THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24430, 16 October 1940, Page 3

THE COMMON ROUND

By Wayfarer

The New Zealand Alliance strikes a blow for freedom, as recorded in a report in the Baptist of a petition which is being prepared for Governmental consumption: (a) Reduction of (1) the facilities for the sale of liquor. (2) the present hours of sale. (3) the alcoholic content of beer: (b) further restrictions on importation of liquor; (c) total restrictions on sale, supply, and/or delivery of liquor to any person between the hours of 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. (and during any hours in which bars are supposed to be closed) with rigid enforcement. See that it is available at your

church door. Some of these demands seem at first glance to be definitely aimed at the peace and comfort of the larger New Zealand community, but any prohibitionary suggestion is definitely redeemed in the final sentence. Why. indeed, should not all the pub-goers be church-goers? And, of course, vice versa, but in that case there would need to be an extension rather than a contraction in licensing hours; to include Sundays.

Spare a thought, gentle militarists, for the tribulations of the scientific directorate at the Ministry of Supply, which every week has to turn over 400 invention suggestions for winning the war. Says a harassed expert:

The threatened invasion brought a big crop of rather wild ideas. They included a bayonet attachment to

soldiers’ boots for kicking purposes, nets stretched presumably in the air against parachutists with pockets into which they would drop, causing a bell to ring, the dropping of snakes, scorpions, and wild animals over Germany, 'as well as hungry rats, jumping finally to a compound which could be fired into the air to solidify into a gelatine substance to set round enemy troop concentrations like shell.

Even a. distinguished professor, it will be seen, can have his head turned by too-constant contact with the bright ideas of those akin to genius The picture of hungry rats solidifying into a gelatine compound .V. but enough! There is a limit to these imaginings.

■There is, no limit, however, to the inventor’s cunning. But even the craziest of his fancies may, we are reminded by Dr Stafford Hatfield, be at least well-intended; . . , the man \vho had a fishingrod which put a bell in motion when a fish took a bite, or the bright person who made a soft hat which might be turned into an umbrella when it was wet—these were working not only for their day. but for all time. The same is true of the person who had the idea of stopping the man who gets into your house at night by hanging over every door a box of special powder which would come down on him and make him

give himself away by a loud sneeze; that is an idea which, quite seriously

has a right to attention. In our present higher stage of development we have the gas attack. Has no one got the right to make use of the poison gases of the present day on the outlaws of society when they make their attacks on us?

The balloon barrage is a perfect case in point. The idea is so simple, yet so Heath-Robinsonian as to arouse our incredulity even while we realise that these sausageshaped blimps are a useful part of the British air defences.

Let us, then, honour the nuts which, flying abundantly from loose screws, may be forged into implements for the use of mankind. There is undoubtedly a place in history for the man who can invent such a boon as a non-consumable cigarette—just to mention one of our minor troubles in a heavily-taxed community. For the man who can make motor cars run on water a nation’s thanks are assured. And we are all in the- market for some type of political renovator which, more certain and prompt than a general elec-

tion, would put government back into good shape. But be it understood that we want no one to set his hand to the invention of a Hitler or a Mussolini. .

Talking of free countries, we have report of the return to New Zealand after several years abroad in the cramped, restricted atmosphere of Europe of a reverend gentleman of goodly and godly repute;

When we disembarked at Wellington we followed our luggage straight into the Customs shed. The first case I opened was one containing the nucleus of my theological library, which I have carried with me everywhere we’ve been. The Customs officer looked at these sober volumes, handling a few of them with disdain. “Anything subversive in these? ” he asked suspiciously. This was our greeting from New Zealand.

The etymological. contributions of war to the English language will, as we have previously surmised, take their own time in arriving and their own peculiar meaning on arrival—e.g., Quisling, which within the space of months has become a common noun to describe a common.and also vulgar Continental practice. It is impossible, perhaps, to hasten the evolution of such words, but the German march into Rumania, “in anticipation of a move by Great Britain,” disposes us the more sympathetically towards the suggestion of a correspondent of Time for a new minting: hitler (hit-ler) n (G) A. falsehood uttered or acted to deceive. -Syn. lie, untruth.—v.i. hitlered (Int-lerd) hitlering. To utter a falsehood with intent to deceive; tell or act a hitler.—v.t. To affect by hitlering, as. he hitlered himself out of trouble. Or, alternatively, “he is hitlering himself into trouble.” We shall hope to see this picturesque word take ‘ts place in the next edition of the Oxford. Meanwhile, there is material for some bright lexicographer to work on in the names of the other units of the Terrible Three —e.g.: “The attack by the Hurricane was so swift that the pilot of the Heinkel did not know if he was coming or goering.”

There are —as everybody knows who keeps an ear wide open in the trams—other ways also in which Hitler may be defined. One of the most learned definitions occurs in Sacheverell Sitwell’s new book, “ Poltergeists,” which we find described as the result of exhaustive and patient research. Quotha:

. , . two remarkable modern mediums came from Braunau, an old town which was the birthplace, too, of Adolf Hitler, the perfect type of a medium, if ever there was one, who is described in the newspapers upon every dramatic or terrible occasion as “ walking like one in a trance” and giving vent to the hysterical climaxes of the true Poltergeist.

Now all we need is a definition, in turn, of “ Poltergeist.” It is a German word meaning literally “ a spirit that throws things about,” and, Mr Sitwell adds, “ never a year goes by but there are reports of them.” Now for “Hitler” in (he next loud report read “ Poltergeist ” and we are coming near the spirit of the thing. Add to the spookportrait the priceless pearl placed before readers of The Times Literary Supplement in a review of Peter

Fleming’s new novel: . . the Fuhrer enters, his ectoplasmic face vacant with exaltation.” Then we have the very spirit itself, in all its clammy majesty; though, we must agree, a very nasty, mean-minded and destructive spirit.

There is to be no award of the Nobel Peace Prize this year. But why was Marshal Petain overlooked?

“ The bursting of German bombs over Great Britain has forced a special use of the word ‘ blast ’ into the language.” These Londoners must be losing their gift for rhetoric if that is the best they can do.