PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2210, 9 July 1896, Page 38

PASSING NOTES.

Aboint thee, witch, aroint theel Determined am I that the banking question shall not have its own way in this week's Passing Notes. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet, that begins at ourfew and walks till curfew, and hurts the poor creatures of IJew Zealand. Let Parliament and the leading columns of every newspaper ba dominated by the.urjholy spell ; yon and I will prevent the fiend and save our own souls. Does somebody want my opinion upon the Premier's committee ? My dear sir (or madam, as too case may be), I have not such a thing about .me. Upon, banks, committees, ex-Oolonial Treasurers, and all that race I resolutely turn my back, well knowing that the sane will tender me hearty thanks. Treaßon all thie, no doubt, should it reach the ken of him whom the member for Oaversham loves ' to style • the Prime ear ; treason to the mind of every nofmal, bankitrock politician. M'iO?.struck — why. not banks 1 ruck ? It wsis, once said of Philistinism — " We have Dot the expression iv Englith. Pcrhapa we have not the word because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, I imagine, they did net talk of solecism.3 ; and here, at the vsry headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks -of Philistinism." The word "Philistinism" has come to be common enough ; and, by-and-bye— say, when half-a-dozen more banking committees have been set up—" bankstruck " will take its place in the New Zealand dictionary. The lexicographer, if he he an honest man, will make reference to this date and this column, aud so non omnis moriar. Now, mark tho power of the ma/ignfascinntion ! The lit.nd still holdb me with ' his skinny hand and glittering eya ; be has marked this note for bis own — this note which commenced with defjicg him and all his works. All sorts of pleasant things were to have been treated in this first note,— things as far removed from the banking fiend an cleanliness is removed from the streets of Dnnedin. Yet I write od, spell-bound by the fatal influence — bankstruck, I, even 1 1 The foul fiend is in possession, And hi« eyes have all the seeming ■ Of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him streaming Throws his shadow on the floor ; And my coal from out that shadow - That lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted— nevermore i !— unless straightway I start another note.

Worse and worse I Jaßt aa I was about' to start off once, more, fully for tided (as I thought) .against the fiend, the editor, aurfeited, I suppoee, with correspondence on the Ward subject, has d6mitted to me the task of disposing of some letters— the overflowing of the cup, as it were. A correspondent who rushes into a melee like that which haa ra'gad for the last fortnight mast take his chance. If he writes .very shortly and to the point his letter "goes In" IE he writes diffusively and at great length, the yawning month of the wasta paper basket awaits his lucubration, or .perhaps he may be dealt with in "Correspondence Condensed." When the editor and the waste paper basket and the " Correspondence Condensed " are over-loaded,-the editor in exasperation hands over the correspondence to the tender mercies of "Oivis," who, though the mildestmannered person that ever tut a throat, is popularly credited with having reduced literary murder to a fine art. Sometimes the part of executioner is an agreeable one. Who would not, for instance, take a grim delight in ad just jog the bowstring on a correspondent who commences an eSuaion thus : —

4 Now people's minds are fixed upon financial fatality, And likewise the criterion of commercial

morality. It must be perfectly obvious to any person of discernment that the author of tbat parody on the Major-general's song in the " Piratea of Peczance "is innocent of cooking a balance sheet or drawing against imaginary oats only because he has never had the opportunity. Very many are law-abiding and virtuous people because they have had no opportunity of being otherwise. Another correspondent, whose only merit lies in his brevity, " ringa in " a variant of the chestnut about the asses. It seems one of the youag men who drew Mr Ward's chariot in triumph, afterwards admitted that he had behaved like an gga. To this it wa* retorted that am well con-

ducted ass would have behaved better. That, however, is •an opinion I am nnable to confirm without more intimate personal acquaintance with asses than I oan boast of. It is quite n mistake to suppose that, tbe degree of aelninity oan bo measured by the bray.