THE COMMON ROUND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21079, 16 July 1930, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND.

By Wayfarer,

! "Time flies," it has been wisely written, " death urges, knells call, heaven

.—, _„-„.. uijw, nuciis viiii, lienven invites, hell threatens," and man, who has but little time here below, spends much of it grimacing before a mirror as he plucks and tugs and curses at the small growth of whisker that has been blossoming while he slept. If there is one thing more useless than another, that thing is shaving. It is the task that js never finished, the labour that can never be concluded. For no matter how surely and how carefully and how closely our little man may clip his facial fungus (as the American is pleased to . call it), there will it be, next day, hard and brittle and curling, all ready to be | clipped again. A learned professor (the ; adjective is an expression of faith only) ■ has made a calculation how a man . divides his time on earth. Savs the Daily Telegraph:

His normal man lives to be 73 and works hard. Of those 73 years, 23 are spent in sleep, 19 in work, 6 in amusement, 6 in eating, 6 in travelling, 4 in sickness, 2 in shaving, and 1 in church. Two years spent in shaving! A thirtysixth of a man’s life. By the beard of the prophet, ’tis a disturbing thought. Alexander the Great, history records, ordered shaven the faces of his troops lest their beards be laid hold on by their enemies, and Peter of Russia, also the Great, put a heavy tax on, beards, had them _ plucked out by the roots or sawn off with a blunt instrument. Thus was man’s two-year sentence promulgated.

But if anything could be sillier than shaving, on which we have already expressed a doubt, then it is the compiling of statistics. When we think of that professorial gentleman stroking his shaven chin the while he, juggles with mathematical illusions and the minutes fly by, we are reminded of the author in a book by Cabell: . And yet. in such a well-stocked world, this lean, red-headed boy was vexedly making upon paper small. scratches, the most of which he almost immediately cancelled with yet other scratches, ail the while with the air of a person who is. about something intelligent and of actual importance. Mr Malcolm Fraser we must excuse, for it is surely necessary that we should know how many bicycles were ridden without lights in this Dominion the year before last, how many pints were sunk, how many sheep had triplets. These ape matters of national importance; but a beard is, literally, a man’s own .affair (excepting, of course, the famous one belonging to Margaret of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands in the sixteenth century). Beards are our own affair—then let us grow ’em! Think of the illustrious ones whose fame as men is equalled only by the profusion of their chin adornments—Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw, Raleigh and Hubert Wilkins, Moses and W. 6. Grace. Time is of value to these, as it is to the least of men. If we have beards a-coming, then let us renounce the razor and, according to the precept in the Old Testament, tarry at Jericho until they be grown.

Another complaint has been laid against weddings, which more than once, already, have been condemned for various causes. In Russia, it is said, the wedding is a passe institution, but in New Zealand there are those who still believe in marrying. Some people may have thought that the old-fashioned custom is a jolly and a sensible one, but now that good illusion has been shattered by the clergy themselves; The assertion that drinking at marriage ceremonies was one of the ways in which young people ... first learned to take intoxicating • liquor - was ■ made before the Auckland Presbytery by the president of the New Zealand Alliance.

What is the remedy for this sad state? , A circular for distribution among ministers, pointing out the grave results sometimes following .the custom of drinking at weddings, has been proposed; but would it not be better to 'abolish the ceremony which has given ■ birth to the custom ? No weddings would mean no drinking at weddings, and the serpent.would be scotched. Soon a man will have no irksome liberties, so many ■vices.have been found for him and then denied him by statute. To abolish betting the art union will be prohibited, to do away with marriage wine-bibbing the wedding will be abolished, to prevent immorality the sexes will be segregated, to curb' motor accidents cars will • be destroyed. Then -when the happy day arrives on which infanticide is introduced to prevent children growing up to be contaminated we may find a historian writing of New Zealand, as Swift wroteof a certain voyage: I had not been a year in this country before I contracted such a love and veneration for the inhabitants that I entered. on a firm resolution never to return to human kind, but to pass the rest of my life among these admirable. Houyhnhnms jn the contemplation and practice of every virtue, where X could have no example or incitement to vice.

Philip Snowden is a very great and important little man. Philip Snowden cracks the whip, and Lords and Commoners alike dance for him. It is credited to- Philip Snowden that he is the coiner of a phrase “the idle rich,” ■with whiph lash many a Socialist has made many a gentleman of England When he went to The Hague. Philip Snowden was mighty in his words and actions, and the English press acclaimed . him. To harassed reparations delegates who swore they could not find a penny more to give to Britain,- Philip Snowden was harsh and bullying. “Go through your pockets again! ” he ordered, and they went through them and found several millions left there as Britain’s share in the hand-out. A jealous, snarling, omnipotent figure was that of Snowden in Punch recently, clutching his Budget box of secrets under his arm. None could approach him terrorise or bully him, for he is his Majesty’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. But even the greatest of men and women are not omnipotent. Boadicea, that warrior queen, probably would not have waited to argue with a mouse, and Philip Snowden, who can demand an extra £40,000,000 from the British people this year, has to give way before Mrs Elizabeth Tarratt.

Mrs Tarratt is Mr Snowden’s 85-year-old next door neighbour in Surrey. When aged Mrs Tarratt built a fence on property adjoining Mr Snowden’s Eden Lodge, the Chancellor promptly had it chopped down, declaring that it was on public laud. Airs Tarratt went to the rural council and obtained a writ declaring that the land was her own. Lust week she ordered the erection of a new. indestructible wire fence and dared Air Snowden to lay a finger on

A guide book for motorists issued by the Dunedin Corporation contains no fewer than three undertakers’ advertisements. Intelligent anticipation.

After a midnight chase in motor cars along Alanners street and then over some back fences the Wellington police captiired a joy-rider. Our acrobatic autoxnobilists.

The talkie version of “ All Quiet on the Western 1 ront ” has been banned in New Zealand. It is understood that it was too loud.

Lord Beaverbrook announces that on account of his duties in connection with the Empire Crusade he has decided to give up racing. This does not, however, preclude the possibility of his having backed the wrong horse.