PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2086, 15 February 1894, Page 27

PASSING NOTES.

Mb W. P. Reeves Agent-general, and our own Mr Pinker ton Minister for Labour -su hints the Daily Times' special ; <"-nd whether it be true or false, gospel or a goc?»bL-rr>. it is an appetising tit-bit that eserybciy relishes — except, of course, the special : vb o weren't the first to discover it. For my own part I shall steadfastly refuse to disbelieve it until compelled by events. As for the Agent-generalship, Sin Percival has had his inning?, and comes back with a title — the height of a colonial democrat's ambition — so what more can he expest ? To waste such a splendid piece of patronage by roappointing him is a sin of which the Hon. Richard Seddon is the very last man to be guilty. And if all tales be true there are more than 16,000 reasons — most of them a full mile long — why he should bestow it on his colleague. A rival claimant for the Acting- Premiership duriDg Mr Ballanco's illness, high priest of the Labour party now, and suspected of treasonable leanings towards Sir Robert, Mr Reeves is a man whom King Richard would gladly spare from Wellington, if only he could be induced to go. And the Agent-generalship is undoubtedly an inducement. Labour bills are likely to pass the new House with painful rapidity, and the task of keeping up the supply is frightful to contemplate. If Mr Reeves is wise he will flee from the wrath to come, and escape to London while he may. And in saving himself he saves his colleagues, for the presence of a real live handicraftsman in the Cabinet will be a sop to Cerberus for a couple of years to come. " The Hon. Mr Pinkerton, Minister for Labour" is worth a wilderness of Labour bills in propitiating the Working Man. 11 Will some layman please make a few secular remarks suitable to the occasion ?" exclaimed the agonised bishop as the waiter spilled a plate of boiling hot soup into the episcopal lap. Mr Monk, late member for Waitemata, is in much the same plight as his lordship. He is a pious man is Mr Monk — a local preacher and a good templar. Bad language is, therefore, out of the question but at the present juncture he doubtless feels that vicarious profanity would affoid seasonable relief. The consolations of religion will operate in due time, but for the moment, being s. sawmiller as well as a saint, he must yearn after swear words. And not without cause — for consider : he wins his election, keeps his own hands clean, smites his enemies, and receives the felicitations of his friends: and after accomplishing so much, and possibly procuring his free pass, he suddenly finds himself unseated, disqualified for a year, arid mulcted in £600 or £700 of coats and expenses. For all which he is mainly • indebted to the child of his own loins. " I'll put the old man in, come what may," cried the impetuous youth a few short months ago as he shouted for ail hands. But tempora mutant ur, the " old man " is now probably in hot pursuit of that impetuous youth with a shotgun and afc-cowhide. The moral to be drawn by candidates from these misadventures is: Don't employ your own son when you go a-canvassing. "Or your brother-in-Jaw," groans Sir Robert in bitterness of soul, as he bethinks him of Wellington. Yes, or your brother-in-law ; kith, kin, and connections of every stage are dangerous in the last degree, for they take liberties themselves, and strangers are only too ready to better the instructions. The Corrupt Practices Act is a jungle of pains, penalties, and offences through

which no ordinary candidate can force his way in safety. And yet I'm not sure that it is thick enough after all. Mr Monk, by bis son and heir, giveß a famished elector a dinner on election ■day, and this is an offence grave enough to unseat him. Mr Bell, knowing the law as a lawyer, should, gives a picnic to his supporters^ with th?ir sisters, their cousins, and tbeir aunts — two or three thousand in all — the week after election day, and this is all right and proper. And yet, — and yet . Well, in this connection a tale occurs to me. It was in the good old days of open voting and rotten boroughs. The defeated candidate had religiously abstained from anything in tbe nature of bribery. He didn't spend a penny, and as a conf-equence polled about a dozan vote?, including those of his own family. The election over, he anvited his supporters to a sumptuous dinner and presented each of them with a fivepound note in recognition of his incorruptibility. " Gentlemen," said be, " I have jfought this fight with clean hands, and so have you. Now that it is over, and no improper motiveß can be suggested, I rejoice to be able to recognise the devotion to purity and principle which you have displayed." At the next election he stood again, ppent nothinor, and was returned l>y a 1 humping majority. But tbore followed neither diuuer nor five pound notes, and in the end it was broadly hinted to hioi that his supporters expected their incorruptibility to be recognised. But no : "Jf I were to do now what I did alter the last election,' said he in his loftiest tones, "it would savour of ex post facto corruption. I decline to give my opponents an opportunity to sully the purity of my motive then, or that of my ennstitutents now." And be didn't. Both elections put together didn't cost him «xiore than £50. But he was never returned dgain.

Painful it is to a New Zealander who •glances at the newspapers of EDgland or Australia or other bayk»vard nations to light upon the women's franchise controversy in full blast, — painful and nauseating. Women's franchise is with us spilt milk, — or lather, I should have said, a realised happiness. We take our happiness soberly, not to say tadJy ; — as the Lady Mayor of Onelmnga lemarked but the other day when presiding over her Council, "This is no place to emile"; but anyhow, such as it is we have got it, and can look down with commiseration on the slower- paced communities who as yet are only debating with themselves whether to "bo fired or affrighted by cur example. The old pros and cons of the women's fraachise argument when one meets with them now elsewhere are weary, stale, fl'.f, and unprofitable, though here and there in the discussion a point crops up that awakens a momentary interest. Thus an anti-franchiser had argued in a London newspaper that political rights go •with physical force— none but men can fight, therefore none bufc men should vote. Now, as all men do not fight, and a good many men cannot fight, this was to give himself away. Ii ability to shoulder a ritle when the Russians come is to be the test of political capacity lam not sure of my own vote. " A fig for your physical force argument 1 " shrieked the other side. "If the gentleman would take a turn through Northumberland and some parts of Scotland, he would find •women who could throw thousands of male cockneys and dudes over their shoulders." Which nobody can deny! To'al collapse, therefore, of the argument from physical force. Worse still, it is capable of beirjg turned again&t its inventor : —

If, however, civil rights are supposed to be the reward of possible physical service to the State, then women may justly claim that to their physical risk and nurture the State owes the very existence of the community. Let me remind this blustering man that he is the son of a woman who nurtured and bore him at the risk of her own existence. A weighty consideration, this, but as an aigument on the franchise question it proves too mucb. It proves that men are merely subordinate and dependent creatures whose lives and destinies should be altogether at the disposal of women. Ergo, not only should women vo^o, but nobody should vote but women. This seems a " caulker," — but there is no telling what we may come to yet.

" Satnrday or Sunday 7 By a Jew "is the title of an article in an English periodical, from which I learn that on the Jew of the present day the obligation to observe his teventh-day Sabbath bits but l.ghtly. Time was when a Jewish army permitted itself to be cut to pieces rather than fight on the Sabbatb, and as late as Shakespeare's time a Jew teems to have been nole.i as mucb for bis strict Sabbath-keeping as for the istiic'neen ot his practice in bill transactions and ins-istance on gtUing whatever was nominated in tbe bond ; teste Shylock : And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn To have the due and forfeit of my bond. But there has been a lamentable falling away — not in the bill bueine3P, so far as I know, but in Jewish allegiance to tbe Holy Sabbatb. Thus, in London : -* Jews do not all bear Jewish surnames nowadays ; but, even where the good old Hebrew cognomen strikes the observer, he will see merchandise displayed on the Holy Sabbath, aud Jews doing business just as it Moses had never come down from Sinai with the Fourth Commandment. On the Stock Exchange hundreds of Jewish members attend to their customary duties, and Jewish bankers, while they keep their shutters up, indulge in the wholesome practice of playing draughts on the seventh day. Jewish solicitors will be found in their offices on Shobbos, and many a learned Hebrew may bo heard in tbe courts on that day. Jewish engineers will design a bridge on the day of '"rest," and a Jewish journalist will fling his ink on the Sabbath in calm obliviou of the sacred day. The Jewish actor is not over-^ whelmed \.ith the sanctity of the occasion, and" the Je-.vi&h physician goes on his daily round. This is in the 6acred cause ol business ; in the not less sacred cause of pleasure the modern Jew absolves himself quite as roadiiy : Riding and driving are strictly prohibited to the Jew ou the Sabbath. I go into the park during the season, and behold, I lift up ray tyts and gaze upou beautiful Jewesses ou horseback ; while later on, during the holy day, my vision is n freshed by noting the prosperous of my co-religionists dashing along the Ladies' Mile in well-appointed equipages. I have seen, not without surprise, honorary officers of the

potential United Synagogue gaily proceeding to business in hansoms, smoking the fragrant cigar— smoking is forbidden on the Sabbath ; and later on I have seen them lunching at the Gentile's table from forbidden foods. From which it appears that the institutions of Moses are in a bad way. Tbe remedy proposed is to change the Jewish Sabbath from the seventh day to the first, which seems very like a proposal for converting Jews to Cdristians and raising the price of pork (no offence, I am merely quoting Shakespeare again). The Rabbis are unanimoufly opposed to tbis reform, and naturally I However, we shall see what we shall see. There are Sabbatarians, not of the Hebrew rite, who already observe tbe Sabbath on the first day of the week instead of the seventh, but I am afraid they don't do it very thoroughly. True, the Roslyn tram is brought to a standj but do the Roslyn Sabbatarians abstain from lighting a fire on their Sabbath? — from cooking food ? — from visiting their friends 1 I'll take my 'davy they don't 1 I conclude that the Jewish Sabbath, whether called Shabbos or Sawbatli, is a doomed and dying institution. All the better. We shall the sooner, Jew and Gentile, come into possession of the Christian Sunday.

A correspondent informs me that in his neighbourhood, somewhero in the sunny south, the local S^ate school teacher has been accused by his committee of using expressions unknown to the Svllabup, and of corrupting thereby the morals of ingenuous youta. The committee is suspected of wanting^ gel. jid of the teacher on other and more general grounds ; but that is a detail. Some of the children in the school were instructed by the committee to be on the watcn for occasions when the dominie, in the heat of argument with an obtuse or fractious pupil, might speak unadvisedly with his lipp, to take notes of his parts of speech, and to report. Whereupon — The chairman and his wife were inundated with shocking expressions. The committee formulated a charge to the Southland Education Board, and the members of that learned body, beiDg unable to decide what expressions teachers are allowed, to use aud what not, referred the matter to the inspectors. These great men, afttr an investigation of five hour?, made the following overture : — " Resolved, that teachers are not to use the words, «».«, blockhead, numbskull, cuddy, pig — these being inspectors' words and members of the board's words when speaking of teachers." This seems a sound distinction. That in the inspectors, but a choleric! word Which in the inspected is flat blasphemy. At the same time it would have been well to state whether there are not choleric words wnich might be permitted even to teachers, considering the grievous exigencies of their profession ; acd, if so, to publish an official list of such words for exhibition in a conspicuous pace on the walls of every State school. For want of such an authorised vocabulary of reprobation, otherwise " cusswords," the mistress of the Girls' High School in Wellington was reduced the other day to tne necessity of " spanking " one of the big girls, and has been judicially sat upon by the Board of Governors in consequence. I believe the board held that the spanking was, on tbe whole, justifiable ; but bad the teacher been supplied with choleric words adequate to the cccasion there might have been no spanking to justify.

More than once I have been asked whether anything is known about the connection of Sfc. Andrew with Scotland. How did St. Andrew come to be Scotia's patron saint ? As I know just as much and just; as little on this dark subject as most", other peopl°, I have not been able to give any satisfactory answer. It has seemed to mo conceivable that the Scottish St. Andrew might himself have been an unbreeked Scot of the caily times, and not the apostolic person of that name at ail. I fancy I have met with North Britons who were firmly persuaded that St. Andrew was a Scotchman. Au obscurity quite as deplorable hangs about S*".. George of England. According to GibboD, St. Ueorge was a pork butcher and fraudulent army contractor in Cappadocia, who made money by supplying bacon to the troops of Julian the Apostate, whilst other authorities assert him to have been a respectable martyr of Lydda, wherever that may be, and the authentic slayer of a dragon. What claim either of these Gsorges oan have had to become the founder of bank holidays in England does not appear. Respecting Si.. Audrew, however, and his patrotal rights over Scotland, I have at last met with a plausible hypothesis. ll°ad the following extract from the •' RemipisceDces of Dean Hole," a book which may bs found in the Atber>foam library :

Why was St. Audrew selected to be the patron saint of Pcobland ? This question has exercised clerical and lay curiosity, but has not been s&tisfacborily answered, unless the explanation offered by the Archdeacon of Calcutta at a dinner which he attended on St. Andrew's D*y be confirmed as final. " Gentlemen," he said, " I have given tbis difficult subject my thoughtful consideration, and I have come to the conclusion that St. Andrew was chosen to be the patron saint of Scotland because he discovered the lad who had the loaves and fishes ! " This explanation lacks authority, but can afford to dispense with it. Like the sun, it shices by its own light. Civis.