PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20958, 22 February 1930, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

Philip Snowden, known as the man with the bitterest tongue and the gentlest smile in the House of Commons, * and as the member who has many opponents but no ib not as popular abroad as he is in Britain, The expression “Snow den Touch ” has different connotations in London and in Paris. Snowden’s recent refusal at The Hague to bate one jot or tittle of Britain’s just dues raised a storm that threatened to wreck the entente cordiale. ' The French press screamed. 1 Its perturbation was due partly to what it called Snowden’s nonparliamentary adjectives and his tablethumping, partly to the puzzling-spec-tacle of the unanimous applause lavished . upon him by three British political par ■ties that agree in little else. Our own Poincare, said the French papers, is jusi as jusqu’auboutiste, but how different! He has the j>olitehess; he does not thump the table; he*does not use the non-parliamentary adjectives. But he arrives there all the <Sme; yes, he arrives there. Did he not stand with firm foot against Germany, and refuse to withdra t a single, soldier from the Ruhr till the last Reichsmark was paid? But Snowden (and ■ here, the adjectives flow hot from the crucible) Snowden is 'rude. He Is uncultured. Does be not like his chief, lack the refining influences of English public school and university? Does he riot speak with a Yorkshire accent ? Such were , the sentiments expressed throughout Continental Europe, while, Germany stood by, tertla gaudens. To the Englishman, however, the SnowIcn Touch came as a breath of inigorating air, - Rightly or wrongly, we ’be a’ man who sees things in black and 1 ite, without those half-tones by which The native’hue of resolution s sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought. / i>at matters his native accent? His rcdecessors used an Oxford accent: and, .ike Moses Primrose, they came back Tom the fair with nothing but a gross of green spectacles. The Oxford accent has its usejj. Its- graceful fingers can run np and down the. whole gamut of the emotions. Yet somehow, for the rough and-tumhle of fierce conflict! whether in piolitics or in woolbuying, you cannot beat the bluff, direct, straight-from-the shoulder, take-it-or-leave-it-and-be-blowed accents of good North Country or Scotch. A North Briton or a Sept would not satisfactorily represent Lnodicea in the Parliament of Asia Minor.

. Like the Romans of old, ptir City Fathers have long been accustomed to date important civic happenings Ab Urbe Condita—from the founding of our citjh And well they might, for we are citizens of no mean city. In this spirit last week, in the year 82 A.U.C., did our Consul for the year, attended by the ex-consuls and the patres con script! of the Senate House, ascend the rostrum in stately procession, and stand and deliver an historic—and historical—speech.- In yet another way, equally worthy, may we date the events of the world. Bid not their present Majesties make their world-tour console Dennistone—when Deiyiiston was consult Was not the Boer War fought console Chis ——7 Here my timid school Latin refuses to come, to heel. It has taken a; whole half-holiday. And the new Town Hall was : opened consule Nigrb. The new Town Hall? Where was the old? The records say that the “Town Hall,” was officially opened in the year 32 A.U.C. Where was it? Times without number, between the years 32 and 82, have I directed visitors to a Town Hall. Tourist guide-books have-described, it. Observation buses have pointed at it- . from *ts steps we have heard recruiting speeches, and fAim its clock we have heard the chimes at midnight. Hillward-bound lovers have met in front of it. To them its portico seemed a golden gate to a marble palace. Alas, all these wistful memories -are but dream-children. There was no Town Hall, and the'Golden Gate of dreams was but the entrance to dismal offices. The “Town Hall” was itself, a dreamLike a child-soul in “The Blue Bird,” it was awaiting the time of its embodiment, A.U.C. 82.

• At least one voluntary society in Dunedin is deserving of the most enthusiastic support—rof greater support than it is receiving. This, is the Amenities Society. The report of the last meeting of; its committee, where decreased'.membership was noted, makes one wonder why what is the manifest duty of many is left to the civic spirit of, a few, Surely the time has come to hang up in / a prominent place a civic roll, -giving the names of citizens who assist on at least one public body—r pour encourager les autres. Excellent as the work of this Society has been, much still remains to be' done. We are lulled into - self-complacency 1 by the city. We hear Canadian bowler visitors likening the Dunedin drives to thS magnificent —'--"'■tives of Rio de Janeiro and Capetown. But visitors praise Dunedin for its setting its hills its surroundings. Of the Leith and other places in the Lower Town they say nothing. Mention of - the. Leith points straight like an accusing finger at the Dunedin hills and hill-dwellers. As a dweller in the Lower Town 1 raise the cry of the Lowlander. But for, "the hills the Leith would be a gently-flowing Avon, on whose grassy banks Mr Tannook would place The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade For talking age and whispering lovers made. In fact,"when you come to think of it, it is from the hills that all our troubles’ come. And from the Hillmen too. It is their storm-water, not' ours, that floods our channels and inundates our houses. By cutting off from us the moving air they compel us to live in stagnant miasmas. The very breezes ate not our own. The hills breathe the beat morsels and pass the rest on as crumbs to the beggar at the gate. iney meet" the sun upon the upward lawn, catching the first and best gleams of its .morning glory. And the shadows they cast over us in the evening shorten our days. And what of the Hillmen, who dwell on the summits while we labour like ants in the valley? They live on us. They draw their sustenance from our banks,, our warehouses, our offices and our shops. They raid us every morning. I have watched them swinging down the mountain roads of High street and Stuart street, like the fierce .Pathans of North West who at one time, swoop -1 down periodically on the plains of India, leaving not a rupee behind. Or are the\ survivals of the Highland marauder's who used to raid the Lowlands from Glasgow, to the Firth of Forth? Lowe. Dunedin is a necessity, Upper Dunedin is merely a luxury. Without the Lowei Town these Hillmen would have to live on _the rude produce' of their scanty gardens. We nre as iambs yoked to noWea. What are we going to do about it? I don’t know. . ,•

Dear Civis,—A current English re- - view quotes advice on the prevention or cure of seasickness given by Dr Sydney nfw S ‘ ir/ the Cu . narcl hner Aquitauia, after 36 years at sea. Take a nonacid forming diet before embarking Eat iamb, mutton, chicken, grape-juice fic£ nRIR E een and white “ j .i e “ eai ? o before going on board, and the popular preventive of cham pagne, are worse than useless.” Some people, he says, .find remarkably effective the tying of a silk handkerchief over the eyes to obviate the glare and movement of the sea. One man. wh.. that mal de mer always began with stone-cold feet, tried the expert ment of snow-boots, which was com pJetely successful in many bad Channel crossings. What do you think of it A "e of s hcano and champagne} Some of us do try this negative proven* tive—ywith. indifferent success. We may give it up. Cold feet on or before em-

barking seems more than a likely cause. Snowboots recall the cold spinal bags advocated by aDr Chapman. Get cold shivers down the spine,' and back you trip to the dinner table. Miraculous I An Englishman some years . ago invented a new type of ship, a boat aswing within an outer keel—a real infernum in inferno; but the project did not get beyond the blue-print stage. Seasickness is a problem of the highest national and international importance. Some future Captain Mahan may write a world-famous book on the “ Influence of Seasickness on the Evolution of Nations,” for it picks and chooses its victims both among individuals and among nations. We are informed that it attacks women more than men, that infants and the aged are immune; that persons with strong hearts and slow pulse suffer little; that irritable people suffer most; that irritable nations like the French and Italians suffer more than the Germans, and still more than the English. There is a moral in this. If you see a strugglin'* sufferer at the bulwarks, whether stranger or friend, approach him gently and say, “ You see how the results of irritability.” On the subject of- cures, my final remarks are these. Bad cases will find relief in repeated doses of' chloroform, opium, veronal, cocaine’or chloral. These are easily procurable. Failing; these, relief may be obtained from prussic acid. But the only_ reliable cure, never once known to fail, is that prescribed by economists for present social ills, . “ Back to the land.”

Dear Cms,—lt is quite possible that you do not read English society news, and not even the women’s column in the ’ daily press. You may not know, there-* tore, that a “ gate-crasher ” is an uninvited guest, who pushes his way into a social .entertainment-till the host or • hostess who had budgeted for 200 duds on receipt of the bill that he has fed , 400.. Are. there not gate-crashers here in Dunedin? .An invited guest who neglects to answer an .invitation, and then turns up when his place has been idled—is he not a gate-crasher? What if the dinner party had been arranged , tor 12? | Society hews 1 rarely touch; 1 peck at Women’s Columns sometimes, after the Advertisements. They add a savoury to the meal—like “angels on horseback.” As “far as; I understand this Second Great Plague of London; Mrs A. invites the Countess of B. to the comingout party of her daughter. The Countess of B. is begged by her friend, Lady C. to get her an invitation. Lady C. may , or may hot be persona grata to Mrs A., .; who however is reluctant to- offend her friend the- Counters. Lady G. gets her invitation, hud brings along her and tier daughter’s anticipated fiancA Sir iD. E. And so the thing grows like a snowball. / Perhaps my reading of the case is quite wrong. Is ; it suggested that two young men about! town hear casually that the Duchess of F. is giving a party, and, simply say “ Let’s go,” and they, go? ) The trouble seems to be that hostesses with strength oi mind may not have strength of- posi- j tion. -a'nd vice versa. ’ Though the name i “ gate-crashers ” is modern, the things I themselves are very, very old; In Horace, they; appear as "umbrae,” shadows,—who nevertheless eat, and drink most substantially, To* one dinner-party Maecenas- brings two um-’ brae; and a Roman host would as soon offend Augustus as offend his. righthand man. In, Scandinavian- mythology Loki, the spirit of all things evil, is,a gate-crasher at a Valhalla 12-gueat banquet, and dire events follow. : As old as this is the Thirteenth Guest superstition. The -Lord’s Supper was viewed as confirmatory. The problem of the. guest who turns • up with invitation ■ inadvertently - unanswered brings up the definition of. gentleman. A gentleman is not tho man, who would not consciously act with discourtesy. • ’He is the man who would not do so “ unconsciously,” 1 This makes a difference. ■ ' V

anecdotes of Bench and - Bar quoted in a London paper from a re- 4 cently published volume of dtch reminiscences. _ Of Lord Russell of Killowens— Once asked by a lady what'was the maximum penalty, for bigamy, the Lord libief Justice replied, without hesitation. ‘Two mothers-in-law!" Of .Lord Brampton, “the hanging Judge”.— ' : ' 6 6 I once caught Hawkins napping, but \ only, once. 1 appeared before him in an action he was trying without a jury, and said to him:. “ Your lordship, is ... trying this, question of • fact as if a judge and jury were trying it, but withthe same power, aa a jury—— w Hawkins (nettled); “Will you kindly tell m e what powers a jury have which i. go not possess?” “Why; your lordship cannot dis- ,., agree! • , Hawkins seemed' amused; and remamed in a good temper for the rest of the day. ■ . * Of Lord Darling;—. , On one occasion a..counsel of weak aspirates was appearing before him in an „ ai - t ;p a regarding what the speaker called ‘an torpe." “ Stop a bit,” said was the height of this thirteen ’ands, my lord” Well, said Darling, " will 'you, during the rest of the case, please call him a pony? ” It; was of. Lord Darling that Lord Carson once remarked, “Darling would do well as a judge if he only would stop Joking,” A counsel once happened to mention the name. of Dan Leno, the famous comedian. “Who is Dan Leno? ” asked the judge. “ The Darling of the Music Halls, my Lord! ” There is a pleasant, story of Sir .Frank Lockwood- playing in a cricket match with J. 0. Murphy, K .C., a man of immense stature and , weighing , over twenty stone;— ‘We must make some fresh rules applicable to Murphy before starting the match, * said Lockwood. “If any part of his front be struck by the ball, it must be leg-before-wicket; but if the ball strikes his stern, then it must be scored a wide! ” ; ' • Givis.