Question; Is it tine that after Christ’s death the apostles received tho Holy Ghost? Answer; It is not. The apostles had imbibed too freely of wine, and their dizzy heads imagined all sorts of queer things. As to the other count in the indictment, my indifference to tho beauties cl the Moffatt Bible, its music and its poetic rhythm, well, after all, those are questions of taste. Nobocly argues on questions of taste; each man is a law unto himself. Argument would have been thrown away on the old woman that kissed her cow. It was a matter of taste. My compliments to these amiable critics whose letters to the Daily Times stand side by side, tho apologist for Socialist Sunday Schools and the apologist for tho Moffatt’Bible—at one in antipathy to Givis, hut in all else so little of accord that if they could got at each other they would he ready, metaphorically, to cut each other’s throats, —my compliments to both. And now let the heathen rage, or, as Dr Moffatt prefers, let the pagans seethe. Seething has to do with cooking and a pot; but no, —this Is the new light shed on almost every verse! “Whv are tho pagans seething?’’ Clever Dr Moffatt! Civis.