Things They Didn't Say.

Otago Witness, Issue 2399, 22 February 1900, Page 66

Things They Didn't Say.

How M.P.s are Made to Choke Police-

Sir William Harcourt once exclaimed in a speech in the House, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" and a reporter of a provincial paper took this down as, "Great Dinah ! Avhat a farce this is !"

Mr Swift MacNeill, M.P., was once the A-ictim. of a singular instance of mishearing. In the course of a complaint against the Irish constabulary, on the ground of their alleged A'iolence, the hon. member said : "WheneA'er I was huailed by a policeman I simply chalked him, and by that means was able to identify him afterwards." To the great delight of his fellow-countrymen, Mr MacNeill was reported to have said : "Whene%er 1 was hustled by a policeman I simply chnkod him !"

The bte Lord CVrnarvcn was credited Avith haAhiT i-aiu. from his place in the Lords: "In th^se days clergymen are expected to have tbe wi&dom and learning of a journeyman tailor!" This doubtless gave great delight to Mr Snip, but the feelings of the clergy are hardl}" to be expre,bed. "What Lord Carnarvon did really say was that the olevgy wore expected to have the wisdom and learning of a Jeremy Taylor. Even journalists do not know everything and they jnay be excused if they are not convciiani with political quotations. Mr John Bright once quoted the flue lines from Milton's great fonnet :

I argue not ',? ff T =t / Je 'V Pn S hh f l f ?.;, will > nor kilo a jot Hi°ht a oi™nia Pcs " Up ' Plld sl * er A reporter overhead was not as familiar a- he ought to have been with Milton's poems and the pa~-age emerged as follows: "Hem the nahl koa,. genfcleamu a Ww ted that hi

would not argue against the hand or will of Heaven, nor would he bate a jot of heart or hope. He declared that, on the contrary, he would still bear- up ancl steer right onward." The telegraphist, in the course of transmitting the galleryman's copy, has occasionally taken the most laughable liberties with the text. One of the traditions of the Reporters' Gallery is that concerning the strange freak of a telegraph clerk in sending a speech by the late Mr W. X Forster to a Bradford paper. The speech turned on the question of education, and the word children cropped up, of course, very often. To save time and trouble, the telegraph operator substituted the words kids for children, leaving the necessary correction lo the clerk at the other end. This was not done, and it is positively stated that the speech appeared in print just as it was sent off from the House. One portion of the speech ran as follows: ' ? ?ou know of Wordsworth's profound saying, 'The kid is father of the man.' I neeel not dwell upon the importance to the community of imparting a sound moral and secular education to kids in their impressionable yeafa. It is for the kids that this bill ie introduced, ancl, asking the House to remember that the kids of this generation will be the fathers and mother* of the, next, I confidently appeal to it to support our proposals." The classic joke" of the Reporters' Gallery turns round the droll personality of one Peter Finnerty, an Irish reporter of the thirties. Finnerty was one night the sole occupant of the Press Gallery, and when his colleagues arrived later, and asked him if anything had happened, he played an audacious prank upon them. William Wilberforce, he said, had delivered a speech on the Irish potato — a remarkable speech. Finnerly, in obedience to the general request, dictated this speech to his colleagues, ancl it appeared next morning. Here was a portion of it: "Had it been my lot. Mr Speaker, to be born in Ireland, where' my food would principally consist of the potato, _that most nutritious ancl salubrious root, instead of being the poor, infirm, shrivelled., stunted creature you, sir, and honourable gentlemen now behold in me, I should have been a tall, stout, athletic man, able to carry an enormous weight."