PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.) " The greatest battle in history," which is a phrase in this week's cables, savours rather of the exaggerative war correspondent, and seems to look towards a flaring two-column headline, which in most newspapers it duly got. When I went lo school (sometime in the last century) the greatest battle in history was the battle in which, at Poitiers in Central France, Charles the Hammer headed off and finally discouraged the Mahometan invasion. Of Arabs, Moors, or Saracens left on the ground the number was 350,000, say the chroniclers. But we are to remember that the chroniclers were <*all of the winning side, that Red Cross arrangements at that early date (700 a.d., or thereabouts) were far from complete, and that probably no prisoners were taken. This is the battle respecting which all commentators and encyclopaedists ar-2 careful to quote the cynical suggestion of Gibbon, that " but for it perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet." That's as may be ; anyhow Charles the Hammer's battle has had a just precedence as the greatest in history ; although strangely enough another pretty nearly as great, if with a different sort of greatness, was fought on the same ground six centuries later, when Edward, the Black Prince, of England, with 14,000. overthrew King John of France with 60,000, slaughtering 11,000 and carrying off the said John a prisoner. There were giants in those days. It remains, nevertheless, that for extension in time and space no battle in history touches the one now getting itself reported, — nor for intrinsic importance either, it may be. My humble petition is that it may culminate in a Sedan, and so bring the long tale of horrors to an end.

According to Prince Kropotkin, the predecessors of the Russian soldier now getting himself so consistently beaten in Manchuria were trained chiefly for parade purposes. They performed " almost superhuman tricks with their legs and rifles, one famous trick being to break the wood of the rifle into pieces while presenting arms." Incredible, yet, it seems, strictly true. On parade their duty was to be "as perfectly aligned and a3 motionless as a row of toy soldiers. ' Very good,' the Grand Duke Michael once said of a regiment, after having kept it for ono hour presenting arms — ' only they breathe ! ' :> In this remarkable army the distribution of honours was on principles peculiarly Russian. For example, the father of this Prince Kropotkin used to explain to his children how he won the cross of Saint Anne. The officers of the general staff we;e lodged in a Turkish village, when it took fie. In a moment the houses were enveloped in flames, andl in one of them a. child l.ad been left behind. Its mother uttered dospairmg cries. Thereupon, Frol, who always accompanied his master, rushed into the fl.mes and saved the child. The chief oommancd, who saw the act, at once ga%-e father the cross for gallantry. " But father," we exclaimed, *' it was Frol who saved the child!"

"What of that?" replied he, in the most naive way. " Was he not my man It ±s all the same." That these antecedents are not without a bearing on events in ' Manchuria I would fain believe. Otherwise, when we pose the inevitable question : Would the British lion have proved a better match for the Japanese tiger-cat than the Russian bear': — there would seem little warrant for any answer consistent with our self-respecr. But I cling to the belief that if in the past our own army affairs were imbecile, those of Russia were idiotic.

In the Daily Times of this week I am ufifevaided fe^one '•' Cephas" fer. "fciiftlous.

and sneering remarks " on the Welsh revival, Torrey-Alexander, Gipsy Smith and —odd conjunction !— Mr Lloyd-George. The name Cephas, if my memory is right, belongs to the only apostle of whom it is written that he told fibs and used bad language. I lay no stress on the fac l - ; still the fact is so. And if I must be misrepresented by an apostle, I prefer that it be Cephas. Had my amiable accuser appropriated feloniously the name of St. Paul, or of St. John, the case against me might have looked worse. Let us be thankful for small mercies. Of course T offer no defence ; nevertheless, by way of showing incidentally how thorough-going a Cephas this is, 1 may mention that of the Welsh revival I have said nothing but good, and of Mr Lloyd-George nothing good or bad. I quoted at his expense some banter of the Saturday-Re-view's, and I did not quote it all. Of " Gipsy Smith " I said that the gentleman's name rather impressed me — or words to that effect, and I think the. ramark permissible. I was not aware that Gipsy Smith is " one of the best-known men in England," nor that hs was "thanked by Lord Milner for splendid work done in South Africa " — no, I was not aware of it ; — which shows how little a man may know of the world he lives in when he neglects to limit his reading to a denominational journal of the right colour. Finally, of Torrey-Alexander I have said a good deal, but nothing " frivolous," nor, if you please, anything *' sneering " ; in this column sneering has no place. I have said seriously and straight-out that a professional revivalist of the Torrey-Alexander type, who — to take, one absurdity out of many — denies the possibility of innocent dancing and denounces the ballroom as a gangway to Gehenna, is no friend to religion. And if I really think so, I fancy I have tli3 right to say it, for I am a friend to religion myself.

I admit, however, that I owe an apology of sorts to the Rev. Mr Jamieson, who last week was introduced to this column in the letter of a correspondefit. Commenting on something in the letter 1 asked, " Who on earth wants to know what the subject of Mr Jamieson's evening sermon was/" My purpose would have been served quite as well had 1 generalised "Mr Jamieson " into "Mr So-and-so." Pity I didn't ! I should not then have seemed to speak slightingly of an estimable pei-son who had given no offence (and whom I don't know from Adam), nor through fault of mine would his name have been mouthed over by this carping "' Cephas." In reparation I offer a tip. It is for the benefit of those simple-minded folk who "supply" to newspapers information about the religious services in which they are interested. They rely on the good nature of subeditors. The quality exists, but it is not inexhaustible. My tip is, let the supplied information be not what interests merely the sender, but what will interest the public. If Mr So-and-so's sermon contains anything worthy of a wider audience, send it along ; the printer shall print it, the public will read it. The same if there is anything interesting in or about Mr So-and-so personally, his history, his looks good or bad, his attitudes, gestures, modes of going, — the public is a glutton on personal detail. If it is not a Mr So-and-so but a Mrs, all the better. For example :

The .Berlin correspondent of the Standard gives an interesting account of the appearance at the American Undenominational Church of the Rev. Dr Anna Shaw. She was a'med up the church by the American pastor, Dr Dickie, and began her address " after carefully placing her boa on the altar." This care was clearly needed since " her dress was pronounced faultless, and her discourse was not without interest." This kind of thing everybody will read, and by the personal detail that the lady began by placing her boa upon the altar everybody will be. naturally impressed. But the chapter and verse of Mr So-and-so's text and the title of his sermon can be of interest to no mortal.

On the subject of divinity degrees the Tablet editor is still cai-eering as the Knight of La Mancha, still valorously tilting at windmills. There got into his head originally a notion -that divinity degrees to be given by the New Zealand University are a phase of Bible in schools, and nothing can get it out. He refuses to be dispossessed, although, in a spirit of generosity, I have conceded that in passsubjects reckoned '" contentious " Roman Catholics might appoint their own examiner. I am aware that I have nothing in the world to do with it ; nevertheless, I have offered this concession on my own motion, but it only exasperates him the more ; e.g. —

On what principle of statecraft could the New Zealand frovernnient anogate to itse'f tne r:ght of diagging theology wilhin its domain ? This apostrophe is to my address, and all I can think of in reply is " a nice derangement of epitaphs," but in his behoof I have already used that np. A meek assurance that there is to be no arrogating, nor any dragging, were waste of breath. Nearly as helpless am I when he protests that " divinity," as he understands it, cannot be got out of " Bible literature." That of course is his affair, not mine, but I should have thought that any divinity worth having could and would be got out of Bible literature. Xo, he says, it can't — not even when I throw in Church history, with the Council of Trent and that other eminent Council that made the Pope infallible, — not even then. " Divinity," like the better land, is still far, far away. Then I give it up and abandon the Tablet editor to his own perversity. When anyone wishing to quarrel with a newspaper begins his letter ; "My attention has been drawn to your article of yesterday '* — the editor does not usually feel himself snubbed. He understands that kind of affectation and knows how

to prick it. Twice has the Tablet editor, allocuting the Daily Times on the sins oi " Civis," used a similar exordium. He was not naturally aware of Passing Notes, but his attention had been drawn to them. The second time, I said nothing about affectations but I permitted myself to remember the philosophers of Laputa and their dependence upon "flappers." For' this indecorum I am rebuked : If he ["' Civis "] bends his energies to the so'ution of the difficulties already b=tor3 him, he will, I think, have no space left i~> flingj at me any more of those angry andi irrelevant; insinuations which furnish such a pitiful evidence of the vu'gar temptations to which a, man is exposed when he writes with a mask upon his face. — I am. etc., Editor X.Z. Disburdened of its adjectives this is to say that British journalism, being usually anonymous, is the journalism of the mask. The leader-writer who signs no name, as well as the humble compiler of Passing Notes, '" writes with a mask upon his face." I should ha\e expected a Tablet editor to say, fires from behind a hedge ; it would have sounded more natural. But this is a detail, and we mustn't be pernicketty. I would venture to remark, however, that anonymous journalism is not irresponsible journalism. Quite the other way. The editor is rcponsible not only legally but morally (which is worse) for all he prints, — the contributions of his staff, the letters of casual correspondents, and even the dithyrambics of a brother scribe who raves of " masks " and ought to know better. In my own way, too, I take a little responsibility myself. " Civis " is a name tolerably well known "in the republic; the owner of it has both a reputation to lose and a back to be scourged. My excellent friend of the Tablet, with whom I am never so friendly as when we have just ended a little tiff, I invite to repent in dust and ashes of his unjournalistic heresy on the subject of masks.

To "Xivis." — Dear Sir, — I clo not know whether you can give me any information on a hera'clic question? This is the question: In conferring coats of arms on municipal and other public bodies, clos3 the College of Heralds have the same regard to the hi&tory and salient features in the character of th"> body that is supposed to be paid to the circumstances of such great men as Jave had coats of arms conferred upon theai ; And: if that is so, are you in a position to explain, why the most prominent of the Duneciin local bodies has on its coat of arms the Scottish, lion in his usual rampant position, with » thistle prominently beneath h.m, somewhat as if it were intended! as an u:ieasy scat? — Debhett and Burke. On questions of heraldry I am no authority. Nor do I recognise by its armorial bearings the local body here referred to. A coat of arms — he says — - showing the Scottish lion rampant preparing to sit on a Scotch thistle. " You can do everything with bayonets — except sit on them," was an admonition addressed to Napoleon 111 by a candid friend. The case of the thistle is somewhat different. You can do nothing whatever with a Scotch thistle except hew it down or stub it up ; least of all can you sit on it. The case of this national S< ottish lion who is exposing his rump to laceration and at the same time exclaiming, probably, " Nemo me impune lacessit,'* should be looked to. On the main question, perhaps someone deeper in these mysteries than I am will advise. Civis,

The weekly meeting of the Otago Benevolent Trustees, held on Wednesday afternoon, was attended by Messrs R. Maris Clark (chairman), J. Thomson, W. T. Talboys, K. Wilson,, W. Burnett, J. Green, and the Hon. H. Gourley. The Seer&tary reported that Arm M'Lauchlan, an inmate of the institution, aged 72 years, died during the v.eek. A parcel of books contributed by Mr J. Sinclair Thomson was ccknov/ledged with thanks. It was reported that the expenditure at the institution for the month of January was £2c6 7e Id, and that the inmates numbered 248. the average cost per* head per week being- 5s 2d. Thirty-five outdoor relief cases were dealt with. The pea lifle nuisance in the Borough of West Harbour is to be strenuously combated. At Tuesday's meeting of the council a new by-law was framed providing that '"No person shall carry a loaded pea rifle, or discharge Ei m&, for any purpose whatsoever, within the limits of the borough." Thi3 will come into force after legal formalities have been carried out, and as the area of the borough exhmcU between Logan's Point and Sawyers' Bay those in the habit of doing a little shooting on the hills will require to exercise care in keeping outsicrethe boundary. The manager of the Stale Fire Insurance Department for Otago and Southland only on Wednesday received confirmatory achice of the telegram published some days ago that from the Ist of March a reduction of 33 1-3 per cent, would be made in premiums on risks in class " W," thus bringing the department's rates into line with those of the Underwriters Association s tariff. Mr Smart; states that good business has so far been, done by the State office. Sir J. It. Ward, Minister of Railways, has intimated to Mr James Allen, M:H.E., that it is impossible at present to comply with the request of the deputation of Henley and Berwick settlers, which recently, waited on the Hon. W. Hall-Jones, that; the exoress trains for the south should stop at Henley. On the 7 th, inst. about 100 boys froiu the Boys' High School were engaged on the Town Belt near the school cutting clown elderberry plants and trees, and as a. result of their labours that portion of the public domain has been considerably cleared of a noxious growth which at one tim.© 1 threatened to destroy the native b\ish»