PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20906, 21 December 1929, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

The year rushes on as if it would anticipate its end. There is a something in the air unwonted, yet familiar and seasonable. The schools have brokeu-up, as we say. The Governor-General and his consort have lent the ceremony peculiar gusto in many of our scholastic halls. Heroically have Sir Charles and Lady Alice gone through their ordeal, adorning cheerfully the exacting occasion. The pupils have dispersed, in their ears perhaps a lingering echo of that splendid cascade of time-honoured valedictory eloquence without which the school year could not be properly rounded off. Among their betters Mr Chadband and Mr Pecksniff have laid their fat hands upon their hearts and said their say, and no doubt Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby, too. The tutelary deities relax, the altars will be vacant for a space. And, in Gray’s lugubrious lines—

Alas! regardless of their doom _ The little victims play. No sense have they of ills to come, No care beyond to-day. Yet see, how all around them wait The Ministers of human Fate. The little victims do tolerably well. They are the enviable, say their elders. Home for the holidays! To many an harassed parent the thought spells anything but holiday. There will be uproar, there will ba tintinnabulation. There will be treks to the country and the sea-side, fresh air, and all the amenities of primeval existence. At the end of six weeks the sunburned young barbarians will again assemble to rfi-absorb agriculturaj bias or whatever other delicacy Mr Atmore may have In etore for them. So runs the educational year its customary circle. And to these young people who, with a whoop of satisfaction, have thrown* their satchels into the corner for six glorious weeks, probably it i 8 the last thought that ever enters their heads that their parents before them once basked in childhood’s sun and danced o’er childhood’s rosea.

Ere another week has sped Christmas will have come and gone, the kindesteyed, warmest-hearted visitant of our year. The season must have its due. Its signs swirl round us like leaves borne upon the breeze, or foam-flakes on the tide. Everything is in crescendo, working up to a grand finale. What a fine rivalry^is set up among the shops! How lusty is their shout of “ Come, Buy, Buy,” and how many things there are to bo bought! How the money goes! b R&msay MacDonald selected his Christmas cards before he went to America. One must not be caught napping. The calendars for 1930 are out. Tlie grocer, the baker, the butcher, the dairyman come, like the Greeks, bearing gifts. In their pictorial leanings they strike a simpler note than the drapers, who incline to high art. Santa Claus, unperturbed by the ever-increasing noise and speed of the times, is putting the finishing touches to his toilet and his itinerary. How be manages to get down so many chimneys very much about the same time is ever a mystery. A delicate titillation of the olfactory sense itself would tell us something stirring is afoot. There have been great doings in the kitchen, children rigidly excluded. Expectation stands on tip-toe. And memory lends a hand. We elders are unfortunate if our past Christmases do not for the moat part loom up like those • 6 ? an^ er a congregation ot jolly ghosts, emanating a faint odour of plum pudding and burnt brandy. At Christmas we think of Scrooge, and Bob Cratchit, and Marley's Ghost, and the Fezziwigs, and the Fat Boy, and Mr Pickwick, and Mr Winkle on skates, and a whole procession of valiant celebrants of our great festival. They seem to say Go then and do likewise—it’s hearty as Hickcn shoi } l . d have a bralldl of y the .Dickens Fellowship m Dunedin. Why do we leave that to Auckland? No man d,d -? , mucb f° r Christmas tradition aa Dickens. The more power to him! And so, a Merry Christmas to us all, mv f nd T,lm P r °nounce the benedictory, God bless us Every One.”

fortiinate y th e wreck of the Manuka has been, after all, but one of the minor tragedies of the sea. But so closely did it touch the border-line, so vivid were its dramatic aspects, that the talc of it will ever cling to our rock-bound coast, and rtjzrsr* aa loi, ° as sto,it g hips plough the waves and sail from port to port. So badly did the poor old Manuka choose her point of impact with the implacable reef that for her nasS s , a ” d cr . ew >t became almost im mediately a sheer scuttle for life, but never, thanks be, a sauve qui pout, but all ordered, purposeful, and efficient "' ere S° 0(1 old traditions „ ! 1 sea,nans hip maintained. Let - ' vho ' I sle P t abed that ■thpw a t or drea ° led "’hat was afoot on the waters applaud and magnify as it in tlle darkness and fog and spray that spelt t!i c safety “ evcr - 7 . that com P‘W of between 200 and 300 souls. It was more than castaiu"vs th f ° ra ¥ eric nces of the castaways, a chapter m themselves may they, their bitterness assuaged become for the most part a memory 0 [ adventure, and a tale worthy of recall by the cosy fireside when the day is Hone and the gale shrieks iuipotcntly' without TUio hath denied the sea? Her men. Thp Q nf S *10 as k® r mercies? Th A"' 10 lnE ■'Y alls the foe, and " Sed breozo that dis ' Of the Manuka upon her restless, rocky bed soon little but the bones will remain. It is of interest to think of her cargo ?. H e a L an r “/Si ° f P ictures h 7 Britfsh aj tists lie fathoms 'deep. The Sea King may deck his dim green halls with Orpens and Clausens. In days to come r i Vanc lf cr 0,1 ' thc Beach may find a David Murray or a:. Arneshy Brown, bobbing happily about in the surf, good water-resisting works of art returned from Davy Jones’s locker. But truly unprecedented pic tonal_ spoil was in jeopardy the other day in the Bay of Biscay, w] ien the Leonardo da Vinci, bound for England, her holds packed with old masters value] at many millions, battled heavily with a tempest of the first order.

Another triumph for Urn p alldu . mental,sts! A professor of biolo-y has been ejeetcd from a Baptist college down l, l A rt , bailla I,cc:lnse !»e refused to accept the story of Jonah and the Whale Memories of the great Scopes trial in progressive Dayton arc re vned. The Jonah story has probably given more trouble than any other in the Old Testament. It has the real Sir John “ A N™ r to,,c3 \ onl ? recently appeared • t *.• Commentary on Holy Scripture including the Apocrypha.” with d/govc’ “ ,9 reiltc ‘‘ of . English theologians Ining, 8S editor-in-chief, supported bv diatiiiguished professors and 'a host of authoritative contributors, the whole having behind it “an unexampled weight H e Ou n r lg ; C ? n « rni “S miracles in the Old Testament the succinct comment is kt naggerati 0 ,, i s fl Semitic habit Respecting particular episodes, the Hreahon the Deluge, Noah’s Ark, and so ret ’,. h '•' (?rdlcts will probably be noenie "C setdl , n f io a good many worthy peopl . In Alabama, of course, the book would provide an auto da f e . The tale of Bahama Ass, says Dr Gore and colleagues, “» not really different in lnd ™ ai) y another wonderful tale in the Old Testament, and no one feels it to be ridiculous when the horses of Achilles in the Iliad turn and foretell their masters death.” Not less uncompromising is this—

• Jonah and the Whale: “Of course here is no atom of faistorv in all this. The detail of the great lish is not more impossible than to find in the chronicles of Nineveh a real r ” • •. • the bidding of” Hebrew prophet * Hut in Tennessee .-,,,.1 Alabama they know better. They put these great episodes m dry-dock every now and

again, so that no weed or barnacles shall detract from their pristine freshness. There is no real cause for apprehension. •Good stories never die.

The Daily Mail, proud beacon of the Rothermere press, continues to play the part of educator and benefactor of the British nation. Its latest gift/to the expectant public is modest, just another American “ song-hit,” for the publication of which in Darkest England it has, with customary enterprise and diligence, arranged. The title of this choice importation is “My Wife is on a Diet.” Tiie jazz music, says the Daily Mail with solemn emphasis, has all the charm of ■‘Yes! \Ve Have No'Bananas,” but is not so jerky. That little touch of critical discrimination is so helpful. This very latest thing in song and dance music, which the Daily Mail acclaims further as a worthy successor of “ Why is the Bacon so Tough?”—another of its gifts to England—has been inspired, it seems, by the “ Eighteen Day Diet.” Everybody has no doubt heard about the Hollywood recipe for keeping the figure slim. This the Daily Mail, ever keen on keeping England up to date, has been booming in its columns, certainly with a tag about the desirability of consulting the doctor first. But the essence of this note must be the melodic benefaction, published at sixpence, demonstrating the liberality of mind and heart of a great modern newspaper. Dunedin may begin to tingle with anticipatory delight. This ig what comes—

My wife Is on a diet, And since she's on a diet Home isn’t home any more. No gravy and potatoes. Just lettuce and tomatoes; Where are the pies X adore? PATTER CHORUS; Monday, grape fruit breakfast and for dinner, And at night some orange Juloe. Tuesday—grape fruit I Boys I’m growing thinner. All my clothes are getting loose 1 Wednesday, Thursday, X feel satisfied, Then 1 change to coffee with grape fruit on the side. Friday till Sunday is more than I can stand—— Before the eighteenth day I’ll have a Illy In my hand.

.Among the transforming and uplifting influences of the age the motor car, the film, and canned music are in the forefront. There are also whippets and dirttrack racing. We are r quiet people or a young hon, according to th e point of view. The tendency to roar does not lack incitement, for the new herald of the morn, the motor cyclist, ales fit that we all awake in a sufficiently carnivorous mood. The inflammation may subside a little over your morning newspaper and a deliverance or overture—l forget which from the Wellington Presbytery on the subject of church union. Six times or more shall you take the word “ whereas” m a breathless utterance that lifts the “‘ nd kjgher things. A most Christian word truly! Turn the page, and in flaming type confronts you the sharp command, “Prepare”— p

p„^ r ? par '^j^ or .flaming fires of desert-maddened desires! Prepare for the romance and passion of a harem-raiding sheik' i 6 f ? r , B t ran ße desires that aspire! love ' lntosicated Oriental can And what is to be done about this? You are a quiet person, brought up more or less on the Shorter Catechism, These people lined up in a queue, have they n!L mad ! Preparation? How does one prepare for the romance and passion ol a harcxn-raidmg Sheik, or for the flaming i o n7not°of it 18 Bad t 0 b 8 in the world