PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2400, 1 March 1900, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

Judged by its effect. on. ourselves the relief of Kimberley must be exceedingly bad for^the Boers.' W.e are jubilant, of course ; but that is ;the least. W>- haye suddenlygrown'critical. /As a military triumph, the relief ojf 'Kimberley;- we say, leaves much to be desired.-'. We ought to 'have intercepted Cronje. How is it that Cronje, with all his impedimenta, has been allowed ' to escape? Why were we not a clay earlier? Why had we not s more cavalry and better guns? J like this mood. It shows how ■ much the relief of Kimberley has done for us. Ten days ago .we should have^ been grateful for smaller mercies. I don't say that we are ungrateful for this ;. far from it I We are so grateful that our spirits have risen to the grumbling point, and a man of British blood is never entirely happy unless he can, grumble. There was grumbling before, no doubt, but not of this cocky ; and'- .perky description. We grumbled and were sad. We were tightening" 1 our 'waistbelts, stiffening our muscles, registering a deeper and ever deeper resolve. Even tKe mild-mannered Spectator was professing its readiness to " make South 'Africa a. cockpit, and spend two hundred millions. " At the present moment we are not less resolved; but we. are more exacting. The ■relief of Kimberley, ' even though it draw 'after it the relief of Ladysmith, does not 'satisfy "usi We coiint it a misfortune, and -probably, a fault, "that we not captured Cronje's whole army. 'Yes!— We are ' greatly changed since a week back. - The Boers, let us believe, are changed not less, and in the opposite direction.

The relief of Ladysmith, I pointed out last week, would come from the Modeler Eiver ; it^Wil'd be, the effect of a blow .struck a hundred leagues away. As a rule 1 , I leave the "didrft I tell you so!" form of vanity those professional prophets who never make a mistake, and whose right , therefore it jg. If Aft && present case I

allow myself to quote a fulfilled prediction "" of my own, it is because the thing predicted was perfectly obvious to anybody with eyes in his head. The relief of- Ladysmith" — for which relief muph thanks ! — is in progress I hope at this moment. Don't J "let us suppose, as Dr Leyds and the Agent- [ general ' seem to suggest, that Ladysmith conies to us as a- gift. - The tone of the Agent-general's war telegrams, I notice, is generally discomforting"; but let that pass. The Boers are " giving up " the siege — as the Agent-general puts it — for reasons good,, and one ot those reasons ' is the imminent J probability that General Buller would presently compel them. I see no reason to ' disparage Buller, or to think that his ettorts ' Jiave been labour in vain. He has pro- ■ vided occupation in Natal -for the pr'in- j cipal Boer general and the best part of the , Boer forces. Unless Buller had pinned ' down Joubert,- hanging on to him like a ' bulldog, Lord Roberts woxild not have found his chance of/.shrfting Cronje and marching ,' into Kimberley. The probability is that 'at any time during, the last month Buller j could have, -relieved Ladysmith had he i chosen . to 'sacrifice 2000 men, and would | have done it had the basieged been in exjctoemis. . -We can "now' see what he must ! Tiave known -all ' along, that the sacrifice would not be" needed. The relief of Lady- i smith results /from combined operations on ' botTi -frontiers, and Buller's army, has wor- ■ thily played itS/part. - - J

, " The residents of Kimberley describe the ' most harrowing privations." No^doubl-! We shall hear presently a lamentable story I of the sufferings endured in our three bei leaguered towns by non-corq|>atants, espe- ! cially by women and children. The veil is about to be drawn, and we shall look upon a chamber .of 5 horrors.- The sight will not tend to improve the British temper, I fancy. Quite- the opposite. A heavy ! reckoning awaits the Boers. The murders ( they have committed under the white flag | Avili not be forgotten, nor their habit of ' firing upon, ambulances, hospitals, and , women's laagers. Nor again their "-persis- , tent " sniping " of officers, a practice which, ; i for anything I know, may be permissible i in war, but which naturally kindles the bitI terest resentment. In all this the Boers j ' have been heaping up wrath against the , day of wrath. They plotted the war with ' the object of ousting* us from South Africa, and" the whole guilt of it is" theirs. The guilt of beginning it is guilt enough ; but now that- they have ■ shot their bolt, and the game is up, the guilt of beginning is trivial in comparison with the guilt of continuing. As T write a telegram arrives : | "Cronje has asked for an armistice." ..This j means, I suppose, that Cronje is bailed xvp [ and helpless. On condition that lie lays . down his arms I commend him to the mercy \ \of Lord Roberts. Otherwise no truce ! I j I am pretty confident that Lord Roberts wills Ibe precisely 'of that opinion, arid that — j , unless he -cannot help it — he will not give . i Mr' "Cronje ah opportunity to "stagger humanity " -by beginning again. Amongst other 'munitions of war, the ; ■ Boers had 'prepared a war song, for which, | | let us hope, they will presently have no i further -use. The Muses are not likely to ,'miss it. I give a specimen verse, with the ! comments of an American rhymester : — j War Song otnthe Boer. I The hardy Boer now singeth, As to his feet he springeth, A song that's full of ragged, jagged rumble, rant and roar. I He loads his trtisty rifle And chants this chunky trifle — This wondrous, cumbrous melody — the war song of the 'Boer : " Waal hoog nou in ons heider lug .Traansvaalse vriejheidsviag, Ons vijande is weggeviag; Nou blink'n blijer dag." , It looks like barb-wire fencing, j With broken glass commeacing. It tangles, jangles, mangles — then it wrangles .

'on once -more. , It cannot be unravelled, • v Once from his throat. it's travelled — This . triple-twisted, double-fisted war song' of the Boer: • " Waal hoog nou in on 3 heicler lug Traansvaalse vriejheidsviag, Ons vijande is weggeviag; Nou blink'n blijer dag." " No matter how you reSd it," continues the commentator : For backward, forward, upside down, it brings up thoughts of gore — This shrapnel-worded, pistol-giided war song of the Boer! The. Maori war cries supplied . to our New Zealand Contingents, though' very well in their way, and sufficiently appalling to civilised ears, are beaten oufc and out by the

evidently, of the inferiority of our armaments.

A " Sunday difficulty" of pe6uliar ab- ' struseness is reported from Rarotonga. ( It J has been discovered that the Rarotonga ' Sunday is in reality Saturday. That wouldn't matter much, perhaps ; but, unfortunately, there exists a " Rarotonga Federal Parliament," which august body, being no wiser than other Parliaments, and much in want of something to do, has taken in hand to reform the calendar. That 1 is always a risky business. Last century ' the change from Old Style to New Style, ' making October 3 to be October 14, pro- ' duced dangerous discontents amongst our ! own enlightened countrymen. Mobs apI peared, -with the cry, " Give us back our 11 clays !" In the present case it is a question ! of only one day, 'not of 11 days ; but the ' principle is the same. Rarotonga is in rebellion. The orthodox churches are de- ; serted ; schism, eheresy, and the Seventh Day Adventists — whose fundamental prinj ciple it is that Sunday , should be Saturday, and who, most opportunely, have started a mission on the island — are everywhere rampant. How did the original confusion of days come about? .A correspondent ' of the Auckland Herald explains : I* It appears that the earlier missionaries kept 1 the same Sunday all along after leaving Sydney, i forgetting that they had passed the 180 th degree of longitude; consequently the wrong Sunday lias been kept until now. The missionaries, I suppose, should have done what the skipper of a ship on the homeward passage does ; having crossed the 180 th meridian they should have dropped a day. When it is Sunday at places west of ißoit is only Saturday at places, east of it ; a ship at the moment of crossing is in Saturday at the bows and in Sunday at the stern. These are scientific facts, I which I, for my own part, receive humbly, ' in faith ; to the Rarotongans they are mere ' foolishness, and I must say that I sympathise a good deal with the Rarolongaus. It would have been better if their absurd Parliament, instead of starting a Swnday diffiI culty, had taken up the end-of-the-century ' question. They would^have come to blows, no doubt, but that is* a small thing in a ' South Sea island, and they might have rei mained Christians all the same. As it is, • they seem to' be in peril of becoming Seventh Day Adventists. Apropos, I notice that the end-of-the-century quesjbion is very much alive in the English papers. Lord Kelvin, a victim I presume of senile decay, annoiraces his beI lief ijiat the first year of the first century 1 was the year 0 ; consequently its last year ! was 99.' One would like to know what i happened in the year 0, who was born, ; who died, and so on. To what history or- * chronology might one turn for informa- ! tionV Then the Emperor of Germany — in colI lusion it may be, with Lord Kelvin, and f possibly alsp with the Rey. Curzon-Siggers — has decreed and declared that in his dominions the new century is to be reckoned from January 1, 1900. By a stroke .of the Imperial pen the Germans are thus p\it a | century ahead of the,- rest of the world* and, as the Kaiser thinks, in their proper place. An_ English paper regrets that the Kaiser, being a German, is necessarily ignorant of cricket. When the Anglo-Saxon race learns with a thrill of almost insane jby that one of its worklfomecl batsmen has scored a century, it credits him with a hundred runs. Should his record have reached 18 centuries, and should he, in his nineteenth century, be starting for his 1900 th run, it would certainly not be scored to him till he got safely back into the poppingciease, for he might be run out, or stumped, or even killed. Clearly he would not score the ilireteenth century Hill he liad completed the 1900 th tun. Put years. for runs, and the case is, or ought to be, clear. The nineteenth ceritury does not end till the last day of 1900. This" illustration might not be convincing at Berlin, but in London, (in Melbourne, in New York, wherever the English tongue is spoken and the stumps are pitched, ' it should appeal even to the most invincible ignorance. The illustration is ingenious, but what • want we with illustrations ! The new century is to be added to the melancholy list of articles " made in Germany," and for all good British people that fact alone will be sufficient.

Police Inspector Broham, of Chrislchurch, retires on the 28th inst. under the Police Pension Act. Inspector Broham has been 36 years in the service, and receives an allowance of £240 per annum. Inspector Ellison, of Greymouth, succeeds him. Sub-Inspector Macdonnell (Wellington) is transferred to Greymouth, and will have charge of the distiistt xac&fced b£ Insgeelor Ellison. Ser-

geant Mitchell (Napier) has been promoted jto a sub-inspeclorship, and succeeds SxibInspector Macdonnell in Wellington.

It is sometimes asked why German is not more taught in Dunedin. The answer is given that there is little demand for German. That | Dunedin is not singular in this respect becomes clear from an examination of the list of subjects chosen by candidates for the University junior scholarships. At the last , December examination there <were in all 75 candidates. Of these only one candidate took German, a lady from Nelson. No other subject apparently is so little in request as Ger'inan. Even Greek, so little' favoured in our schools, is represented by two candidates. On I the other hand 71 of the 75 candidates took French, 74- Latin, 74- English, 75 mathematics, j7O science, and 9 history and geography. j Those who took up science distributed them- ' selves as follows over the sciences : — Chemj istry, 46; botany, 34; sound and light, 3; | heat, 30 ; electricity, 9 ; mechanics, 18. Each candidate in science has to take two of these divisions. • - «» , The weekly meeting of the Benevolent i Institution Trustees, held on the 21st, was atI. tended by the' Hon. H. Gourley (in the chair), Messrs Green, Treseder, and "Wilson. Accounts amounting to £77 14s were passed for payment. It was, reported that James Grant, j 59 years of age, had died in the institution. , The number of inmates in the institution for the month of January was 247, the cost being £262 10s lid, or 4s 9Jkl per head per week. Br MacGregor wrote with reference to the subsidy on a donation of £77, and the secre•j tary, Mr Olulee, was authorised to' reply. | Next meeting of the trustees was fixed forTuesday. The relief cases dealt with numbered 25... ,;, ' The Education Board on the 21st decided to instruct their solicitors to sue for all fees in arrea* in connection with the School j of Art. j At the Land Office on the 21st, part of section 76, block IV, Moeraki, containing four acres, was offered at public auction under the Public Reserves Act for a term of 14years, at an upset rental of £1 ss, and was sold to Alexander Cochrane at a rental of £5 2s__6d. Six allotments in the Janefield estate were open for application, and there ! were two applications lodged, one of which ,' was approved by the Land Board. 1 Speaking at the Medical Association meet- , ing on the 21st one of the members mentioned j that much ignorance existed as to the amount j of customs duties paid on quack medicines. i These medicines had alcohol as their base, i and had to be < heavily taxed, and very nearly ' .£70,000 a year was paid on them in customs duties. > ■ I The Tapanui Courier states that twt>> members of the'police force were ovrb after sly 1 grog-sellefl at Owaka a few days ago. --They i were dressed as labourers, and carried the orthodox swags,, but their white hands gave I them away. Our contemporary alleges that the intended raid was known for days prior to its taking place. A terrible tragedy was witnessed at the Zoological Gardens at Vienna on January j 31. One of the cage keepers entered a comI partment containing three lions which were lately exhibited to the Vienna public by a , female lion tamer. He seems (says the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph) to have done this out of a spirit of " pure mischief, and in spite of the^ warnings of his fellow workmen. Simultaneously •his wife j also happened .to . open the' door, of the ad- , j joining cage, which contained three more j lions. All the six beasts rushed lipon him. : The other attendants entered the cage in I order to render him assistance, but they j were forced to retire, as some of the lions ' turned upon them. The hose of a fire engine i streamed water upon the furious animals, j but all to no purpose, and it only by thrusting lighted torches into the "cage that the lions were driven away from their victim. The corpse of the keeper mutilated by the animals was then dragged out of the cage. ■ • Intimation has been received by cable that Mr William Luther Moore, of Dunedin, 1 passed the second section of the LL.B. exa1 mination of the New Zealand University. Mr W. G. Hay, of Dunedin, has passed the first examination for the degrees of Bachelor 'of Laws and Bachelor of Arts. Mr F. Ver- ! nou Frazer has passed the barrister's general

"knowledge and the first section of the^B.A, and LL.B. examinations; while Mr G. H. Thomson, solicitor, of Milton, has passed his barrister's examination. The Hon. J. M'Kenzie, Minister of Lands,-, was in Oamaru on Thursday on departmental^ business. * During the afternoon, in company with Mr Duncan, M.H.R., and Mr W. Milne, he" paid a visit to the Ardgowan settlement, and found everything. " very flourishing. Harvesting was pretty general and all the crops were looking excellent The Minister expressed 'himself a3 highly pleased with the prospects. At Thursday's meeting of the Education Board the board discussed the question of allowances to school committees, and adopted a report recommending certain reductions in the scale of payments in regard to various schools. The total saving that will be effected in 222 schools by the adoption of the report is £795." During' the discussion it -was shown that under the late scale* a loss of £1038 10s per annum had been made on schools having an attendance of 15 and under. , Besides adopting the report, "the board also* passed a resolution directing "^Ke attention ol the Minister" cf Education to "the difficulties" experienced in meeting the requirements ol the district out -of the present capitation allowance, and pointing, out, -that," in the - opinion of the board, the time had arrived to restore the capitation, and .also the extra allowance/ for maintenance, this being 'rendered absolutely necessary by the extension of settlement in new districts involving thi" erection and maintenance of a large number of small schools, for which the capitation -was not sufficient. , It was further decided to forward a copy of the resolution to each of the other Education Boards, and ask their- cooperation in the matter. '. -The reeen^ dredging operations in the upper harbour appear to have been very satisfactory. Mr T. H. Rawson, engineer to the' Harbour Board, sounded the channel "on Wednesday, when there was practically 17ffc' in the 'channel at low water, r > At the suggestion of the Union Steam Ship Company, the Harbour Board have decided to hoist v white flag at the board's office when a steamer is entering the heads, and a red flag when a" steamer is passing or leaving ' Port Chalmers -for Dunedin. This will ba a great tfonvenience to persons who have friends arriving by the intercolonial steamers.

In connection with the a'rresfc of the man Trembath, charged with the robbery, of about £500, in notes fro'ni the Fortrose branch oi ' the Bank of 'New Zealand, we learn that' th« arrest was*lnade' by Inspector, Pardy and'T)e tective Gooney. • Trembath had at first. no-/ ' thing to say, 'but as the"ihspector did "not^appear .at all anxious for information, the man * eventually volunteered to show- where thi! "notes.; were hidden. .The place proved to b<r a small bush some five miles distant fron Fortrose. ' The total amount recovered yvdi £411 '7s 3d. The telegram - from Jnver'car gill' published fast week stating that Trembatl. was living in the bujlding in which the bank'i office was situated was not correct. ' The ordinary monthly meeting of the D,un« edin Photographic Society was held in the society's rooms, Liverpool street, on Wednesday evgning, when there was a large attendance *f members. Four new members ww s er« elected. Dr De Lautour gave an interests ing demonstration of radiography, which wai much appreciated. The lecturers explanation of the mode of treating a foreign bodj in the tissues of the body and its inclination-; 1 by means of angular measurements -proved* entertaining. After many of those present' had examined their hands and such articles as purses, coins, etc., through the medium _ of the fluorescent 'screen, a plate was exposed -' on a hand and developed into an excellent negative. A hearty vote of thanks -was accorded to Dr De Lautour.

Plobiline! — For the -Teeth >Aita> Breath—. A v few drops of the --li^iud--;^Plqrilme " sprinkte J ..on a -wet tooth brush" produce a pleasarU lather, which thoroughly cleanses the'v teeth fron all parasites and impurities, hardens the gums/ prevents tartar, stops decay, gives' to th« teeth a peculiar pearly whiteness, an?i a delightful fragrance to the breath. It removes all unpleasant odour arising from decayed teeth • or tobacco smoke. " The Fragrant Floriline.," being composed in part of honey and sweet herbs, is delicious to the taste^ and the greatest - toilet discovery of the age. Priqe 2s 6d of all chemists and perfumers. Wholesale depot, 33 Farrinj^don. road. London, Ea&Uwl. — Aexx*