PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22504, 23 February 1935, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Hqw often in the past, have we taken off our hats—and put our umbrellas up —to the learned meteorologist, to the superman omniscient in his weather reports aiid infallible in his weather, prognostications? High above Jupiter Tonans et Pluvius—Jove the Thunderer and Rainmaker—have we enthroned him. For he it is who has cleared our droughts and floods from their wrapping of mystery and made them- as intelligible as the arrival and departure of ocean liners. With gentle, contempt do we now look down mir. ’noses at such old-world weather rules as “ Fine on Friday, fine on Sunday,” “ Rain at seven, fine at eleven;” The ringed moon and the changing moon, now lie on the dusty shelf amid such rain announcers as the flying bats, the rising fish, the clamouring crows, and the pimpernels and marigolds that closed up their petals at the approach of moisture. For

The moon and the weather May change together; But change of moon . . Does not. change weather. The meteorologist, scientist as he is, of cotirse has his jargon. And strange to say, his jargon, by a fortuitous concourse of circumstances, has come to bo’that of the economists Thus does our. meteorologist sum up the week’s weaiher news:— A rather complex: westerly depression has been crossing the Dominion this morning. The line of lotvest pressure lay across Canterbury. Later;— The trough of a shallow depression moved northwards last night over the southern half of the South Island. . . . A fresh depression has passed over Tasmania, and is advancing across the Tasman Sea. And still later:— Yesterday’s depression has passed eastward off the Dominion, but another depression is following it closely. Thus does depression follow depression with, damnable iteration. If only the economist, who also works among depressions and whose job it is to follow and predict their progress, would spend Ms next holidays in the meteorologist’s office! .For the nonce, however, the meteorologist has been beaten by that imaginary robot known as the man in the street. As sure as eggs is eggs ; said the robot, the Plilnket Shield cricket match will bring along rain. It always has done so and always will. And it has.. The drought has broken in the nick of time, at the eleventh hour. The flying bat has come back into its own. The disaster from which we have sojiarrowly escaped was already flapping its wings in our faces. ' Soon we were to hear the tolling bell of the water tumbril passing our doors, calling us to bring ou# our jugs. Our sanitary system was trembling on the brink of ruin. The ukase was about to go forth that every household must use a common bath water—as has happened often before in lands where water is scarce. A writer who knows all about it says:— y In a Damascus hotel the various bathrooms were situated one above the other. In the top one was a Vassar girl, on the third floor was myself, beneath me was a Texas 4‘udge, and in the lowest was a Jrooklyn landlady who was “ doing ” the Mediterranean. . * Everything was all right until the Vassar girl finished her bath and pulled the plug. Immediately • my bath was filled with her bath water, plus a dozen cigarette butts. I leaped out of' my bath and pulled the plug. A muffled roar of rage told me that Texas had received my bath water, plus the cigarette ends. As the judge usually ate crapes when he took his. bath. I could well imagine the feelings of Mrs Grabbitt in the bath below when the judge pulled his,. , plug. - ; Her wails still ring in ray

■■earft:'’ ■a • m ' ’ * ; ■ In the absence of water we might have been reduced to bathing in milk —for which there is distinguished precedent. By such a method did a famous prerevolution French marquise preserve the whiteness of her complexion. She afterwards sold the milk to the poor of Paris.

A time there was, early in the Victorian era, when a Latin quotation in the House of Commons rounded off aii argument and drove home the speaker's point with irresistible force. Said Charles Fox of this unwritten order of the House, “No Greek; as much Latin as you like; and never French under any circumstances. No English poet unless he has completed his century.” Correct pronunciation after the English fashion was, of course, a sine qua non, and a false quantity was a sin against the Holy Ghost. Comprehensive as was Charles Fox’s injunction, no mention does he make of biblical quotations. Victorian politicians had their limitations. Municipal politicians of the Lower Hutt discovered last week how sharp is the argument pointed and barbed with the picturesque language of the Bible, before which the hexameters and alcaics of Virgil and Horace kouud flat and stale. To the Mayor of Lower Hutt wrote a resident of Rarpa road complaining of the state of his street: • Woe unto ye, Councillors! Sitters in the seats of the mighty, who grow • fat while the weeds in the streets are altogether an abomination unto us. ' 0 ye raisers, of false hopes and desolators of our vocabularies, a generation of vipers who stingeth us fpr exorbitant rates but give naught in return. Flee from the wrath to come. Know ye not that Raroa road lieth waste, ' even as the wilderness and desert places, to bring forth the docks, the dandelions, and the long couch grass, each one after his own kind. • . . . Now in patience and tribulation have we dwellers in Raroa road suffered and murmured not. You have smote us in our ten- • derest spot, and we have turned the other cheek to you. But the day cometh when the very stones in this street will cry out against you.

He continues: Hearken, then, and harden not your hearts, but repent now in-sack-cloth and ashes. Summon to your council chamber the master of your workmen, even the borough engineer, and say unto him, “Begone! 'Make haste unto this place called llaroa, hew down the long grass, kindle the fires beneath your tar barrels, and with the?might of thine hand make straight this crooked place, that every mouth may be stopped, and every heart be made glad.” And unto thee, most noble chief of councillors, will we give all honour and,praise for ever. To which the Mayor of Lower Hutt, knowing that “ a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a picture of silver,” that “wisdom giveth life to him who hath it,” that wisdom excelled! folly as far as light excelled! darkness,” and that “ the beginning of strife is as when one letteth cut water,” replied thus to the Raroan: I §ay unto the complainers,, squeal not foolishly, and to the scornful, lift not up your voices. Lift not up your voices in annoyance. Speak not with an aggrieved air. For tar-sealing comcth neither from the east nor from the west, nor from the south. For in the vaults of council there is some money, but not enough, and it poufeth out such, tar as can be purchased, in the places that are most deserving. But I will declare for ever, I will give credit for their fairness. All the horns of the unreasonable shall be cut off. but the request of the needy shall be granted. What the Mayor of Lower Hutt meant to say was, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

From Wednesday’s paper: Amazing details were revealed lately of how a working girl with little or no memory, who appeared to be a person of extremely low intelligence, has been found to have a brain equal to or even better than that of the average university professor. Treatment for “acute anxiety-hysteria" at the Medical Psychology Clinic in London is said to have done the trick: Before her .discharge, the girl waa • subjected to the usual intelligence tefits, and these showed her to be mentally far ahead of the ordinary working-class woman. More advanced tests proved her to have an intelligence beyond that required for an honours degree. The bearing of this phenomenon on the accuracy of examination-testing at once leaps to the eye. For a boy or girl of exceptional mental gifts may be so affected by the examination atmosphere as ' to be temporarily a victim to “ anxiety-hysteria,” and be ranked as sub-normal by his examination performance. A candidate who fails has only to be treated at a, psychological clinic to be proved superior in intelligence to the average, examiner. Does this prove the futility of examinations? By’no means;; it proves their necessity. A candidate so emotionally .unstable as to be subject to fits of “anxiety-hysteria” in an examination room has failed before he sits, even if his intelligence be super-normal. His place is not -the examination room,’ but the open fields, there to be “ stabilised” by sunshine and oxygen and freedom from bookgrinding. Life is one long examination, and. the world does not wait for the man whoso occasional fits of “anxiety-hysteria” may hold it up. Examinations test much more than knowledge and intelligence.

What is the brain, anyway, and what do we know about it? What relation has size of brain to intelligence? The brilliant prizeman has not a larger brain than the plodding passman. Anatole France had a brain 20 per cent, smaller than that of the average Frenchman, and yet had genius. His lack of brains, according to Sir Arthur Keith, was.no deterrent to the possession oL ability; but ,may explain some of his deficiencies. For small-headed people are apt to be indiscreet. In point of size the brain of the average woman falls short of that of the average man by 10 per cent. Yet what man has the courttge to draw conclusions from that? Sir Arthur Keith says further on the subject: . ;

Although size of brain gives no reliable index to individual ability, it docs hold for mankind considered 1 in the. mass. The peoples and races which lead in the. van of modern progress are those with big brains. .The backward races are small brained. As we trace the rise of monkeys and apes towards the human estate we find ■ that with each, 'degree of approach there is an increase in size and complexity of brain, and a corresponding increase in human ability. Horribile dictu, we are now gradually returning to the apes. Human brains are growing smaller. ' " ] In point of size and complexity the human brain reached, the. full development seen in modern times long before the days of ancient Greece and Rome. Civilisation has not added. to its size, .'. . The average size of brain among the people of. India is less than it was in Mohenjodaro, a city of ancient India, about 5000 years ago.

Dear “Givis,”— ‘ , In a year-old copy ■of a London weekly I have come across the worrying statement that all our marriage announcements are wrong: that a man cannot “be married" to a woman, that a woman cannot “marry ’ a man, and that when the wedding festiyitiea are reported the bride’s name should not be mentioned first. Evidently it is maintained that Mr A “marries” Miss 8., Miss B. “is married ”toMr A. What think you of this?— l am, etc., Married. Presumably my correspondent refers to newspaper announcements, not to latyr biographical or. historical references. “ Helena of Montenegro ‘ married ’ Victor Emmanuel of Italy ” seems right enough. Queen Victoria “married ” Prince Albert—but she did it by royal command., In everyday life the man who takes the “active” part in the contract and its preliminaries is surely entitled to the “ active ” verb. And the “ active ” verb is “ marries.” The woman who is “ passive ” through it all —or ought to be —should be content with the “'.passive ” verb “is married.” When the man proposes he should no doubt say “ Will you marry me? ” That is, unless he follows the more free-and-easy method of modern youth, which is, “I say, Blobbs, how about it? ” To which the reply will not be “Yes, Algernon, I will \be married to you,” but “0.K., Spotts.” And certainly when the wedding is thereinafter announced, the man’s name should come first. Is he not then paying for it? Cms.