PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21432, 5 September 1931, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

Our legislators, in the midst of des-' .pairing, efforts in the squaring of accounts, are resolved not to, let their whole energies be thus disagreeably occupied. The finer points of the game are to be attended to. We have had the third party motor risk placed upon the Statute Book and now a Trading Coupon Bill is on the tapis. It has been shown that, unbeknown to us all, shopkeepers, dealers, merchants, have been engaged in a side line which some parliamentarians, with nerves nicely attuned to the welfare of the people at large, proclaim and brand as a species of imposition. The thrifty housewife views with a sensible degree of composure her growing assembly of cocoa tins, tea coupons, and suchlike, and her spouse his cigarette cards and bigliettos. If extravagance is taking place at the one end, at least they flatter themselves there will be something tangible to show for the outlay in the result. This insidious, form of backsheesh , is to stop, and: one’s acquisitive instincts will he diverted irito less engaging channels. The gift system will soon be a thing of the past and a negative sort of economy will take its place. Speaking-, at the annual meeting of the Dunedin Presbyterian Sunday SchoobUnibn, the Eev. D. C. Herron, of Knox Church, said that - in his judgment the real root of the problems that were confronting the ’ world to-day was not in the financial aspect, but in the spiritual. We had reached the stage of spiritual bankruptcy, and if there was a revival of‘ spiritual interest in the world it would cause things r to turn in another direction, and there would be a return to prosperity. ■ -,."v The argument is presumably a variant on the scriptural theme that, if we take thought solely on the things of the spirit, the things of the world will be added us. Our present lean years bring with them their meed of . recompense. The world has been too much., with us. Most big questions of the hour may be reduced to a spiritual common-denominator. 1 The thought is an old one. So with salary reductions, dismissals from employment, and emptied purses, let us not be cast down. ■ If adversity hath killed his thou- ; hath killed his ten > v thousand. The one deceives, the other i instructs; the one -miserably happy, ■■ ■ the other happily miserable; and ' therefore many philosophers have : voluntarily sought adversity, and so much commend it in their precepts. Demetrius in Seneca esteemed it a great infelicity that in his lifetime he had no misfortune. Adversity then is not so heavily to be taken, and we ought' not in such cases to macerate ourselves; there is no such odds in poverty and riches: : To ■cobelude in Hierom’s-.i •wdrds;V’“l "will ask i our magnificoS who "build with marble, ; and bestow a whole manor oh a thread, "what difference between them and Paxil the eremite,’that bare old man?, They- drink in jewels, he in his hand; he is poor and goes to Heaven, they are rich and go to Hell." Broadcasting is to be placed under the aegis of a Board of Control, to be appointed by the Government. The members of the hoard will be invested with autocratic powers and discretions, a kind of -impartial godfather to the million listeuers-in. And if these 1 gentlemen are. to-beihappy sponsors',-the. bantling itself is iib’ mean gossip. The iradio outfit in every second household in the country Is the greatest prattler of the times. It babbles music, the news on the Rialto, sales on ’Change, baseball results in New York, with as much facility, as details of a local game of Rugby; it murmurs like any nightingale, roars as any lion, and all with an incredible, effortless* and fearful versatility. It is all in one, pedagogue, ‘doctor, virtuoso, barometer, horologe, , and thermometer. But its justest claim to greatness is its Olympian indifference to friend or foe. It Cries aloud in the desert, or sings in the drawing room with the same aplomb. The ladies, closeted close in their fruitful, everyday • discussions, have taken the radio to their bosoms, another voice to their charmed circles—-a veritable commerce—arid-one moreover they can, and mostly do, ignore, as the spirit wills, it. There is one salient drawback. The ether waves cannot discourse those tender tit-bits, those insinuating snatches of music, so dear to the feminine ear. An esteemed correspondent has joined issue with, nie on the subject of misapplied quotations. He pins his thesis to the text in “Hamlet,” referring to the wassail and carouse of the Danes: But to my mind, though I am native hero And to the manner born. It Is a custom Mora honoured in the breach than the obser- '' vance. * ’ V ; ■■ What does the last line mean? My commentators are silent oh the point. Why not give it the surface meaning? The Danes are heavy drinkers, but Hamlet stands apart, in this as in Other things. Though he grants the custom, he honours the breach of it rather than the observ- ” ance. Some have it that the dramatist has here a sly dig at his own countrymen; . ■ ;■ , Are the Englishmen Such stubborn drinkers? . . , Not a leak at sea Can suck more liquor; you shall have their • children -' Christen’d In mull'd sack, and at five year old Able to knock a Dane down. If “ Hamlet ” has given more household words to our tongue than most works, small wonder that this most practised part, or oxymoron, ns my friend has it, should become by mere usage a little torn from its original acceptation. In this it only suffers the fate of everyday words. The musical and elocutionary adjudicators at the recent symposium of the arts have not confined themselves to the mere examination of the candidates or the simple adding up of marks. Have our standards declined? Do the competitions tend to elevate them? These bo thorny and vext questions. Mr Farquhar Young, an old Dunedinite at that, wields the flail to some purpose. Robert Bridges, de la Mare, and such small fry find little favour in his eyes. He remembers, as we do, the golden age of the Shakespearian canon in Dunedin, when the scholar vied with the declaimer in the. then Choral Hall in offering, incense to the bard. The president, Mr Alexander Wilson, with becoming and venerable scholarship, occupied the chair, a striking figurehead on the platform. The local neo phytes of Thespis advanced and retreated, moved and recited the while, before their benevolent leader. In “ Macbeth ” three demure, wavering ladies progress slowly and timidly from the Wings, clad in the becoming fashions of the reign of Queen Victoria, to meet the devastating apostrophe:' How now, ye secret black and midnight hags, What Is’t ye do? A sensible pause for effect sees the erudite features, and indeed the. whole personable form of Mr Wilson, radiate and dissolve to an uncontrollable laughter. And the audience, nothing loth, with his imprimatur, chorus in approval. We still have our Shakespeare Society. Its bays and laurel leaves are evergreen, and with this well of English undefiled, ever for us, we can afford to sip at the lesser rivulets and tributaries. Dear “ Civis,” — The questions asked you, and the answers given, are xny excuse for making the folloxving inquiries. Can you tell me the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? I believe it is comprised in the construction of the jaws. One has the upper jaw fixed and the other the lower jaw. Is that so? Now a question of etiquette. Being an elderly man.

when I entered a tramcar a lady insisted upon me taking her seat, which, to save argument, I did; a couple of blocks further on another lady got in. Should I rise and offer my seat, or should I retain it in deference to ‘ the first lady? Be-FOGGED. A curious medley of petition here and yet not so curious. Does not the alligator or crocodile grace the instep of the feminine occupants of our tramcara? Here, then, is the difference, the whole range of them. Alligators differ from ' crocodiles in having the head broader, and the snout more obtuse; in having the fourth enlarged tooth of the underjaw received not into an external notch but into a pit formed for it within the upper one; in wanting a jagged fringe which appears on the hind legs and feet of the crocodile, and in having the toes of his feet webbed not more than half way to the tips. As for the question of best parlour manners, if my friend be elderly, then why should he resign the bounty of his first donor? She has to be considered and would feel piqued at being the innocent cause of benefiting a mere contemporary. If, however, the second lady is demonstrably older than the first, then consult her convenience by all means and give up the place. The difficulty is to detect the difference between dowager, dame, and damsel, and when this be the case, there are conflicting equities, and the problem can only be solved sitting, non solvitur ambulando. Civis.