PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23354, 20 November 1937, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Dictatorship was on the stage and the whole world was in the stalls when der Fuehrer and 11 Duce made their way to the old Fuehrerhaus in Munich for the great promised banquet. Many a “ Heil! ” and “ Viva! ” escorted their progress. And many a “ Hoch! ” is said to have “ punctuated ” the lengthy toast list. Now “ punctuation " presupposes either a poem or a piece of prose, for what else can you punctuate? Which of those was it? The banquet was designed to be a poem. The maker of it was the prince of German chefs, Walter Spiel, and everything was at hand to make it a Lucullan meal, modified, of course, to suit the decadent gastronomy of modern times. No greater ' inspiration to lyricism has your true cordon bleu than an occasion worthy of his theme and men to do it justice. A time there was when the great men of the earth were mighty trencher-men, honouring thereby their host or their guest But no cordon bleu but is thrown out of his stride when the banquet he has devised through sleepless nights is nibbled at by both honoured guest and host, as if both were dyspeptic. Wasted oh Hitler and on Mussolini was that greatest of all arts—the gastronomic. Hitler confined himself to the herbs of the field, being a vegetarian, and for Mussolini the bulk of the meal was fresh fruit brought specially from Italy. Walter Spiel’s probable ejaculation to his pots and pans might almost be heard': “ Yes. Gents bring their own baskets. This man curbs his appetite by getting a bit between his teeth.”

If this banquet had been a poem, the toast list would have been an oratorio. In this military atmosphere, with troopers lining the approaches, the tune should have been that of the soldier’s dream. Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades, Of health’s five fathoms deep.

But Hitler is a teetotaller, and Mussolini as near as may be. II Duce rarely touches. The toasts were drunk in mineral water And the disciplined Teutons who constituted the many guests “ preferred ” to follow their host Nor did either Dictator smoke. Hitler was born a non-smoker, and has not smoked since. Mussolini has not smoked since the war, and not of smoke is now his puffing. What the thoughts of Walter Spiel were, only his kitchen will know Your truly great cook must be as conscientious as a Vatel and as sensitive to approval as a film star. For Vatel, that great French chef who saw the supper he was cooking for Louis XIV ruined by the non-arrival of the fish, straightaway committed suicide. Here and there on the Continent of Europe non-smokers are found Rarer is a non-smoking teetotaller Cumulatively rarer is a non-smok-ing, teetotal, vegetarian dictator. Strange is it how gregarious are such idiosyncracies, eccentricities. Of course, legends may easily arise: Mark Twain was once dining with Mr Choate and Mr Whitelaw Reid. When the waiter was about to pour out wine for Mr Choate he shielded his glass. “ What! No wine, Choate? ” asked Mark Twain. “No,” said Choate. “I’m 60 today, and I have never drunk a glass of wine, I’ve never tasted tobacco, and I’ve never gambled.” “Really," said Mark Twain. “I wish I could say that.” “ Why don’t you, Mark? ” drawled Reid. “ Choate did.”

Different from these modern State banquets are the Gargantuan menus on which the Romans conquered the world. Mighty were the men who ate at night the products of the then known world and 'went forth next day to add a new province to the empire. Among their menus were sea-hedgehogs, oysters, mussels, sea-nettles, all kinds of fish, ducks and fowl, hare, pork, beef, lamb, venison, boar’s head, lark’s tongues, pigeons’ liver, sows’ udders, vegetables, and sweets of every species. Specially popular was sturgeon garnished with butterflies’ wings. The universe was searched for particular delicacies—peacocks from Samos, grouse from Phrygia, cranes from Melos, kids from Ambracis, tunny-fish from Chalcedon, ass-fish from Pessinus. nuts from Thasos, acoms from Spain, and oysters and scallops from Tarentum Pigs were served whole, from which, when carved, live birds flew, with hot sausages tumbling out after them. Small fish were served as though alive in a transparent sauce that resembled the blue Mediterranean. For special tastes were provided marjoram, pickled locusts, and pistachios. Wines were scented or spiced with pine-cones, cinnamon, or crushed roses. And in hot weather snow was brought from the mountains with infinite labour From such heights have we descended. Lucullus especially prided himself upon the luxury of his feasts. Says Plutarch: On one occasion when he hap

pened to sup alone, the meal being less magnificent than usual, he rebuked his servant, saying, “ Did you not know that this evening Lucullus sups with Lucullus? ”

With the dramatic arrest of the Cagoulards,. France has narrowly escaped a “ coup d’etat ” —that French invention with a French name. For secret stores of cheddite, hundreds of thousands of cartridges, hundreds of machine guns and sub-machine guns, cases of hand-grenades, all concealed in fortress-like concrete chambers, mean nothing if not “ a violent and illegal seizure of power.” The definition of coup d’etat by the Oxford Dictionary ignores its most impressive characteristic The Famous coups d’etat of recent history were quick and sudden, timed to a second coming like a bolt from the midnight blue—in fact, a sharp and decisive “ blow.” A coup d’etat extending over months might be “ violent and illegal,” but might be as dull and slow as a wet week Your real coup d’etat must be a dramatic affair, done while citizens are asleep in their beds. It must be prepared with neat and prompt efficiency. The midnight bell must be its hupting horn In fact, there is a technique of coups d’etat—unwritten laws and regulations and formulae. The ideal coup d’etat was that by which Louis Bonaparte in 1850 worked his way into the Imperial throne of France as Napoleon 111 Kinglake writes - On the Monday nighi between December 1 and 2 the President held his usual assembly at the Elysee. Ministers ignorant of what was going on mingled with those in the plot. . At the usual hour the guests began to disperse and by 11 o’clock only three remained. These were to strike the blow that night. While Paris was hushed in sleep, a batallion .of gendarmerie folded ilself round the State Printing Office. . Each compositor as he worked stood between two policemen. Generals. statesmen, denuties, officials were seized from their beds and despatched to unknown destinations. . The newspapers were seized and stopped. . When morning dawned the people of

Paris read the proclamations on the walls. Next day Jthe Paris volcano ex-

ploded. But surprise was the essence of the contract. But for the Paris Surete, or the French Secret Service on the present occasion, Paris, France, Europe, the world would have been presented with a new Cagoulard situation while they slept.

Among the many things that at the moment implore the passing tribute of a sigh is the current distribution of the income tax assessment notices. True it is that taxes defy the law of gravitation—they never come down; nay, they are going up, steadily, with the inevitability of gradualness. Gloomy reflections pile themselves upon us. Of what avail are the Government efforts, by its new Physical Welfare Bill, to produce a fine upstanding New Zealand race, when every New Zealander is becoming round-shoul-dered with the burden of taxation? No one minds supporting the Government, provided it leaves us enough to support ourselves. But the time is coming when the Government will be asked to keep the blessed income and give us the tax. It is a hard world. Our friends will not believe we earn so much, and the Government refuses to believe that we earn so little. Business, say the Ministers, is looking up. _ But it is only glancing up to see if the taxes are coming down. Soon we shall have to borrow to pay our taxes. In this wool-growing country the advice of Suetonius should merely ’be followed. He said, “A good shepherd should shear his sheep, not flay them.” Taxes and death, according to the old proverb, and equally inevitable. But in other respects they differ; for one is frequently painless and is never a repeater. “No people,” said Burke, “ that is overcharged with tribute is fit for empire.” We are doomed, then, to be a tributary race, subjects of oppression and objects of pity. And the young man who, in his first fine careless rapture, crosses the threshold of a taxable income may read on the lintel of the door, ‘All hope abandon ve who enter here. Vae Victis!

Our education, free, compulsory and secular though it be, is not more than a “ howling ” success. In grammar especially our authors display an enthusiasm for correctness which is not equal to their knowledge. In a current work of fiction by a too current author may be read the statement, “To think _of not taking the word of a man like I.” This he lets pass uncorrected. But a few pages further on he has, ‘ ‘ Yes, it’s me,’ she said, with a violation' of grammar of which she was unconscious.” Thus he strained at a gnat and swallowed a formidable camel. Says Fowler, ‘“lt wasnt me’ is technically wrong; but, the phrase being by its very nature colloquial, such a lapse is of no importance.” In fact, according to present tendencies of English speech, the erroneousness of “It’s me is becoming at least arguable. Me and “him” are being more and more used for “I ” and “ him when no verb follows, not from a mistaken application of the objective case for the nominative, but merely as “ emphatics,” as in French. But for every misuse of *me for ( i p there are a hundred misuses of a for “ me.” " I ” has acquired a grammatical gentility. And writers and speakers who <jlo not know a grammatical case when they see it plump for “I” as being more favoured in the best circles. Hence we have such atrocities as “ Between you and I ” (heard over the air from the cqmmercial broadcasting station) and “Let you and I talk about it. Authors of good sellers are not above such practices—as m A rich friend of ours wrote and asked my husband and I to dine at the nearest restaurant.” The same fallacious instinct inspired Thomas Moore to write, in his notorious line, And all but he departed.” Quoted in a contemporary are some headlines that, recently appeared on a poster issued by the Glasgow Evening News: Plague in Russia Sedition in India Winston in Dundee For all we know the visit of Winston Churchill to Dundee may have been as innocent and as innocuous as the recent one of Mr Peter Fraser to Dunedin. In neither case would headlines such as these endanger the cause of the liberty of the press. A meal is to be judged by the eatables, not by the mere menu card. But newspaper headlining or contents billing calls for many gifts of heart and intellect. A headline must adequately summarise in phrase the contents of a column. It must grip the imagination and stir the interest. And it must sell the paper* A recent American competition tor the best contents bill for an evening newspaper gave the prize to Negro Dope Fiend Slays Lay Preacher s Mistress.” This was held to contain all the crimes and excitements rated most highly in popular esteem-race, drugs, murder, religion, sex. un this principle ai’e constructed the titles of many popular films.

But newspaper headlines may lack these pungent spices, and still be brilliant. A pretty wit may enliven the drudgery of journalism. Many were the piquant leader-headings devised by Harry Gust in the old days of the Fall Mall Gazette How neat and apt was his heading. “Stumble Off, Stambouloff.” when that Bulgarian statesman suddenly fell from power! Another triumph in the same realm of art was Gust’s heading to a leader on the attitude of Prince Chun (pronounced Choon), wh6 was sent from China to perform the kow-tow before the German Emperor, but who dallied in Switzerland rather than proceed to the execution of his degrading mission. No kow-tow took place. And Gust s headline was: “ The Chun Old Kowtow Died Of.” In the rush and excitement of a newspaper “scoop" mistakes may naturally happen. When Pope Benedict XV was dangerously ill, a premature report of his death was flashed by a cable to a New York newspaper. A special edition, bore a headline across its seven columns on the front page: “ Pope Benedict is Dead.” And a triple column head, in bold, heavy type, ran as. follows:

Pope Benedict XV is no more. Death took the ruler of the Catholic world at an early hour this morning. . His passing was easy and beautiful, and slowly, as he sank into his last sleep, the watchers at the bedside caught the murmur, “ Peace, Peace.” as the Pontiff breathed his last Next day the pews was contradicted. Was the New York paper put out of countenance? Not a bit. With the well-known imperturbability of the newspaper world, another edition appeared, with equally large headlines, “ Pope Benedict Has Remarkable Recovery.” Givis.