PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2529, 3 September 1902, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

The London papers, or some of them, are uplifted at discerning, as they think, the beginnings of a disposition in the French to take a saner view of the Boer war. Not as respects its morality, — that question is waived ; though it will be long before the French cease to charge the British with piratical aggression — but judged from the point of view of a military critic. In the Revue dcs Deux Mondes of June 15 the place of honour is given to an article headed "Lessons from the War in South Africa." Contrary to the usage of the Revue it is an unsigned article, discretion being the better part of valour ; but the author is said to be General de Negrier, a distinguished soldier. lam sorry that he should be a distinguished 6oldier ; for, in my view, he writes himself down a consummate ass. The misspelling of proper names and foreign technical terms is a French trait so uniform, so consistently exhibited in any and every French newspaper, that I lay little stress on that. Imagine an English journalist writing of the French President — whose name is Loubet — and calling him sometimes Boobey and sometimes Looney. That would be a fair parallel to the mishandling that English names get from the average French editor and also, sad to say, from Geneial de Negrier in the Revue dcs Deux Mondes. With technical terms the case is as bad ; some he invents, others transmogrifies. Thus the British, in presence of the enemy, have a formation which they call awaiting shell ; this is before they attempt a titrnixo jiovtuext. They fire " shrapnels"; also they use " pom.^-poms," which poms-poms are from la maison Wickers et Maxim de Londres. Here we come upon French puzzle-headedness over the letters W and V. A V they make W ; Vickers becomes Wickers, and the Natal Com-mander-in-Chief is Sir Redwers Buller. Contrariwise and wice wersa, if a name begins with W they "spell it with a wee." Thus poor General Wauchope as known to General de Negrier is General Vanchope ; and at Maggersfonlein (two g's), in a combat which lasted six minutes and left 650 men upon the ground, " le general Vanchope est tue." After this, tha maltreatment of Biitish regimental names is a slight thing. The Dublin-fusileers get off with the loss of a capital F ; the Borders — that is, the Borderers — lose a syllable ; in compensation the Welsh are awarded am additional 1 and an unnecessary c — the Wellech. ijt range that they w^re not the Vellsch.

But to come to the marrow of the matter. This distinguished soldier and military critic, accepted as such by the principal French review, sets down the total number of combatant Boers ac 12,000. And this in an article da-ted June 15, that is, after the peace, and after it was known that the mere remnants then surrendering totted up to 18,000! However, let us proceed. The patriot Boers being 12,000, against them comes up an array of 240,000 soldats Anglais ; but, "to be just," says the conscientious Frenchman, "it is neceseary to add to the 240,000 a force at least equal of employes, 6erviteurs, Caffres, and Indien*."- Nevertheless thes§ disnro£or-

tionate armaments balance each other (se fout equilibre). Effect of the new weapons, you say ; doubtless ; — but chiefly their moral effect. The British, though no cowards, experienced a malady suspiciously near to cowardice. "The invisibility of the adversary, the sentiment of the unknown, weighed down the spirits of all." This peculiar heaviness (ambiance part iculi ere et deprimante) they characterise by a special name ; they call it War Cloud. It would come over them when advancing against the invisible enemy's rifles, and bring them to a halt — " nouvel arret, Wab Clotjd, deja indique." Contriving to get under cover and lie close they might shake off War Cloud for a time : " Derriere ces positions abritees s'ecoule dans la inaction la phase dv War Clofd. " In short it was War Cloud as much as the Boer resistance that spun out the war. Is it believable tha* General de Negrier could write this insufferable lot? Distinguished soldier he may be ; judged by his Revue article he is a French donkey of the first quality. This judgment is confirmed when we rea4 his -description of a British charge up the face of a. kopje. " The order fix-bayonets is heard," he says, " and the cry God savb the Quken ! " With that we may leave him.

Our British tolerance of free speech, abusive speech, from political malcontents is a virtue, no doubt, — argues a lofty and contemptuous magnanimity. No other nation has it in an equal degree ; few have it at all ; most foreigners fail to understand it. This virtue, exploited chiefly by the Irish hitherto, we shall now have an opportunity of displaying towards the Boers. To suppose that all is going to be charity and goodwill on the part of our late opponents were mere silliness. They were ready to embrace Lord Kitchener over the signing of the peace, and they cheered for the King. These were but natural expressions of relief after tension. Wait a little longer ! Kruger is dictating his memoirs ; we needn't mind that, provided only he makes a clean breast of it. But, also, De Wet is writing a history of the war. It were too much to expect that a history of the war by De Wet would be in all respects pleasant reading. Then there is Mr Reitz, who vapours to the Continental press about the £50,000,000 due from us for ravaged Boer homesteads, and about his heroic determination never again to land in South Africa except in company with a rifle. It is not necessary that Mr Reitz should stay on the Continent that he may say these things. There is nothing to prevent his saying them in England. For all the good they are likely* to do Mr Reitz or the Boers they are hardly worth saying anywhere ; and certainly they are not worth the cost of cabling them to the end of the earth. Nevertheless, if it is a relief to Mr Reitz to " unpack hisheart with words," let him go on unpacking. The British Empire can stand it. I don't think a malcontent of this quality should be permitted to land again in South Africa, rifle or no rifle ; but there can be no harm in his continuing to amuse the gobemouches of the Continental press.

The Bible-in-schools ballot or referendum engineered by the Rev. Mr Gibb and his friends may come out, probably will come out, with a large and impressive vote on the side of Mr Gibb and his friends. They will have engineered badly if it doesn't. But the number of sleeping dogs that the Rev. Gibb has contrived to wake up and to set barking both at himself and at each other is s> portent of evil omen for Bible-in-schools when it has to run the gauntlet of the hustings and of Parliament. Naturally the Rev. Gibb barks with the rest — if I may be permitted the figure ; indeed I don't know why I should apologise for it. What eaith the poet? 'Tis sweet to hear the honest watchdog's bark. Sweet to my ears it is not in the present instance ; but let that pass, and let me escape from these confounded metaphors! What I wanted to fay was that all our local Christendom is in internecine strife ovtr Bible-in-.scbools. The Rev. Gibb insists that everybody shall desire what he desires ; the Anglicans assert that they already desire all that and insist on desiring more ; the Rev. Hinton insists that he neither can nor will desire what the Rev. Gibb desires ; the secularists insist that nobody khall desire anything at all. Outside of this delectable chaos are the Roman Catholics whose cue it is to lie low and say ntiftin, assured in their minds that if the Rev. Gibb gets wliat he desires, or if anybody gets anything, they are bound to get all they ever asked for. This is the present condition of what is known as tho Bible-in-schools question ; if the approaching candidate fur Parliament can see his way through it, he is a cleverer man than I have usually found him to be.

Weie you brought up on the Mothei's CatechivmV You weie not"/ Neither was I ; let us rejoice together! Neither was the Rev. Gibb, and thai is well. As reported in Monday's Daily Times lie was precis* on. this point.

In passing, he made referer.ee to the Mother's Catechism. The book, he said, was unknown to PresbyUrianism as such. Some teachers might use it. For himself he had once, he believed, seen the outside of a copy, but had never read a line oi it. I sympathise with this disclaimer. To take my own ease, it is pos&ible, barely possible, that once, ju^t once, I may have seen the ouUide of VoltaireV "Candide' ; but that I ever read a line of ifc I defy you to prove. Which is as goou is saying thcit to hav ; e read a line of Voltaire's " Candide " would be no cie^it to me. That is how I understand tlie Rev. vjibb's disavowal of the Mother's Catechism. If report may be trusted, the Mother's Catechism is a book devised by the enemy of souls for the ipaking of infidels. It teaches little children to believe what they will be unable to believe when they grow up. In particular it terrorises their imagination by threats of hell. This is a species of inhumanity that invariably "rovses my corruption/ *fe the Scotch «ay, end kindles

within me sentiments that, as I find, Kip* ling has expressed very fairly in 1 " M'Andrews' Hymn." Firm, clear and low — no haste, no hate — th» gnostly whisper went, Just- statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argu>

ment: " Tout mither's God's a graspin' cleil, the

shadow o' yoursel', " Got out o' books by meeuisters clean daft

on Heaven and Hell. " They mak' him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgia

cold an' dirt, " A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt." Poor M' Andrews, it would seem, must have been brought up on the Mothers Catechism. It is a comfort to be assured, on the word of the Rev. Gibb, that this pernicious and soul-destroying book is " unknown to Presbyterianism. "

Into one comprehensive, save-a-11 note I sweep a few trivialities of correspondence. " What is the connexion between ' ball,' a dance, and 'ball,' a sphere or globe?" This is a kind of question that I resent. Why should I" be bothered about etymologies? Are there no dictionaries? "Ball," a dance, is from a Greek word that means to fling your a-mis and legs about, which, is what the Rev. Dr Torrey, whose campaign opens presently, particularly objects to, I'm sure I can't see why. "Bail," a sphere or globe, is another word altogether, with another genealogy, and it denotes something round and swelling, like a boil or a bulge, or the head of a conceited politician. The next inquiry is little better.

Dear " Civis/' — I have had a discussion on a little matter about which, if you can spare a moment, I should like your opinion.

It is on the question of whether a person who travels by sea, and is unaffected by the motion of the vessel, can be called a good " sailor " or a good " sailer." » The dictionaries which I have consulted throw no light on this particular use of either ■word. The ship is a sailer ; the men that navigate her are sailors. ' It does not follow that because you are never never sick at sea you are a good sailor ; the chances are that you are merely a doubtfully good landsman. There are good sailors who are always sick at eea ; Nelson himself was one. All that you can build en so slender a foundation as your immunity from nausea is that you are a good sailer. Roma locuta est ; causa fiuita est. One more.

To " Civis," — It is a singular and incomprehensible fact that when the Cassian question. '" Cvi bono ?" is ÜBed in a. newspaper, it ia invariably employed es if it meant " what is the good of it?" when in fact the actual meaning is " who is it that gains by it?" (who has * motive for it?) The cvi is iiot in agreement with bono, but it is an interrogative pronoun dependent on bono — cvi, to whom? bono, is it an advantage? The blunder is fully discussed in John E. B. Mayor's edition of tli« 2nd Philippic, note to p. 35 line 11. It is not age, experience, scholarship, thap speaks in this authoritative rescript, bufc a novice just escaped from pastors an<l masters. " Cvi fcemo? " is the "double dative " of our youthful primers, the " predicative dative " of scientific grammar ; literally the phrase is, "To whom ia ifc for a good?" I used it in last week's notes ; and, with all deference to this same learned Theban who here puts in his word 4 I used it correctly. Civis.

A Wellington telegram states that several Legislative Councillors, who think Sir H. Miller should stand aside, having served two terms of 10 years, will support the Hon. G. M'Lean for the Speakership of the Council.

The criminal sittings were resumed afc the Supreme Court on- Tuesday morning at 10.30, and continued up to a little past 5 o'clock. Joseph Williams, charged with the theft of £10 from the person, was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour. Patrick M'Callion and James JohnBton, against each of whom was a long lisfe of previous convictions, were each sentenced to three years' imprisonment with, hard labour for stealing money from the till of the Annandale Hotel. Alfred Norton Smith, who had been convicted in the lower court for theft from a dwelling, and who had a' very bad record, was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment, and the remainder of the day was taken up in hearing 1 a charge against Robert Phimieter, James Sparrow, James fteddes, Alexander M'D'onaW, and John Willis of assaulting and robbing 1 William Farquhar on tho Cargill road. The case vas not completed when the court ro«e. His Honor, Mr Justice Williams, refused Mr D. D. Macdonald'a application for bail.

Mr W. Aldred, manager of the Bank of New Zealand at Timaru, ha.s been promote<l to the position of inspector for the Middle Island. He leaves next week to take up his new duties. Mr Aldred was very popular at Timaru.

It will be ne-ws to most Englishmen that (he Argentine Government claims the Falkland Islands as part' of the territory of the RepuWio (writes the Buenos Ayrcs corre- 1 spondent of the Daily Mail). Since 1833, when England for the second timo took possession of the islands, Argentine has put in a formal diplomatic claim to them every year. It is now stated on good authority that a special appeal will be made by thft Government to. King Edward A"II on Ist January next for the restoration to tha Repubho of "Las Malvinae," the key to* the Straits of Magellan. The Falkland Islands lie 300 miles cast of the Straits of Magellan, and have an area of 4740 square miles and a population of between 2000 and 3000. The British Government has recently constructed a fortified coaling station a^ Port Stanley. The islands were originally discovered by Davis in 1592. They afterwards belonged- to' France and Spain, buff since 1771 have formed part of the British! Empire by right of first discovery and subsequent settlement. An Argentine settle-* inent established there in 1820 was destroyed by the Americans in J^iio