PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1824, 5 November 1886, Page 22

PASSING NOTES.

The mention in this week's telegrams of Yarna — of the imminence of a Russian attack tnpon "Varna— will set middle-aged men reviving their faded memories of the Crimean War. In 1854 32 years ago— the allied armies destined for a stroke of war against Russia in the Black Sea spent six months in and about Varna, a ' Bulgarian seaport near the mouth of the Danube, waiting for the route, which, when it came, sent them on their memorable errand to the Crimea and Sebastopol.' Much has come and gone with the lapse of those 32 years, but the Eastern Question remains exactly in t,tatu quo ante bellum— just as much a perplexity, just as much a menace. That is a melancholy reflec. tion, considering the fact that the bellumva. which ■we were then embarking with the view of resolving the perplexity and dispelling the menace • .is said to have cost the English 24,000 men, the French 63,500, the Russians 500,000, and to . , have added £41,000,000 to the English National Debt. So much blood and treasure spent for nothing ! — not to reckon the sanguinary RussoTurkish War that has since intervened. The proposals of the Czar Nicholas submitted to the " Western Powers before the Crimean struggle - strike one now as eminently reasonable. Servia and Bulgaria, released from Turkish oppression, were to ba formed into principalities under the suzerainty of Russia. England was to have Egypt and Candia — (we have got Egypt and Cyprus) — Constantinople was to be a neutral city held neithei by Russia, England, France, nor Greece. To prevent all that we went to war, and might very much better have saved our men and our money. Varna in 1854 and 1886 gives new point to old Oxenstiern's moral : ♦'Behold, my son, with how wisdom the world is governed ! "

Bishop Nevill has been lifting up his testimony against church bazaars — not too soon, from the point of view of an outsider. For seamstresses, for shopkeepers, and especially for v people who live by supplying the public with amusements, the competition of bazaars is rather ', a serious matter. In adoration of the Rev. Athanasius Gennflex, and at that unworldly gentleman's bidding, a number of ladies ply the . needle like so many factory girls, take toll of their shopkeepers in forced contributions, rally to their standard all the musical and dramatic amateurs of the city, hire the Garrison Hall foj a week, and run a general store in combination with a grand variety show, making trade duller than ever and nearly shutting up the legitimate ' theatre.' ' This aspect of the bazaar question the Bishop did not touch on, concerning himself only about the moral health of the Rev. Athanasius Genufiex and his female votaries, who, immersed in the excitements of a bazaar — . or, worse, of a " carnival,"— are hardly likely to keep themselves unspotted from the world. This side of the matter I do not discuss, but I notice that the Rev. A. R. Fitchett inclines to the view that bazaars are a very pardonable * kind of vanity and almost a means of grace. It is also noteworthy that whilst divided in sentiment — some of them condemning the bazaar as an unholy thing, some defending ifc—the clergy are singularly unanimous in their practice. They all do the thing — holy or unholy. And here seems a fitting place to bring in some rather . neat lines .with which I have been favoured on — THE BISHOP AND THE CAR-NI-VAL. ', The Bishop eate in his chair of state And ha looked around on his clerics a'l : " Now list to me, deacon, archdeacon, and priest, While I chaunt the dirge of the Car-ni-val. In the misty past, when constrained to fast For forty days at the Lenten call. The monks badeloving * farewell to the flesh ' In a riotous feast called ' Car-ni-val.' But tho naughty ways of those old dark days Afford no pattern for us at all ; Nor is our fasting so strict, I vrcrx, ; As to furnish excuse for Car-ni-val ! Then tell me why my episcopal eye Has seen, with grief, on each city wall, In juxtaposition profane and odd, The words— ' St. Paul.' and ' Car-ni-val.' , And tell me how my episcopal brow May be cleared of shame, if tho church of Paul Its arctiidiaconal treasury fills From the godless gains of a Car-ni-val ! And yet — Peccavi! — a sin as grave I Myself have sinned ;— though I fail to recall ■ That t named my little bazaar and farce For the Orphanage a ' Car-ni-val ' ! Nor do I ndmit, in respect of it, That the guilt was so great,— for the profits 1 wre small ; , Bufc they raked in gold in heaps. lam told, At the nrchidiaconal Car-ni-val. Ah ! soon through enre my episcopal hair From off my episcopal head must fall. If holy Church and wicked world Thus mix in the Devil's Car-ni-val ! For, not t" say, ex cathedra, That Satan presides at each sepnrate stall, He does, as I venture to think, superintend In a general way, a Car-ni-val. So let deacon and priest, from greatest to least, Let layman and cleric— archdeacon and all, My episcopal wrath— for what it is worthExpect, if they get up a Car-ni-val ! " *■ Pax Vobiscum.

Time was when our volunteers were wpnt to complain of want of consideration for their welfare and comfort, and no doubt there was ground enough for grumbling. Happily these days are past, and the Volunteers' millennium is within measurable distance. In a recent Daily Times, I read that a sham-fight is to taka place on the 9th inst. ab the Heads in the presence of Sir G. S. Whitmore and " that, should toe day provo fine and the sea smooth, the naval forces will attempt to effect .& landing despite" the b#ttery ( ;rx&migd bj tife permanent ■ <£<-$&* c '" SNUf&'ihb Wk) ffldti MaW th sea

smooth." " Ay, there's the rub." Lieut.-colonel Wales, like Sir Joseph Porter, means well. It may be taken for granted that a supply of umbrellas and goloshes, also plenty of hot brandy and water (pace Sir William Fox) will be furnished to such heroes as may have received a shower of spray. The Mosgiel Company might score a point by presenting each man with a chest protector — a useful thing in a country like this, when, in the appropriate words of Horace Walpole, " summer has set in with its usual severity." And now I venture to give my own private opinion, and I do so with becoming humility (being no man of war, naval or otherwise), that if the sea is rough, the landing will be effected even should the " rushing battle-bolt sing " from 20 Woolwich infants. Given fine weather and smooth sea, the naval forces might cruise about fishing, might improvise a regatta or board Dredge No. 222; but let the reverse be the order of the day, and maldemer will settle it. Not all the torpedoes of Whitehead, not all the guns of Armstrong or Gatling, will stop the blue- jackets in their rush for terra firma.

Statistics as a general rule are to be carefully avoided by the man who desires to lead a happy life, but the returns of illiterate voting in Great Britain and Ireland at the late general elections deserve' a passing notice. "In this happy country" ("Civis" has been to see " Pinafore " by the amateurs, and cannot get it out of his head) the nine-year-old boy is as full of information, useful and otherwise, as the "modern major-general"; and a "colonial native" who does not know his A B C is nearly as hard to find as the Auckland " Taniwha " or the great sea serpent. As regards illiterate voters, " dear old Scotland," as Mr Gladstone of late enthusiastically called her (he has dropped his former phrase of " the land of the leal "), shows to greatest advantage with only o'BB per cent. For this thanks are due to John Knox and his friends, who were the means of bringing education within the reach of all, and Scotchmen have for generations , been mightily indebted for advancement in the world to their parish schools. Next on the list comes England, with 217 per cent. This is a considerable jump ; but it must be remembered that education among the lower classes is of comparatively recent introduction, and that " Jack on his alehouse bench " was for a time very conservative, and did not hasten to take advantage of the three R's for his progeny. Had he not done well enough without education, and his fathers before him? Ireland, like Eclipse, leaves the rest nowhere with her total of 21*81 per cent Ireland may be the Isle of Saints, but it seems unlikely that she can gain the title of " Isle of Scholars" at any early date. Is it because letters have oome to the Irish "in a foreign garb " ? or can it be that little Pat and Barney have sworn to put aside primer and slate until that happy time when Parliament shall meet in College Green and a "Paper Union " shall become waste paper ? As matters now are, it is assuredly " another injustice," and is to be set down to the score of the "base* brutal, and bloody Saxon." Still, boycotting the schoolmaster seems to bear no slight resemblance to that surgical operation familiarly known as cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

To understand how tenderly the peccadilloes of genius canbetreateditisonlynecespary to hearken to some of the pagans that are being sounded over the late lamented Abbe, or rather Canon, Liszt. In consideration of the astonishing musical gifts of such men as Liszt and Chopin, the small laches oE their salad days are smilingly condoned by a world that is singularly censorious in the case of commoner mortals who are caught tripping. Of Liszt I read in some memorial notes by one of his most fervent admirers that "like his friend Chopin — the only pianist at that time who could emulate his feats of extemporisation, and who lived for some years maritalenwit with Madame Dudevant, otherwise • Georges Sand ' — he contracted a liaison with a lady of conspicuous literary ability, the Comtesse d'Agoult, who bore him two daughters and a son." There is a note of admiration here, it will be remarked, for the extemporising powers of the brother pianists and for the literary ability of the lady, but where is the note of horror at the social offence? It is not forthcoming because Liszt was a musical genius and his inamorata was a princess of the pen. Subsequently the chronicler announces that the beautiful and high born women who passionately petted Franz Liszt— successive generations of lovely enthusiasts— strove in vain to spoil him, and adds complacently : " The only mistress to whom he was inflexibly faithful was the art of music." Alas for the morality of out text books, even the inconstancy of the amorous Abbe is counted to him .for righteousness. But he was not an Abbe then, and perhaps might never have been had he disciplined his affections more sternly. For what says his historian ? " Some years after his connection with Madame d'Agoult had terminated, Liszt was impelled by circumstances of a very curious and romantic nature to take holy orders in the Roman Catholic Church, thereby binding himself to celibacy for the remainder of his daya" From this we may assume, for the credit of our copy-books, that retribution, like a poised hawk, came swooping down upon Franz Liszt, just as it is notoriously accustomed to swoop upon the every-day wrongdoer.

But Liszt's adventures scarcely seem to have terminated with his assumption of the cassock. The tall, slender, Dantesque Magyar priest still, it appears, remained the most successful subduer in Europe of the fair sex, and the object of an adoration that expressed itself (on the part of his votaries) in nil manner of extravagances of action. Not the only damsel of •hi£h degree*;}; is rels^d, VJxo.Be hjead, wag cgmpl^tely turned by the prirrce <k iinprovisatdri

was an infatuated maid of honour at the Court of Saxe- Weimar, whose strong personal flavour of stale tobacco mystified her family, friends, and fellow courtiers for several consecutive months. One day an accident revealed the amazing fact that Fraulein Yon permanently wore iv her bosom, as a sacred relic, an old cigar stump which Liszt had thrown away in the street under her eyes. She had reverently picked up the unsavoury morsel, enshrined it in a massive golden locket, enriched with the monogram "F. L." in brilliants, and suspended it round her virgin neck, whence it steadfastly emitted the sickly reek that so long perplexed the Grand Dncal" household. " I myself," adds the narrator, "have seen the proudest dames and damsels of the Austrian aristooracy crouching round Liszt on the bare boards of a concert room platform, in attitudes with which the 20 lovesick maidens of 'Patience' have familiarised the British public, and gloating fondly upon his expressive, animated countenance." In the face of this kind of thing, can we judge the peccant Abbe too severely ? Assuredly not. The circumstances of his case were exceptional. What think you, for example, would be the likely result if females of the aristocracy were permitted to gloat fondly upon the expressive and animated countenance of "Civis" as it appears during the composition of Passing Notes ?