PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2666, 19 April 1905, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

The Dunedin City Council has just now some reason to feel humbled in mmd 1 , and yet withal is not without a sense of grievance. Over its proposal to present the town clerk with two years' leave and two years' pay we made so tremendous a splatter of indignation that no course was left to the unhappy Council but to back down and back oxit. Speaking for myself, I am ashamed of that splutter. The town clerk is our permanent municipal head ; — mayor and councillors come and go. Virtually he is' managing director of a business representing thiee-quarters of a million capital. Audi we pay him six hundred a year ! When it is proposed to give him sick leave and sick pay, taking a groat or two out of the pocket of each ratepayer, we all cry out with one voice that we are being robbed. Yes, — the municipal public is a hard taskmaster ; bowels of compassion has it none, nor any elementary sen&e of gratitude. The existing councillors labour in their self-chosen vocation with efficiency more or less, generally less, perhaps ; — anyhow they labour. Each in turn looks for his reward — a year of office as chief magistrate. What were their feelings when they saw us preparing to cut off that hope and foist into the mayor's seat an outsider? Our notion in "pitching upon Mr Hanlon must have been, I suppose, that Mr Hanlon being a lawyer is glib of the tongue. He would open our bazaars and sales of work with natty speeches ; would! preside with a judicial air at concerts ; would tender gracefully an official welcome to cricketers and- football teams, to Wirth's Circus when it comes our way, likewise to the- Shrubbs and the Duffeys. Mr Hanlon is an estimable citizen and a sound lawyer ; but not for these rea&ons were we plotting to pitchfork him into the mayoralty. Our reasons were those above, with this one in addition — we wanted to snub theu Council. About this amiable project the councillors are at present saying little ; disgust keeps them silent. Probably they think the more.

Admiration, not unmino-led with alarm, i.s the sentiment to ■which I must confess after reading of Father Hays and his teetotal pentecost at Invercargill. There were 2500 people in the meeting — his first meeting in New Zealand — and they all took tb.e pledge. Unless Father Hays was preaching to the converted and the whole affair was a put-up job, here were 2500 teetotallers bagged at a single shot. Father Hays recited the necessary form of words and the whole 2500 rose as one man — rather, perhaps, as one woman under compulsion of hysterics — and) recited it after him. If teetotallers ar.e made with this degree of facility, why go to the trouble of agitating for prohibition? Speaking for myself, being utterly and irrevocably against prohibition, I am delighted that the prohibitionists themselves — for I suppose it is they who imported Father Hays — have shown prohibition to be unnecessary. Let them go on booming Father Hays. They boomed him before arrival, and tliey boomed him well. The little rift between " the good father " — as the Tablet condescendingly names him — andi the atithorities of his Church may be fortuitous, or it may have been skilfully arranged. In the latter case the skill was considerable. Many a Protestant and Piesbyterian "true blue " will thereby be enabled to sit under Father Hays with a clear conscience. For my own part, however, I don't mean to sit under him. lam all for teetotalism where it is necessary — voluntary abstinence, not prohibition. And this is where my alarm comes in. If (Father Hays gets at me I shall succumb with enthusiasm like the 2500 Invercargill people — hypnotised into volun-l&ry abstinence, against my will. Therefore safety will lie in keeping out of his way. I shall duly readi about his meetings in tjie newspapers, but I shall

be saved as Artemtis Ward was saved at the Battle of Inkerman — by not being there.

Says a London daily : " We hear a good deal about the Premier of New Zealand, because Mr Seddon is his own cable correspondent, although the cost of his numerous messages is borne by the taxpayers of the colony." Whence it appears that on the other side of the water they ore not quite so simple as Mr Seddon's telegraphic activity assumes. Apropos, there runs in my head the first reported joke of Father Hays at Invercargill: — Captain on the biidgc calling down the engine-room tube : '" Is there a blithering idiot at the end of the tube?" Engineer from below : '"Not at this eqd. sir." The case is much the same with' Mr Seddon's cables. If at orv? end of the wire there is a simpleton, that end) is not the British end. Jn token whereof the London editor continues :

Never once in his telegrams to I/onclon does Mr Scddon mention the Leader of his Majesty's Opposition m Xcw Zealand. Mr W. p. Massey has just had an enthusiastic reception at Auckland, the old capital of New Zealand, and he subjected the Sedflon Government to sonic very seveis criticism. He 'described its policy as keeping in office and making provision for itself trhen out of office. To mention in his telegrams to London, sent at the expense of the taxpayers of the colony, the name of Mr W. F. Massey, or anything but his own praises, would be, in Mr Seddon's view, a criminal squandering of public money. It is clear, however, that Mr Massey's name gets there all the same ; also, along with it, a tolerably accurate notion of the real Seddon. On this latter point the British public is not going to be eitlier hoaxed or hocussed, and th<e attempt may be dropped. Then let Mr Seddon drop iiis cabling and swell his surplus. But he never would be advised by me — a perversity which, in the end, will assuredly bring him to grief.

At intervals ther.e flits througn the correspondence columns of the Daily Times a phantom "Atheist" ; — we have had him again once, if not twice, within the last few days. Him, or it ; — I am not sure about the pronoun. I should prefer in charity to suppose this " Atheist " of the newspapers no creature of flesh and blood, but carburetted hydrogen — a phosphorescent exhalation of the ignis fatuus sort, born of marsh gas or other unwholesome vapours, the product of matter in decay. Certain it is that from an Atheist in flesh embodied the prevalent sentiment of a community such as ours shrinks as from something out of nature, monstrous, loathsome. This sentiment may be narrow and unintelligent ;' anyhow it exists, and we all share it. Sydney Smith, who was neither unintelligent nor a bigot, confesses his " diread " at finding himself in a stage-coach " with an Atheist who told m,e what he had said in his heart."' Which is a neat reference to a verse in the Psalms : '" The fool hath said in his heart " . etc. I do not call our local Atheist a fool, though probably Huxley would, along with the Psalmist — Huxley, who is tho great-grandfather of all

Agnostics and tlv* inventor of the name. For it was Huxley's opinion that " Atheism is on purely philosophical grounds untenable.*' Then the grounds on which Atheism is tenable are, we may infer, unphilo&ophical, illusory, impossible, absurd. For all that I am not going to call names. This apparitional " Atheist " who squeaks and gibb.ers at us from the columns of a newspaper calls himself by a name that is worse than any I could invent for him. He woiild not administer a greater shock to the moral sense of the community if he wrote himself " Pagan " or " Parricide.-"

In the correspondence columns of the Spectator for the last month or two there has been much disputing over university epigrams in proa? and verse — old fogies of the clubs and of country parsonages arguing about the true form of this or fhat common-room joke or doggrel couplet as if it were a doubtful passage in a Greek classic. Only one thing is clear, it seems to m.°, — there is no copyright in academical jokes, nor any guarantee against a corrupt text. The generations of university life are short ; ten years back is antiquity, twenty years prehistoric ; hence there is no settling now whether a celebrated diistich, the original form of which has been with difficulty recovered, was levelled at the proctor or the college porter ; nor is the authorship any less uncertain. There is Mans.el, there is Whewell, there are half a dozen academical Joe Millers, and the old fogies of to-day dispute in the Spectator which traditional jok/? shall be assigned to which. For my own part the archeology of this grave subject interests me but little. I require of a joke that it really be a joke ; its age and) authorship are' immaterial. On th*s other hand the merit of a literary or oratorical blunder usually depends on the relative importance of the blunderer. Freeman the historian was undoubtedly a bigwig in his own subject, and so great a precisionist that the '' Dictionary of National Biography " lost his services because the editor, Leslie Stephen, spelt Atheist an? with an '" a." It is particularly delightful, therefore, to know that Freeman when perorating heavily in Convocation at Oxford, being disturbed) by the re&tlessness of his audience, referred to "the taking of Titus by Jerusalem." Ascribed to a local preacher or lav reader this slip would not l3e worth quoting.

All good storl°s are liable to change in transmission, academical good stories, perhaps, mor,? than others, and that for a reason already given — namely, that at universities the individual life is short and the succession rapid. I have just come across tyro stori.es essentially the same yet differing in every detail. Here is the fiist:

A proctor, a woiiliy man who happened lo have only taken a very moderate (in point of fact, a " poll ") degree, was vastly scandalised at finding a brilliant double-first drunk on the

Senate House steps. " I'm ashamed," said tlu shocked official ; " I should have thought a double-first would have known better." " How on earth '' came the retort, " can you know what a double-first knows?" With which compare the second — taken from a recent book of memoirs :

At Queen's, Ox-ford, a student excited by the appearing of his name in the fir^t class climbed on to the root of the college and seated himself on a gieat stone aionui"ent theic. Many efforts were made to indue? him to descend. At the last Hie provost (Dr Th.oms.on) was fetched. " Do prny come down, Mr Jones," s?id he ; "we can all feel with you in your preat siiccess." "Xo you can't, old chap!" slioufed Jones, — "you only got a third!" Which of these two may b.? the original and which the variant is the kind of question amiable old fogies debate in tha columns of the Spectator. I observe that in the columns of the Daily Times Mr John MacGregor was endeavouring the other day to quote a celebrated passage from Sydney Smith :

Thero is rot a better man in England than Lord John Russell; but his worst failure is that lie is utterly ignorant of ail ru-cral fear; thero is nothing he would not undertake. I believe he would perform the operation for the stone — build St. Peter's — or asstuuc (with or without 10 minutes notice) the command of the Channel Fleet. That is Sydney Smith. But, as Mr John MacGregor had got it, the " operation " was not for the stone but for " appendicitis " — a malady of which, assuredly, neither Sydney Smith nor Lord John had ever heard. A short form of this somewhat laboured passage is current nowadays, and the short form is the best : "He is equally ready to cut for the stone or to take command) of the Channel Fleet." Civis.

General Booth, the founder and head of the Salvation Army, will reach Dunetlin by the expi-ess from the south on Wednesday evening, 19th inst., and on hi-; arrival h« will be tendered a reception at the railwaystation by his Worship the Mayor and other leading citizens. On Tlrarsday, 20lh inst., General Booth will deliver a lecture entitled "Tho Pact. Present, and Future of the Salvation Army" in the Garrison Hall at 7.45 p.m.: and on Friday, 21st inst, devotional meetings will be held in the Garrison Hall at 10.45 a.m., 2.45 p.m., and 7.45 p.m. .Small children will not be admitted either with or without their parents.

A remarkable instance of pluck and; endurance of pain on the pait of a boy is reported in the Sydney papers. A son of Mr George Wellard, of Gkuinie's Creek, aged 12 years, was thrown from a horse, which also fell, the animal putting its foot in a hole. The weight of the horse broke the young rider's right thigh. The horsa continued to lie upon the boy, who, though in great agony, reached for his whTp on the ground, and flogged tho animal till it struggled up and left the rider free. The boy was two miles from home with a broken thigh, but his nerve and wits were wifch him. He called to ih* horse, and vitb a great effort hoisted himself up and threw his broken right leg over the saddle, the task almost causing him to faint. The boy steered the horse for home, and when within half a mile from there called for assistance, his father answering Ihe call. The shocked lather lifted his son off the saddleand put him to bed, where be read an illustrated paper until xhe arrival of tho doctor.

The Minister of Marine has directed a magisterial inquiry into the supposed loss of the scow Hoanga, which left Otago Harbour on September 17 last for Herckmo, Auckland, and has not since been heard of. She left in charge of Captain M'Ponald. The inquiry will be held before Mr H. T. Widdowson, S.M., assisted by Captain Jno. Bernceh as nautical assessor, at the Magistrate's Court, Dunedin; at 11 a.m. on Friday next, Hth inst. The Collector of Customs conducts the case for the Marine Department, and will be pleased to hear from any person who can give information which may assist the court in forming an opinion as to the cause of the casualty.

On Saturday evening the oil launch Mizpah, valued at £300, and tHe rowing boats Star of Peace and Alice, valued a* £♦0, were set adrift from the Rattray street wharf, and disappeared down harbour or the ebb tide. The oil launch was recovered off the rocks at Macandrew's Bay on Sunday at 6 p.m., and the Star of Peace was afterwards recovered, and the Alice has also been found somewhere in the direction o£ Porb Chalmers. Although no damage is reported, the inconvenience to the Harbour Board's waterman, Mr G. Madigan, who owns the two rowing boats, and to Mr F. J. Sullivan, owner of the Mizpah, has been considerable They have communicated with the police over the matter, and ar» offering a reward of £5 for information that may lead to the discovery of the offender or offenders.

Our Cromwell correspondent states thai/ both Messrs William Scarfe and John M'L.ean, who were suffering from typhoid fever, are rapidly approaching conva!es< cence, but Miss Maud Campbell, late servant at the Cromwell Hospital, succumbed on Wednesday evening, and was buried on Friday afternoon. Deceased, who was a native of Lowburn, and who was quite a. young woman, was a universal favourite with all classes of the community. Tho funeral cortege was a very large and representative one. Great sympathy is expressed 1 for her sorrowing parents, sisters, auct brothers.

The- Southland delegates who attended the meeting at Roxburgh on the 11th to urge the claims of an Edievale-Roxburgli route of l'ailway. left Roxburgh at 4- o'clock on Wednesday morning, and drove to Edi&vale, where they joined the train, and caught the express for Invercargill at Waipahi.