PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2028, 5 January 1893, Page 25

PASSING NOTES.

The Irish patriot, old style, who arranged the dynamite explosion at Dublin Castle was faithful to the traditions of his order. He had probably just been released from jail, a victim of coercion indebted for his liberty to the clemency of Mr John Morley. " Agin the Government " he had gons in, and " agin the Government " he came out. True, the Government had been changed in the meantime, but what of that ? The Irish patriot, old style, doe 3 not draw fanciful distinctions. A Salisbury Government and a Gladstone Government are equally Sassenach ; Coercion Balfour ard Clemency Morley are equally tyrants. And so the first use he makes of his liberty is to explode a dynamite bomb in the vicinity of Dublin Castle and blow off the bead of a poor policeman. This is the Irish patriot, old style. His numbers have been minished and brought low of late years, chiefly by voluntary migration to America, but there are still some few left, it seems, of the good old sort.

The Irish patriot, new style, protests, per resolution of the Dublin Council, that the dynamite incident has " no political significance." Oh, dear no; certainly not! Neither has it any political significance that Mr Gladstone in the very act of incubating Home Rule needs to have a special guard of police round his official residence; nor that Mr Morley, just after liberating political prisoners from the dungeons of his predecessor, receives, doubtless from one of the objects of his clemency, a threatening letter bidding him prepare for a bloody death. These things are all contrivances of the Tories to discredit alike the Gladstone Government and the unsophisticated Irish people 1 lam not myself sufficiently unsophisticated to believe it. The precise political significance of the dynamite outrage is shadowed forth in one of iEsop's fables. A dog was drowning in a well. A good-natured man tried to pull him out. The dog bit him. Of course it is only the old style of Irish patriot that would bite the helping hand— l distinguish carefully, you observe, and don't charge against the many the crimes of the few. All the same the Irish people are not an easy people to help. Picture Mr Gladstone's tragic-comic situation — hatching tbe egg Ci. Home Rule for Ireland and at the same time needing police to protect him from Irish dynamite I

A lady correspondent writes to me about what she calls the cracker nuisance on New Year's Eve. She is angry, says the streets were unsafe, and asks me to put it down with a firm hand. I shall in all my best obey you, madam, but as I am neither a policeman, an inspector of nuisances, nor even an editor, my be3t is but poor. . Firm hand indeed 1 I have seen the day— how long ago wild horses shall not make me tell — that I would gladly have run a mile for the pleasure of letting off one of those little spitfires. But, curious change, I would now gladly run a mile— and believe me that's no trifle —to avoid one. I suppose they are not what they were when I was a boy. Everything's adulterated nowadays—even the cracker of commerce. A nuisance 1 Yes, no doubt. But we are not infidels and Turk?, madam, you and I ; and though crackers delight U3 not — no, nor jumping jacks, neither — yet would we not suppress them if we thereby crushed the religious susceptibilities of those who use them. And there's risk of it, for crackers do sometimes serve a spiritual purpose. Thus when a Chinaman dies it is the pious custom of his pigtailed compatriots to explode them round his grave in order to frighten off the imps that lie in wait for newly disembodied Mongolian spirits. And so also with our young colonials, who have enjoyed the advantages of our secular system. I cannot tell, for I never venture abroad on New Year's Eve, but it may be that the practice of which you complain is at bottom an act of devotion — performed, albeit unconsciously, by earnest-souled youths, whom, in your nervous excitement, you mistake for lairikins and hobbledehoys. Were it otherwise tbe police would surely interfere.

Mr Vinoent Pyke is still "on Bendigo." In tbe columns of the Daily Times, that is,

I L-li and merely as an etytnolocibt. To be "on Bendigo " again as in the old time, V. P. ;— to cross tbe years between, and feel once more, amongst the odorous gums and wattles, the breath of an Australian noon scorching our youthful cheeks — for this what would we not give, you ancl I ? What kind of penitential regrets the retrospect awakens in you, old friend, I don't presume to guess, but, speaking for myself, I am impelled to drop into poetry and say with poor Tom Hood that Now 'tis little joy To know I'm further off from heaven Than when I was a boy. How do you feel about it, V P. ? What the exact degree of your nearness to heaven may have been during those golden days 11 on Bendigo " would perhaps be hard to say, but I'll take my 'davey you're further off now ! This, however, is a digression. I set out to commend Mr Pyke's zeal for a true etymology of the name " Bendigo." The spot was originally known as "Bandicoot Creek," he affirms. "Bendigo" is a corruption, due to the ignorance of the early diggers and the popularity of a prize-fighter. In support of this he tow quotes Mr Lockhart Morton, an old-time Victorian, " whose authority," he presumes, " will not be disputed." For my own part I accept the "Bandicoot" theory on its own inherent probability and want no corroborating authority at all. If " Sbotover "is Chateau vert, and Jit is, the corruption being of older date than the name "Shotover" in New Zealand— why may not "Bendigo" be " Bandicoot " ? That is logic enough for me. The bad taste and limited imagination of the average British Philistine are well seen in colonial place-namep. " New Zealand " was no doubt the choice of a Dutchman, but nobody except an Englishman— or possibly an Irishman — would have called the two islands respectively New Munsttr and New Leinster, names which they still bear on maps. West of England people colonised Taranaki, and set aside the well-sounding native name in favour of " New Plymouth." Scotch people colonised Otogo, — let us be thankful that they called the capital only "Danedin," and not "New Edinburgh." Look how the British navigator has left his ugly sign manual sprawling over the map of Australasia in "New Guinea," "New Britain," " New Ireland," " New Caledonia," " New Hebrides," and, to cap the lof, " New South Wales I " But the crying example is America. You begin with " New York," " New England," " New Jersey," and pass by insensible gradations, or degradations, to " New Rome," " New Troy," and " New Jerusalem." In all these cases the taste was lacking to keep a native name, and equally the invention to frame a name entirely new. Here is the latest illustration of American name-making : — A quaint dispute on a point of nomenclature has been adjusted in the newly-settled region of Oklahoma, U.S. The mayor of the mushroom city must have been of evangelical proclivities, since he desired to call the place Jerusalem, and Jerusalem ib might have been till the crack of doom had not the accident of an Hibernian sheriff obtruded itself between the mayor and his pious desire. The sheriff declared in favour of Tipperary— with the characteristic patriotism of the exile of Erin — and the community was split up on the choice, some favouring Jerusalem, some Tipperary. The dispute has been adjusted amicably and by compromise. On the half and half plan Tipperusalem will, we are assured, realise its high destiny in the future history of western civilisation. " Tipperusalem," if the record of its origin should by any chance be lo?t, will puzzle the future Vincent Pykes of Oklahoma. After reciting this list or barbarisms I am ready to exclaim with the Victorian legislator, whose taste was better than his erudition, "Away with your 'Tinpot Gullies' and 'Dead Horse Flats I ' Give me that beautiful name • Eureka 1 ' " To Cms, — Dear Brother in Affliction : I hope your satirical references to the 4< Conglomerated Puddle and Muddle Gold Mining Company, Limited," afford you consolation and do you good. Can't say that I get much comfort out of them myself. It's ill jesting wi' a sair hairb ! Ido not even know thab your Conglomerated Puddle and Muddle and mine are the^same — there must be half a hundred of them. Bub perhaps you're in them all. Can'b think you are, though, or you wouldn't be so ready to joke about it. What I want to know is — Can nothing be done ? A lot of Conglomerated Puddle and Muddles 'have already gone bung ; are the rest to go the same way ? And if they do, is there nobody that we can hang? Revenge is sweet, and I for one am bound to be revenged on somebody. I propose a shilling subscription to prosecute the authors of fraudulent prospectuses. I think I could pick out one or two that would come under that description from a sheaf of these interesting documents thab I have preserved in a drawer. — I am, &c, Getting Dangerous. My afflicted brother ia a little off hi 3 centre. Much poring over mining losses has made him mad. It is not knavery that we are the victims of, but imbecility, our own and other people's. Our own began and ended with taking shares ; tbat of other peoplemining mangers and directors to wit— runs on _, to this hour. I could give illustrations — could name the mine, could came the men, could detail the facts ; but what is the good 1 Want of biains is not an offence punishable at law. If these incapables show reasonable diligence in squandering the shareholders' meney, also in drawing their own salaries and fees, where aie you? There did exist, no doubt, during the eaily days of the boom, in a part of Princes street that shall be nameless, a nest of mining swindlers, but they have cut and run long ago. We have survived— in a more or less pillaged condition — the machinations of knaves to be delivered over, bound hand and foot, to the witless discretion of fools; And how much better off are we 1 Against stupidity even the gods fight in vain. Some offences can be lived do«rn. But some can't : they must be owned up ; and of such is the mixing of authors — Herrick and Jonson for example. In which condemnation am I myself, as with painful faithfulness various public prints and private correspondents have told me of late. Personally I was williDg to let my candid friends enjoy tbe pleasure of setting me right. But, not content with that, they call on me to " publicly own up," as one of them delicately

puts it— " own up and recact." This is too much. Even a worm will turn. Explain I gladly would, but recant, and on compulsion, I_ never ! When my attention was first drawn to the matter I pursued the practice of all the best writers in such case by promptly charging ie on the head of the compositor. Like charity, the compositor covers a multitude of sins. But no— he easily established beyond a doubt his absolute innocence of Herrick. Had never heard of the man in hi 3 life. I am therefore constrained to admit the publication and depend on the merits. Hypnotism? Well, why not? I was writing about hypnotic transference at the very time when I transferred that unlucky lyric from Jonson to Herrick. Carious, this, if a mere coincidence, but what if it be a revelation from the penitent ghost of Jonson renouncing his ill-gotten gains, or from the indignant ditto of Herrick claiming his own 1 Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine, Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine. Yes, this has the true Herrick ring about it. So much can't be denied. Jonson was an over-rated and over-weighted man. He wrote ponderous plays, an impo33ible English grammar, and other things too learned and too laboured to be read, but as for his dainty little love lyrics, he probably prigged 'em every one. And there was no lack of opportunity, bear in mind. Listen to his apostrophe to Herrick. No, confound it, Herrick's to him— Ah, Ben, Say how or when Shall we, thy guests, Meet at those lyric feasts Made in the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun, Where we such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad. Lyric feasts, you observe, at three more or less disreputable taverns, and Jonson the host I Why, anything might happen there. Depend on'fc he didn't soak his guests in sack for nothing. There was no copyright in those days, and at the Dog, the Sun, the Triple Tun, or the Mermaid, lyrics were unconsidered trifles to be picked up by the least tipsy of the crowd. If the mysterious hypnotic suggestion made to me be correct, it was at the Triple Tun that rare Ben fuddled Herrick and then annexed this particular gem. If this theory is not satisfactory, kindly say so and I'll propound another. Civis.