THE COMMON ROUND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19550, 5 August 1925, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND.

By Wayfarer. "AD spring through till the spring is ever, All things feast in the spring’s guest chamber.” Perhaps it is a shade early to bo taking the presence of spring for granted. The seasonal periods are not fixed like the laws of the Medes and Persians. They are not settled by Act of Parliament or by Order-in-Council. Handsome is as handsome does, and for most of ns spring begins when we feel the spring stirring in heart and blood and bone. But there is a pretty general assumption that vernal conditions get going in New Zealand on the first of August; and it must be admitted that this year’s experience has not been disappointing. The air still bites shrewdly at times, and the inevitable pessimist warns us that we must expect another rough spell,—“there is always bad weather in the first or second week in August.” But let the pessimist perish in his croaking. My faith is large m the August of 1925; and anyhow, come fair or foul, I have done my annual duty by the opening of the spring season. “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” The beaches and other pleasant places are already refrequented, and “two to St. Clair” will soon again be a common order on the evening trams. Apropos to spring and its gracious influences, Wordsworth, observed: — "One impulse from a vernal wood Will teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.” The stanza wag thus rendered by an Indian schoolboy at a viva voce examination: "One in pulse from an infernal wood Will eat you more of man. Of moral he will an of good Than all they say she can.” This, it seems, was on the occasion that Master Mahamahophyaya Lakhumalani Barrackgungeirallah (“aged eighteen and the father of four legitimate children’ ) contributed an ingenious variation of a line in the Ancient Mariner, as recently cited in this column. “So did the bloody moon!” you remember. My thanks are due to a friend for the loan of an entertaining and instructive volume of Indian stories—“ Dew and Mildew,” hy Percival Christopher Wren—in which (with a serious purpose) these yams are included. The satire of the chapters describing the system of baboo-conducted schools under the auspices of the British Government is deliciously pungent. “It is the funniest parody of education since the days of Mr Squeers.” I could quote moreend perhaps shall.

A Belleknowes resident encloses an extract from “Sixty Years Ago,” and invites me to comment upon the dictum of the late Mr J. H. Barr, a municipal candidate of the period, that “it was highly desirable that a Town Hall should be erected .—a building where public meetings and assemblies of all descriptions could be held, capable of containing at least one thousand persons. . . •” Perhaps his own remarks are sufficient without comment on my part: I understand that there is a movement afoot for another poll to bo taken, after the Exhibition closes, anent the Town Hall. I trust, on reflection, the ratepayers as a whole will reverse their last decision, and carry the proposal by a very large

majority. Mr J. H. Barr headed the poll in High Ward, but the three score years have passed without realisation of his advocacy of a Town Hall and a municipal market. True, there is a so-called Town Hall,—a fine building it is, too, only lacking a hall. Some day, the citizens will adopt the old O.D.T. motto —“Inveniam viam aut faciam.”

Yesterday was the Fourth of August, the day of the outbreak of the Great War, the day on which Britons in the compass of the seven seas used to renew the pledge of the solemn league and covenant. “We shall not resheath the sword, which wo have not lightly drawn, until . . . How near and yet how far the once familiar Asquith formula seems to-day! The old war dates must pass into desuetude as regards public observance, Anzao Day and perhaps Armistice Day surviving, but in thousands of personal memories there is no forgetfulness. The fourth of August, 1914, and more specially the succeeding days when the first contingents were going away, will live for many and many a year in the minds of living soldiers and the friends of the dead. Those thronged platforms and trains! those poignant farewells and cries of au rcvqir! all the tragic tingle of nervous excitement and exaltation! .“Now, God bo praised who matched us with this hour!” Yes, the Fourth of August should preserve its place of patriotic honour. And in the end we won the war —or is that merely a patriotic heresy?

The ex-Crown Prince’s latest pronouncements, as reported by cable, scarcely harmonise with what he and his ex-almighty sire had to say in August, 1914. “Britain and Germany are natural and logical allies.” It is true that they might have been allies in 1914 and “flourished together as in the past” if British honour could have waived that little matter of the “scrap of paper.” The triumph of such an alliance over France and Belgium would have been sure, —sure and ignoble and damnable. “There still exists in England an unnatural prejudice against Germany.” No ; not unnatural. The wonder is that the feeling of resentment has lost so much of its intensity. It may be good “to forgive wrongs darker than death or night,” but there are wrongs which cannot be wholly forgiven in 11 years. Moreover, with Hindenburg at the head of affairs, and the ■ Doom recluse preaching the gospel of Hohenzollem restoration as the only hope of Germany, there is not much encouragement to easy confidence. But just a closing word of sympathy. There is a genuine touch of pathos here: Protesting against the fate that prevents him from travelling, the ex-Crown Prince said: “How I envy the Prince of Wales. Lucky fellow! He. goes where and when ho pleases. I would like to see the world, but I cannot.” The ex-Crown Prince could never have achieved the prestige of the Prince of Wales, —charm was always lacking,—but he might have had full liberty to “see the world,” if he had behaved himself.

“Civics should be absorbed through the pores of the boys’ skins. That formerly was the case, and he hoped that it still was.” Thus Mr James Begg at a High School reunion on Monday. The sentiment commands approval. In my schooldays—“in my hot youth when George the Third was King”—we wot little of civics, but we took in a lot of other knowledge “through the pores of the skin.” Some of us would have been life-long dunces (or untutored geniuses) but for the pedagogic ferule. “We carved our names on every desk, And tore our clothes and inked our collars, And looked unique and picturesque, But not, it may be, model scholars. . . . And bore, by turns, the wholesome cane, Till our young skins became like leather.” Education through the pores! The system has stood the test of the ages, and many a day will pass before it is finally superseded, let the visionary theorists and tender sentimentalists say what they may.

“It was resolved to forward hearty congratulations to the city upon the attainment of its sixtieth anniversary,”—at the St. Kilda Borough Council meeting on Monday night. A pleasant sentiment, marked by a spirit of aloof condescension. At the same moment, as it were, Sir John Roberts, at the Somerset Lounge, was expressing a hope that St; Kilda would soon amalgamate with the city, and another speaker, in more subtle fashion, referred to “a suburb, thrust like a wedge into the vitals of the city, which, with motherly indulgence, placed it in the amenities that enabled it to retain the independent status tha + ' was regarded by it with so much jealous pride.” I spy the prospect of controversial conveisauon at St. Kilda the week after nest.