PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21538, 9 January 1932, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

When M. Briand, a few years ago, brought before an astonished world his famous plan of a United States of Europe, even his countrymen mocked at his tilting at windmills, his biting at the moon, his building of castles in Spain. And the world at large said that he must be growing old. It was a fine millennial conception, to which no fault could bo found but that of impracticability. In vain have Treaties of Versailles and Leagues of Nations tried to solve the problem of European nationalities, and the question of European minorities is still one of the scandals of twentieth century civilisation. No less difficult is 'the problem of Indian self-determination. Says Mr Wickham Steed: — Few of us realise even now that India consists of some 700 States, inhabited by a multitude of peoples speaking 222 distinct languages and countless dialects, living in every stage of development from sheer barbarism to refined civilisation. Add to this a social constitution where caste is superimposed on caste; where millions who have no caste are clamouring for a place in the sun; where a population of 320 millions has 217 million Hindus and 60 million Moslems not more segregated than Catholics and Protestants in Europe. Why introduce into India innumerable Dantzig Corridors, when one in Europe has proved a failure? Compared with the explosive elements of India, those of Europe are mere damp squibs. Britain has made many a protest against minority scandals in Europe. She cannot ignore them in India.

• Romance, it is often said, may be found within the covers of a Bradshaw or of a copy of Debrett. The reason for the conjunction of such incongruous volumes is not far to seek. They typify respectively the beginning and the end of a long-anticipated journey, A Railway Guide is full of promise of new visions and new experiences; and, as we all know, journeys often end in lovers’ meetings. Wordsworth could see beauty In most things—in the daffodil, in the story of Lucy Gray, in the mist that opened in the hills. Why did he miss the fascination of railway, steamboat and viaduct? To him these were merely Motions and means, by land _ and sea, at war with true poetic feeling. A Debrett, on its side, is the romance of achievement, the epic story- of men who have travelled their peerless way, and have at last “arrived.” In their progress towards the wished-for goal, have they not made every stumbling block a stepping stone? Has not their burning ambition lit up the path they trod? As manufacturers, have they not always made the best of things? As scientists, did they not early realise that the road to success is paved with good inventions? There is always interest, therefore, in the New Year and Birthday Honours List —those two great biennial Imperial prize-givings. Last week we had One Viscounty, five Baronies, three Privy Councillors, three Baronetcies, twenty-five Knighthoods, and a large number of appointments and promotions, in the various Orders of Chivalry. There you have it, all in nicely graded order. You move up the gently sloping “ Companion ” way, from 0.8. E. and O.M. and 0.8, and C.M.G. to Knighthood and Barony and Viscounty. But only at the Knighthood stage is your achievement of any service to your wife. From now onward you take her up with you, beaming and breathless, through ever-increasing delights. Arriving at the Baronetcy stair-landing you your first-born by the hand and haul him up with you. A feeling of giddiness natural to men raised high above the ground now comes over you. You become to dumb forgetfulness a prey. You can’t remember even your father’s name. “ You are now Sir Alured Mogyns Smith de Mogyns, who was born Alfred Smith Muggins, tracing your descent from Hogyn Mogyn of the Hundred Beeves, and taking for your motto ‘ Ung Roy nng Mogyns. Thus Thackeray gives your pedigree.

New Year revelries in London, says a cable, have been enlivened by the use of the woman’s leap year privilege. This playful custom is of early date,. In 1288 it was enacted in Scotland that " during the rein of hir maist blissit Megeste ” (Margaret, Maid of Norway), for each year known as Leap i Year, each maiden lady of both high and low estate, “shall have liberty to bespeke the man she likes.” And if the man refuses, “he is to be mulct in the sum of ane pundis, or less, as ms oateit may be,”—unless he show that he was already betrothed to another woman. A similar law was passed in France a few years later, and the custom was also legalised in Genoa and Florence in the 15th century. But the real sting of the old Scottish law was in the tail. For what sting could be more venomous than the mulcting of a pound for each refusal, throughout the long space of 366 days?_ Queen Margaret’s advisers knew their Scotland. Far better marry than go to such expense. An old Aberdeen book-lover possessed a much. prized work of which one volume of the eight was missing. He diligently searched the land for the hook required to complete the set. At last he discovered that a widow in Dundee possessed a copy, and was prepared to sell it for £l. He married her. But the custom is by no _ means a “ creeping terror.”' It might have racial advantages. Scientific theories favour marriage between opposites. The Leap Year proposer would necessarily have will, energy, determination, effrontery—knowing what she wants and seeing that she gets it. The man who meekly accepted necessarily wouldn’t. Anyhow many marriages seem based on the principle “Woman poses, man proposes.” And the outcome is the existence of the terrible Eternal Triangle —a man’s appetite, a young wife, and a tin-opener.

In Greymouth, where a soft drink turneth not away thirst, Christmas Eve was celebrated “ januis clausis that is, behind closed doors. Of course, most of us did that $ but the doors that wore closed in Greymouth were the doors of hotel bars. From this trifling mistake about doors various troubles brewed —according to a Press telegram of last week. John Barleycorn was cornered. Respectable Greymouthians who had stormed the buffet had soon to buffet a storm. The police became unjustifiably active, whipping out their ominous black notebooks and scribbling down names and addresses with their stubby black pencils. Resentment followed hot foot. And now from Greymouth goes up a naive and plaintive cry, paraphrased in the Press report as follows: — As far as the West Coast is concerned it is considered almost as an unwritten law that leniency should be shown at a time characterised by “ goodwill towards men.” The oldtime West Coast is rapidly changing, and this Christmas Eve activity of the police is but further evidence of the new era. Yes, the old West Coast times are dead. But, though dead, they yet speak—that is, they speak easy. Oh Greymouth, Greymouth, thou that used to be a pleasant place, now blasted by ill-timed police activity! As Hamlet to Horatio, so I would say to Greymouth:— Nay, do not think I flatter, For what advancement may I hope from thee That no revenue hath but thy good spirits?

When these devotees of human goodwill appeared haggard-eyed and grey-mouthed before his Worship, I hope it was not a hard Bench they gazed upon. I hope his Worship made his meaning clear without having recourse to long sentences, I hope he forgave this first lapse, and would even forgive a second, — but no, not a third. Let him bear in mind the German motto, “ Eins, Zwei, Dry.”

Writes a playful correspondent; When yachting last week with some friends in the Lower Harbour, the wind failed us. We whistled for it, but no wind came, and there was the devil to pay. Could you tell us what was wrong with our whistle? How, why, when and where does one whistle for a wind? —I am, etc., Mole. A truly remarkable wind was this, which went yachting with some friends round the Lower Harbour. My correspondent “ Mole ” should not misrelate his participles. To come to. the question at issue—whistling is an unfailing producer of wind, if you whistle long enough. Even when you have got the wind up, then, too, is it good to whistle. The origin of the expression? In the old taverns and ale houses before electric push-buttons or bells were thought of, it was usual to place whistles about the room for the use of customers. You whistled for your drink, and you promptly and invariably got it. My correspondent unwittingly uses another old sea phrase, “there was the Devil to pay.” The “ devil ” was a seam between the keel and the garboard etrake. “To pay ” meant to cover with pitch, as in the expression “to pitch and pay.” When a ship was careened for repairs, hot pitch was required for “ paying the devil.” The full phrase appears in “ the devil to pay and no pitch hot.” Another seafaring term often misunderstood is ‘ trade wind.” This has nothing to do with “trade.” A trade wind (Anglo-Saxon tredde-wind) is a treading wind, a wind with a specific beat or tread—hence a constant wind. But beware of extending this interpretation of “trade” to windless things. Such phenomena as “trade cycle,” “balance of trade,” “Trade and Labour Council,” “ tradesman,” have nothing constant about them.

A story with a distinct bearing on the old-time Jonah test of salvation _ appeared unnoticed and undiscussed in a recent London weekly. It is based on the irrefutable authority of a coldblooded and level-headed scientist, Sir Francis Fox, the engineer, who tells it in his " Sixty-three years of Engineering Science and Social Work”: — In February, 1891, two boats attacked a sperm whale, which, with a lash of its tail, upset one of the boats. One of the men thrown into the water, James Bartley, could not be found. The whale was captured and killed; and next morning the stomach was hoisted on board the whaling ship. The sailors were startled by something which gave spasmodic signs of life; and inside was found the missing sailor, doubled up and unconscious. Ho was carefully treated by the captain and officers, and gradually regained possession of his senses. By the end of the third week he had resumed his duties. If you swallow this story, you can have no reasonable doubt about what a whale also can swallow. But what of the following ? Seven years ago a farmer in lowa hung his waistcoat on a fence in the farmyard. A calf came and chewed up a pocket in the garment in which was a gold watch. Last week the animal, now a staid old cow, was butchered for beef, and the timepiece was found embedded between _ the lungs of the cow in such a position that the respiration kept the stemwinder wound up. And the _ watch had lost only four minutes in the seven years. As a further test I may quote the story of the hen that laid a square egg, of the Hindu juggler who lifted a basket of snakes with his eyeballs, of the armless golfer who went round in 98, holding his clubs against hie neck between his chin and his breast. But a truce to this neck-romancing. Swallowing may be easy, but it is the digestion that’s sometimes difficult. Cms.