PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20330, 11 February 1928, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

There’s a divinity doth hedge c king, and there is a barbed-wire convention that protects the judge on the Bench against trial by newspaper, it is only a" convention or general agreement, lackir. statutory sanction, but armed with barbed wir~ in the possibility that his Honor might commit you for contempt. At the moment, however, we have a judicial deliverance in these nns: “ It is quite right and proper that the sentences of a judge should be subject to the criticism of newspapers.” What can a newspaper man do but agree? There are judges who actually invite criticism within the walls of the court itself. A witticism from the Bench, what is it but a bid for “laughter in court”? and laughter is criticism —favourable criticism. There is an opposite pole. It is told of an English judge that he bore himself to counsel “ in the manner of the Almighty to a black beetle. Judicial austerity, if you please, —with criticism spoken or unspoken to follow. After the jocose and the austere, a third variety, the forcible-feeble, for which turn up the classical case of_ Bardell versus Pickwick. IB’ Winkle, called as a witness, enters the box, is duly sworn and then bows to the judge with considerable deference. “ Don’t look at me, Sir,” said the judge sharply, in acknowledging the salute; “ look at the jury.” The examination begins; —what was his name ? “ Winkle,” replied the witness. “What’s your Christian name, Sir?” angrily inquired the little judge. “ Nathaniel, Sir.” “Daniel, —any other name? “Nathaniel, Sir —my Lord, I mean.” . . “Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel?” . “No, my Lord, only Nathaniel—not Daniel at all.” “What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, Sir?” inquired the judge, ~ “ I didn’t my Lord, replied Mr Winkle. , . , “You did, Sir,” replied the judge with a severe frown. “ How could 1 have got Daniel on my notes unless you told me so, Sir? ” “Mr Winkle has, rather a short memory, my Lord,” interposed the examining lawyer, with a glance at the jury. “ We shall find means to refresh it before we have quite done with him, I daresay.” “ You had better be careful. Sir,” said the little judge, with a sinister look at the witness. Poor Mr Winkle bowed, and endeavoured to feign an easiness of manner, which, in his then state oi confusion, gave him rather the air of a disconcerted pickpocket. Broad caricature, and caricature is criticism, what else? Here in New Zealand ive have a judge who amiably bids us judge his judgments and try his cases over again. Thanks. But it behoves us to do our spiriting gently. Let there be no speaking evil of dignities. Mr Justice Shallow belongs to the Shakespeare century, not to ours. Ben trovato is the story of the provincial mayor who “ leaned neither to partiality nor impartiality,” and whose magisterial homily to the petty larcenist was, “ You had kind parents and a good education; instead of which you go about stealing ducks.” An absurdity may be “ ben trovato,” a happy invention, good for the later stages of a_Bar dinner. But no one would attribute these absu dities to a wearer of the wig and gown, nor even to s chairman of quarter sessions. Deride the judicial Bench! —to-day it is easier to deride the bench of bishops. During the Prayer Book debate in the House of Lords the Bishop of Durham, flourishing a pamphlet and leaflet specimens put forth by the “ Protestant underworld,” turned to the Primate and said, “Pardon me, your Grace, but you are here described as ‘the silly Archbishop of Canterbury;’ and you pardon me, your Grace,” turning to the other head of the Church, “ are ‘ the pompous and swell-headed Archbishop of York.’ ” “ Blasphemous and gross ” these utterances he said, doubtless wondering at himself that he had the courage to quote them. The parties to the Prayer Book dispute have not come to the stake and faggot stage, but an outsider might think them not far from it. With pomp and circumstance, albeit amid wreck and ruin, the Kaiser that was, the exile of Doom that is, has celebrated a birthday, his sixty-ninth. The ex-Crown Prince was there, to mourn the lost heritage and deepen the family gloom; there were monarchists also, satellites in the past, a forlorn hope for the future. It would have been better for the Kaiser in retreat if his St. Helena had been hidden away in some distant ocean. An exile that is merely across the frontier, next door, so to speak, leaves tantalising possibilities. Daily a German post, daily the German newspapers, daily it may be a German visitor, and daily, it may be again, the telephone. I don’t suppose the Doom household is denied a telephone ; and the telephone may be in touch with any and every part of Germany. It is a case of “ Thou art so near, and yet so far,”—a situation trying to the nerves. And, from his childhood’s days, William of Hohenzollern had never any great command over his nerves. Miss Stanley, sister of the Dean of Westminster, tells of his behaviour at the marriage of his uncle, the Prince of Wales:— Only one member of the Royal Family was a little restive, and that was little Prince William of Prussia, who was committed to the care of Prince Leopold, his uncle, a few years older. I saw his mother put out her hand in a rebuking manner, and I saw Prince Leopold take him by the shoulders. Afterwards I heard that in answer to the Queen’s inquiry if he had been good, the answer was, “ Oh, no, he was biting us all the time.” Characteristic, and prophetic. But now, at three score years and ten or thereabouts, there is nothing he may break his teeth upon but the iron fetters of perpetual exile. When the bus has displaced the city tramcar, and the trolley has put the district railway out of business, we shall seem to have advanced backward. Other forms of retroverted progress await us. The oil-driven trolley may give place in its turn to waggon and horses. English papers are discussing the Return of the Native ;—for certainly the horse is more germane to the soil than any mechanical contraption of the machine shops. Horse traction is more economical than motor traction on the farm, and even in city streets where traffic is necessarily slow. There is the question of economy, and there is the question of {esthetics. The Northern Farmer thinks with dismay of the innovator who will come after him “ wi’ 'is kittle o’ steam, huzzin’ an’ maazin’ the blessed fealds wi’ the Devil’s oan team. ” No better than the kittle o’ steam, or worse, is the tin of stinking petrol. Even on the farm aesthetics count ; still more on the racecourse and in the hunting field. Picture Wingatui or Forbury a track for competing motors and trolleys! The Prince of Wales never feels himself better than when he has a good horse under him in the rapture of a gallop over the stubble and the plough, over hedges and ditches, at the hazard of his neck. The day of the horse is not done. Farm-yard Dobbin will come again. The hunter and the racer have never lost their hold, nor ever will. Noticed in the English press are two hooks by Scottish writers who affirm in concert that the condition of Scotland is deplorable, and is going from bad to worse. It is an ill bird that fyles it s own nest. 1 avoid advertising names and titles, but lift up my hands in wonder at the queer notion that Scotland suffers from the prevalence and pernicious effects of Porridge and Puritanism, twin evils. The question of Puritanism may be remitted to Presbyteries far and near; of Porridge we are told that it ” has never

given us anything but a high tuberculous death rate.” Unbelievable! The coast towns of Scotland and its islands up and down, where porridge and fish are the staple fare, produce a type of manhood that the luxury regions of Europe cannot produce—the South of France and the Riviera, for example, lands of the vine and the olive, where wine is as water and truffles may be a daily delicacy Have you ever eaten a truffle? No? Neither hav e I, except in spirit. Mr Stephen Gwynn, who has written much about Southern Europe, tempts mo to a quotation : About truffles. They are harvested in November; pip's dip them out from under oak trees, the pig being specially trained; a pig of talent fetches largo money. The animal is provided vyith a wire muzzle to assist in his digging, and also to prevent his eating the tuber when he gets it. It is about the size of a potato; some will weigh nearly a pound, and, consequently, be worth about 40 francs. The pig, when he finds, has to put up with a handful of maize for encouragement. This is a digression. Igo back to say that for the production of thews and sinews I should not choose the land of the truffle, but the land of the porridge pot, Caledonis stern and wild, even though under the handicap of Puritanism. The weekly press of the British I.L.P. —lndependent Labour Party—is like the troubled sea that cannot rest, casting up mire and dirt. The self-respecting journalist who for his sins must flounder therein and wade through it pities himself. In Parliament the I.L.P.’s are Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s mutinous Left Wing—Socialists, Communists, Anarchists perhaps, friends of the Soviet, but not always and altogether friends of each other, still less of theii nominal leader. The cables tell of a Communist disturbance at a meeting of Mr MacDonald’s in the Albert Hall —a fight, the Red Flag fluctuating wildly overhead and going down in disaster, its bearers hustled into the outer dark. General discontent is the one sentiment in which I.L.P.’s agree,—general discontent and general hate. They like to tell each other of oil gentlemen who sit comfortably in the windows of West End clubs “watching it rain on the damned people.” Occasionally they drop into poetry,—yes; I have here an I.L.P. poem—and a philosophy -in two verses, prefaced by a motto or moral from Nietzsche, the crackbrained German who died in a madhouse and must have been well on his way to it when he uttered thin oracle:— Being himself the eternal affirmation of all things, the tremendous and unlimited saying Yea and Amen. Now the poem:— No torches light the tragic night In which I grope. Friends have I none under the sun Nor hope. Heedless I press past deeds that bless And deeds that damn. For I know this: that while Life Is I AM! He knows that he exists; that is the beginning and the end of knowledge; nothing ucyond the certainty of his own miserable self; all else illusion. Mr Bertrand Russell, a philosopher sympathetic with the 1.L.P., has doubts of his own existence. Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, the I.L.P.—cheerful souls the lot of them. Let us pass from ore degeneracy to another ; it is but a step. In the National Review a Vice-Provost of Eton hag collected examples of the New Poetry, which is independent of sense and meaning, and of Free Verse, which is independent of form. Here are half-a-dozen lines of New Poetry, the beginning of a lengthy piece; I lay in the tepid mud Grey-drab, bubbling here and there with steam, A cell Rebellious, derisive of my creator's Incoherent groplngs. I would be the sport no longer Of his bovine essays In creation. Perpend and explain. I offer a leathern medal to any one who will write this into sense. Then a specimen of Free Verse. Prepare yourself for a shock. Understand it is verse you are about to read—verse and poetry both, " Will they do anythin’ to her, do you think, Mirandy? ” “ Do you mean prison? No. I guess not. That doctor from Boston said she wa’n’t no ways responsible.” “She’s over to th’ ’sylum, ain’t she?” “ Yes, but th’ doctor said she’d be right as a trivet In a month or two.” “ I never seed th’ child but once, And now, I mind, it ’peared awful big fer five weeks, ter me.” “ Arresting and interesting,” comments the Vice-Provost. Charitable man 1 “ But can it be called poetry? ” he asks. With all respect, I pronounce this an idiotic question. In the commercial pages of the Daily Times any auctioneer’s advertisement contains as much poetry, and as good. Cxvis