THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21773, 12 October 1932, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By WATFAEEE.

Justice is dispensed in this country according to the law of man. Basically the decalogue may govern our behaviour, but when an appeal is made it must be to the servant of the State alone. It is rarely that a malefactor —albeit many who find themselves in the courts must be pious folk—thinks to refuse the jurisdiction of the temporal judge, but such a one made a summary appearance in Christchurch recently:— The Police Court was startled this morning at the sight of an accused man dramatically dropping to his knees in the dock, clasping his bands above his head, and calling on God to be his judge. “ I am going to be your judge, said

the magistrate. We understand, of course, that there is here no claim forwarded to other than the usual prerogatives of the Bench. Each in his own sphere must do the work appointed for him, and to magistrates has been delegated, as the Christ church magistrate reminds us, the mundane but by no means unnecessary task of sentencing to three months the assaulters of policemen.

Others, however, than Upton Sinclair, who on another page of this journal was permitted lately to advertise his “ messianic delusion,” have shown less modesty than cither the magistrate or the appellant ’ whose claim he rejected. An anecdote which hails from Glasgow is likely to be related to truth, especially when sponsored by a prominent knight of that city. It refers to a man who presented a card to a hall porter of the Treasury. Excerpt:—

• He was venerable looking and careworn. The card bore the one word, "God.” “Is this your card, sir? It is and I must see the head. Ihe porter had a sense of humour, and, as an old servant, he was On terms of some familiarity with the Chief, who was also a* man of humour. “ Then come this ■way, sir,” The man followed with alacrity, and was presented. The Chiet rose. “Is this your card?” It is. sir.” “ Then what may I have the honour of doing for you? ” “Just this. Two years ago I issued a decree that the British Treasury should pay me £2OO a year, I have received nothing I have called to ascertain the cause.” The Chief felt relieved; the old man was at least modest in his demand. “You are God?” “That, as you see from my card, is my name.” “Then you know all things, and yet I think you have forgotten something.” * That, sir, is impossible. But what do you say I have forgotten?” “Just this, sir, that the Treasury does not issue money. ■Money is issued by the Mint.* The shadow of sadness on the old man's face deepened. “Ah, sir, it is true I had forgotten that. 1 shall go at once to the Mint.” There must be many to-day who, though they do not claim divine authority, have earnestly played with the idea of going into a bank and decreeing what they shall take away.

A sense of divine superiority does not necessarily leave the possessor devoid of a sense of humour. A popular London ■actress, who in a Sunday newspaper has lately been telling] most things to all men, recalls a visit to a place of refuge for our strange fellows: — There was one inmate who kept the authorities thoroughly guessing. They nicknamed him Hamlet Decause no one was quite certain whether he was mad or. shamming mad. The governor's personal opinion was that an_ odd- kink in his mind was forcing him to pull everybody’s legs at the asylum. His particular form ot- insanity was that he thought he was God. One day a particularly pompous member of the Asylums Board decided that the farce had gone on long enough. J3A told the governor that he would diss cover the trvHh about: this; impostor. . , “So you think you’re God? ” wheezed the pompous one. • ' >’■ “Don’t you, too?” - ! , “Really, my man, really—another question, then. If you’re God, .tell me, ■ shall I go to heaven or to hell? ’ J . “I can’t answer that,”replied the ! 'lunatic. “ I never talk shop.” If the ability to refrain from business monologues out of business hours is not actually a godlike quality, many wives will at least assert' that the man who talks neither shop nor golf is indeed a superior being. , '-j

More winsome words appropriate to the season: —

To the Dunedin merchant and retailer it has . . . been a season of considerable commercial depression; and it surprises us that the community has borne up so well under the various untoward influences to which they have been sub; jeeted, especially during the past winter; still, all are convinced that these are but temporary, and a general feeling of confidence is felt in the future prospects of the province. . 1 .

It is not the most recent pronouncement of those up-and-coming associations which act as Plunket nurses to our body politic in 1932, but of “ Mackay’s Otago, Southland and Gold fields’ Almanac, Provincial Directory and Yearly Repository of Useful Information for 1805.” There is a disturbing thought in the unerring consistency with which not history alone, but the very intonations and assonances of history, as reported in contemporary journals, repeat themselves.

Those hopeful noises were made in an all but fantastic time: a time when the first volunteer fire brigade was still a novelty in Invercargill and an Osier was the proprietor of the livery and bait stables here'; when our local barber proclaimed himself “ Knight of the Razor and Scissor” and was wont to “hold his court daily” at his “elegantly furnished saloon,” and the William Miskin sailed every week from -the New Jetty for the Molyneux,. there connecting with the Tuapeka, trading to Clutha Ferry and Pomahaka store; when artificial mineral teeth with soft, flexible gums, “especially adapted for Parties long resident in the Colonies” could be ordered from London by post, and the Bank of Otago paid 5 per cent, on 12 month deposits; when social barriers were still erect and an auctioneer, coming high in the scale, was paid up to 21s as a Supreme Court witness, while a yeoman was priced at 10s only and a common witness or juryman had to be content with ss.

A fantastic time indeed, when an annual could calmly announce, as if it were the sort of amenity a town could expect:— The erection of the new Post Office upon the reclaimed land near the Custom House has been commenced by the contractors . . . under a penalty for its completion by December, 1865. It is to be built of Oalnaru sandstone, and is specially designed to give every facility for the speedy assortment and delivery

of inward mails. . . . Then a sandstone post office measuring up to the dignity of a city of 15,037 souls (distributed, be it said, ih the proportion of two males to every female, with children to match) was given prior claim over any other housing problem—--429 of the city dwellings were tents, and either the weather was better or the people were hardier, but we find no record of. complaint by them. In seventy years or so we have changed, but the language of gloom remains static. A depression a lifetime gone or to-day is greeted in identical terms and, let us hope, may be speeded with the same optimistic utterances.

It is thrilling to find a Minister of the Crown and a leading member of the Opposition resolutely united—and not, be it said, on any piffling policy matter but in defence of that glorious institution that provides a cushion for their

seats, an audience for their declamations. Parliament, it seems, is not the place it was. Not content to let members criticise one another, people are butting in and criticising members. The injustice of the thing can only be proved by science. An American doctor, who is letting the world into his confidence, has been taking the measure of American legislators by weighing their brains. “The physical measurements of members of the Legislature,” he wisely remarks, “ represent the anthropological status of the whole country.” The impartiality of his system is shown in his summarisation of its capacity for diagnosis:— Whether genius or idiot, talented or imbecile, sane or insane, criminal or virtuous, moral or immoral, careful or careless, average or below average; in short, whether norma] or abnormal. . . .

In fact,'it seems to be just what is needed for the vindication of politicians from a cruel slur. It could probably be quite illuminatingly applied to the craniums of New Zealand legislators, and would settle once for all the question whether their brains are, as is sometimes rumoured, as the brains of ten, or indeed otherwise. All that is needed is the apparatus and the compliance of M.P.’s in an experiment whose result we refuse to anticipate in advance.