PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 4 June 1938, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Winter is at last upon us, for the Winter Show is here. Now does winter, ruler of the inverted year, close her adamantine doors. Frozen dew drops crackling beneath the foot become her carpet, and icicles dripping from the resting trees provide her with her “ frieze.” Says an old poet, “ Winter counteth what summer getteth.” In winter, that is, Nature at last has leisure to get on with her stocktaking, and this she does in our Winter Show. Different is her stocktaking from that of your draper or your department store man, who, with his face to his customer, has his mind on his shelves. Different, too, is the Winter Show from its twin sister of the summer. For in summer Nature is in the full rush of business, and is out to sell. But on both occasions she comes to town in order to lift the wall-eyed citizen from his environment of voteless bricks and mortar. Before our eyes she displays the triumphs of her most ecstatic moods —the most golden of her apples, the hugest of her turnips, the most gigantic of her mangels, the most superb of her bullocks and heifers, wethers and rams. Which means, when translated into the notation of our city currency, just what Steele said of Lady Hastings. Though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check on loose behaviour; and to love her is a liberal education

—in the words of Swinburne, “ the most exquisite tribute ever paid to a noble lady.”

Not merely economic are the lessons which Dame Nature teaches in a Winter or Summer Show. Moral also are the lessons, social, political and even “ ideological.” Through the irrefutable evidences of our senses, confirmed by the red and blue and yellow labels affixed to this or that exhibit, she teaches that she is no egalitarian, no soap-box orator beating the ear to establish the divinity of equality. Nay, she is not even a democrat. Her instincts are aristocratic; and, like a true Englishwoman, she “ dearly loves a lord,” whether the lord be a pedigreed bull or a ram, a prize Cleopatra or a Cox’s Orange. Nor does equality of opportunity find much support in Nature. Haphazardly and carelessly does she distribute her rains and her droughts, her loamy soil and her pebbles. Yet no bigot is she. She recognises her own limitations. With an indulgent smile she has heard poets of all ages sing of her perfection. Onlv too well does she know that, but for the skill and care of man, her golden Cox’s Orange would be a mere crab, or might, by an untimely frost, be blasted to shrivelled ruin. See that ram or bullock on whose pen hangs the red card of merit like an Order of the Garter, or like an qscutcheon, or like a comfortable letter of credit. Left to himself he would be a wild and useless outlaw. Now, like a Lord No Zoo, he gazes out on the human mob before him with the cold arrogance of your true gentleman, or, with equal imperturbability, turns his back. In fact, throughout her whole realm, Nature distributes her honours and rewards in the shape of unearned increments, high prices, medals, challenge cups—all those hierarchical distinctions that mark a truly aristocratic state. All this we may learn from a Winter Show. Any other lessons? Yes, one more—economic, moral, psychological—that the pen is mightier than the sword.

* Derby is a city and a shire, as well as the signature of a noble eail. But if ever an eclipse was total it is that by which city and shire and earl pale into invisibility behind the “ Great English Classic ” of Epsom, which is not near Derby at all. The 1938 Derby has been run and won by Bois Roussel, and the successful jockey is for the time greater than any crowned head of Europe. Second was Scottish Union. —whose parentage is significantly set down as a Scottish union between Cameronian and Trustful. Ascot Park has for centuries been regarded as the most fashionable of British racecourses—the haunt of royalty and dukes, an ' of tailors and costumiers anxiously seeking a presage of the following season’s modes. But the Derby and the Oaks make the Epsom Downs the glory-point of British democracy:— On Derby Day London is empty. Suburban trains are crowded Every public and private conveyance is out. Superb equipages sweep along the road; a thousand cabs are on the way Workmen in clean jackets load down the lorries. Bootblacks and newsboys, rags and gay ribbons—afoot, on horseback, awheel, or by motorall London streams along the road to the races. Social distinctions are almost forgotten as duke and newsboy go mad in very ecstasy of ioy when his choice wins

Great, then, is the splendour of Derby Day. And great is the ancestry of the English Derby. Chariot races were held on the plain of Troy. King Solomon sent his trainers lo Egypt to buy up racing horses at £750 apiece. And Bois Roussel is now in direct line of descent from Ben Hur’s three peerless Arabs. As a circulator of money, the Derby is invaluable. How money moves round a race track is exemplified in the old story: The owner of Thormanby. a Derby winner, was James Merry, the Scottish ironmaster M.P. for Falkirk. Merry’s constituents in Falkirk Burghs kept, a critical eye on his racing activities. A rumour had been circulated that he had allowed a horse to run in a French race on the Sabbath Day. and he was summoned to the Town Hall to answer this horrible charge. The hall was crowded, and one of the “ meenisters ” solemnly put the dreadful question. Amid breathless silence the accused rose to answer. It is quite true,” he began, “ that, having sent a horse of mine across the Channel I did so far forget myself as to conform to the customs of that country, and allow him to start for an important prize on the Sabbath Day.” (Direful groans from the electors.) “ But, gentlemen.” he continued, “ before I thought about the day on which the race was to bo run. I had backed my horse very heavily, and I won the Frenchmen's money and brought it back to spend in auld Scotland.” Groans are said to have changed to applause, and the meeting closed with three cheers for James Merry

Far back in the days beyond recall, in the golden age of unlimited leisure, a time there was when men beguiled the tedium of life with literary diversions that seem to modern sophisticated minds mere literary frivolities. Not for utility did these men work, not for value received Difficulties overcome and an expected applause were their sole incentives. Some ol them produced their ingenious anagrams and palindromes, their macaronics and lipograms, their chronogram? and centones. Others, with a more literary bent, wrote verses of which each stanza began with a particular letter, or alliterative verses that ran through the whole gamut of the alphabet, such as: An Austrian Army awfully arrayed, Boldly by battery beseiged Belgrade.

And so on to Z. Another class produced their microscopies, enclosing a complete edition of the Bible in a walnut, or writing the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and three psalms within the surface of a sixpence. To this class belongs a Gisborne man who outdoes them all

Few would choose to devote spare moments to such an exacting hobby as that of Mr , of Gisborne, who specialises in engraving on minute articles such as grains of rice . Mr ’s collection includes the Lord’s Prayer on half a grain of rice, or 25 times on a space covered by a 3d piece, or fully inscribed once on a Din’s head.

Oui Gisborne man has beaten the hitherto unconquered record of the English jeweller who wrote the Lord’s Prayer only 13 times on a threepenny piece. The vulture eye of our fellow-New Zealander would be worth his weight in Treasury notes were he in the employ of our Income Tax Department. Customary, nay, fashionable, is it in these days to decry the status of the pun as a species of the genus joke. The self-conscious accompany it with an apologetic cough in speech and a phrase of excuse in writing. “A pun is a paltry humdrum jest,” someone has said. Yet, like other things of fashion, the pun has had its days and its periods. Shakespeare’s puns are legion—some glaring and blatant, deriving a humour from the very impudence of their obviousness; others obscure and oblique, bringing a glow of achievement to him who fathoms them- And for us the tale of Shakespeare’s puns would be doubled had we the scholarship to penetrate the subsequent changes of pronunciation since his time. There are puns and puns. Those that 'leave the easy ground of mere play on words and rise into the more airy realms of a play on ideas may fairly be ranked as humour or wit. Merely the faintest shadow of wit is visible in the statement that “ a hotelkeeper goes to an iron foundry to get a barmaid.” There is more in the justification of Benjamin’s marriage to Annie; “He would be bennie-fitted and she would be annie-mated.” Not bad as puns go are the following illustrations of “queer fish”: The Scotsman who had a pantry on wheels in order to make the food go further. The auctioneer who refused to do as he was bid. The accused murderer who hung on the judge’s words at his trial. The invalid who paid for his medicine but returned his doctor’s visits. The flirt who always hugged the shore when he went yachting. After all, this is easy, and we might go on indefinitely Just as queer a fish would be the nervous speaker who sat down on the spur of the moment, or the modest maiden who was shocked at a bare idea, and who blushed at the mere mention of the lapse of years.

A desirable innovation in newspaper practice would it be if every correspondent who airs his views were made a “ penny a liner ” of a new kind—the penny to come to the paper. Then would he acquire a commendable thriftiness in his words and a welcome increase in the number of his readers. And the paper itself would have more space to spare for more interesting matter. At every word the correspondent would stop to count the cost. A shorter word would be a saving on a less expressive one. And eloquence would glow more brightly at every penny saved. “ Fun,” for example, would no longer be grandiloquently expanded into “ entertainment value “ Tories ” would be just “ Tories,” and not “the forces of reaction”; “ games ” would not be “ recreational facilities to “ keep ” a promise would not be to “ implement ” it; “ to work whole time ” would not be written “to work on a whole time basis.” To these examples many more might be added from -he daily correspondence columns of the world’s newspapers. For speeches the golden rule is: “ Write your speech out in full, then burn the first two pages.” For very few speeches gain much by their personal introduction, or would lose effectiveness by abbreviation. As a warning against long speeches all is needed is the story told by Fielding: Once upon a time a gentleman and his servant were travelling together, and the gentleman called to his man and said, “John, John, get thee down from thy horse, and I will get me down from my horse, then take off the saddle that is on thy horse and afterwards take off • the saddle that is on my horse. Then take the saddle that was on my horse and put it on thy horse, and the saddle that was on thy horse and put it on my horse.” “Good gracmus, sir,” said John, “ could you not have said ‘ Change saddles ’? ” Civis