PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2690, 4 October 1905, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

. ♦ — - (From Saturday's Daily Times.) A correspondent asks why the newspapers, when they speak of the present happy relations between France and England, slavishly adopt the French phrase "entente cordiale." Have we no suitable term of our own? The thing signified is a joint .product. We o". our side contributing, our fitll half; ycii we leave it to the other »do to give tbe thing its name — a name not undearsitanded of tho people. It is a joke, yet not altogether a joke, that in some quarters tbe " cordial " of which the newspapers are -talking is thought to be " one oi them' new teetotal drinks." Since we are English, let us stick to me English. " Emtenie coidiale," indeed! Can we not trans- j late? Apparently not,— which of course is a, very hard case. " Friendly understanding " | would be a translation, but no equivalent, s French has been the language of international diplomacy and certain French phrases hav.e acquired a quality and force quasi sacramental. If two nations draw towards each other, the word is " rapprochement " ; if they bury old quarrels and grasp hands in friendship, the sacramental phrase is "entente cordiale." Our English "friendly understanding" is both vague and weak. Perhaps the reason that we have not developed a word of our own is that we have- never felt the E.eed of it. Ententes are little in ' our line ; we have preferred a splendid isolation. The British have always been somewhat vain of their self-sufficiency ; > and not without a show of reason. They ' inhabited an island, a right little, tight little island ; nobody could easily get at them. And their domestic institutions t were reasonably stable, needing no foreign prop. It is as Tennyson puts it in acouplet: — the central British authority felt itself self-sufficing because Broad-based upon the people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea.

But there can be no better way of celebrating Trafalgar year than this — the cultivating of kindly relations with France, even though we have to talk of rapproehe- t ments and ententes. Our fleet had a merry , time at Brest, which port a hundred years i ago we kept under strict blockade ; in return we have given the Fr.ench fleet a 'still better time at Portsmouth, where a hundred years ago it could have figured only as j>rize of war. Certain squads of officers and men we carried to London, not as captives of our bow and spear, but as guests the nation delighted to honour. To them was given a dinner by both Houses of Parliament — an event without precedent ; Parliament had never before given j a dinner. The scene of this unexampled 1 banquet was. Westminster Hall, anent ! which ••the newspapers are careful to quot, o . ' the grandiose passage from Macaulay's i Warren Hastings — " It was the great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty Kings," etc. Mor.e. to the point, as representing our presenfc mood and feeling, was a remark by Air Speaker, who sat at the head of one of the- tables, balancing the Lord Chancellor at the head of the other. The historic hall in which they were assembled, said he, was built by the- son of one who came from France as an invadei and a conqueror — to wit, Billy the Norman, that v. n ry great war-man, certainly came from France, but was surely no Frenchman. However, the reference was well meant, and doubtless -nas w.ell leceived. But this is as nothing in comparison \a ith the courtesies of Trafalgar Square. Here are a few sentences from the Times report : j A sound, distant at first, swelling into tlie loar of many voices could ba heard. Handkerchiefs waving beyond the Umou Club, the helmets of more mounted police, and a deafening roar were tho signals that the procession had come. The open carriages showed the offrers. Frencn and English, in undress uniform; but n was not on them that interest • v.'ag concentrated. It was on Matliurin Lthe 1 French equivalent of Jack Tar] white-capped, { svmlmrttt, waving hia white handkerchief-

thrce must surely have been a special issue of •them — and always, as his carriage passad the Nelson Statue, rising in his sea.t, waving liis cap, and venturing with a loud "Eep! Eep! Eep!" upon a very tolerable imitation of the British " hurrah." • The Trafalgar Square momuaent is, in its own way, the finest thing in London, and the one-armed Nelson from the top of it has looked down on many things wonderful, but never, during all the decades h<9 has stood there, on a thing so wond.erful as this, or so little to be expected, that in the hundredth year aft.er Trafalgar he should be cheered by Frenchmen and representaI tives of the French navy.

There was also a banquet at tlie Guildhall, where, after the toast in honour of the French admiral, the British roared in 1 chorus "For he's a jolly good fellow," his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales leading off. As illustrating the ways of the islanders this compliment woitld doubtless ■be prized by the French ; but they must have pricked up their ears at the tune. For the tune is one of their own ; what is more, it is the tune of a -popular ditty satirising the English, "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre." After Ma-lplaquet, the last of Marlborough's great battles and the most costly of his victories, the French consoled themselves in his immense losses — nearly double their own, and in a rumour that he- himself was amongst the slain. And so, as the books i-elate, the couplets called "The .Death and Funeral of the Invincible Marlborough" were improvised by some soldier of genius in the French bivouack. Malbrook s'en -va-t-en guerre, Mironton, nrironton, nurontaine, Ne sail qua-nd reviendra, — eie. Which is to say that Marlborough is off to the war but doesn't know when he'll get back again. The song has had strange fortunes. Mary Antoinette, as the story runs, made it popular at Versailles by chanting it as a lullaby fov the infant dauphin. Beaumarchais found a place for it in his " Marriage of Figaro," and even Beethoven must have thought kindly of the melody, for he has worked it into his "Battle Symphony." Finally, passing over to its hereditary foes — how or when is not on record— it has been subdued to convivial uses, serving as a tune for "We won't go home till morning/ and "He's a jolly good fellow. " By a caprice of destiny which is of the oddest it was sung the other day in London in honour of a French admiral, the singers British, the Prince of Wales leading off. " The war in German South-West Africa has been going on for tw.enty months, and there is no sign of peace, whilst its cost is upwards of £25,000 a day.' 5 This sentence from the Spectator of August 19 I quote with a sense of satisfaction purely judicial, I wishing no ill to the Germane, yet delighted that they in their turn are getting their South African lesson. Can we forget how they jeered at us? Perhaps we didn't ! sufficiently know how to make war, ' fumbling the business not a little, and it may have been neighbourly kindness in the Germans to tell us as much. But the boot seems now on the other leg. They are the fumblers, ours is the part of the candid friend. What are they about that they have taken twenty months, at £25,000 a day, in reducing to order a handful of South African savages, and --haven't finished with it yet? And their methods! There is a proclamation of October 2, 1904, in which General yon Trotha announced i that any Herero, with or without a rifle, found within th.c German frontier would be shot ; and that, as for the women and i children, he would either drive them back ! to their own people or have them fired on. i ftee how circumstances alter cases. Three years ago the concentration camps is which we took charge of women and children for • Boers in the field against us were denounced from end to -end of Germany as a device for wholesale murder. However, let that pass. We can afford a Christian spirit, for we are amply avenged. Morseover the German muddle in South Africa discounts most opportunely certain pretensions of the Kaiser's that the r.est of mankind have found offensive and burden- .' some. Here I may insert some crude i rhymes sent ivy? by a correspondent. I i have seen worse elsewhere : ! Great Kaiser Bill, his pirate flag unfurled, j Shakes his mailed fist in face of all the world — A ciowned filibuster. For ends, the saruo, but on a humbler scale, See Villiam Sykci (when he is not in. gaol) Flourish his kmick!edus(er.

Mr Seddon gives a week-end visit to Otago that he may open the- St. Helen's Maternity Hospital and look into matters electoral. I congratulate him on h>s health, which has not always been so good, and could wish his energies better applied. ! Matters electoral we tln'nk ourselves a,V.« as electors to manage without assistar.ee, and we might even Have contrived tsa citizens to op.en the St. Helen's Maternity Hospital. By the way, why St. Helen's? Who was St. Helen? — where did she li\c and when? What has Bt. Helen done ion maternity? The only St. Helen I can hear of wae a divorcee whom some Pope sainted for the " invention of the true cross." However, this is a trifle, and one name is as good as another, sometimes better than another. For example, we might have been saddled with a " Seddon 's Maternity " instead of a St. Helen's. Let us reflect on that and be thankful for small mercies. Then as respects matters electoral, the chances are that Mr Seddon is by a long score wiser than we are, and deeper. Not for nothing does he come pouth, — of that yon may take your 'dayy. In. this St. Helen's Maternity opening there are votes ; also there must be votes, I though I should have thought there were "none, in snubbing the Medical School and starving the Mining School. Of course there are votes in all promises of Jack Cade legislation, restraining rents and interest, decreeing the three-hoop.cd pot to have ten hoops, and thai ail the realul shall be in common. Again there are votes, troops and battalions of them, in applying all the resources of Governmeub lo getting the New Zealand footballers fuJly

reported and in directing the High Commissioner to spare no details and hang the expense. Never was known so fine a scent, so unerring a "flair," for votes, and it is following his nose that Mr Seddon comes to Otago. He will not have thrown away his week-end : for one thing Mr Barclay badly needs a lift in Dunedin North.

Dear " Civis," — As ?. constant reader of you? notes, I send you a cutting from the Lytteltou Times; it contains the fullest church menu that I have met -with. ■WAIJSTONI CYCLISTS' CHURCH.— EoaSectanaUj Scientific, Christiana Ethical. Addresses. Services Sunday mornings ; music 11, address 11.30. Admission to Wainoni Park 6d ; no collection. The discourses will generally be illustrated by experiments or by solar lantern, etc-., and will usually be given in the open. Any person attending the service and wishing to spend the day in Wainoni Park may obtain boiling water free or may light picnic fires in the appointee! places. This advertisement is from Christchurch, a' cathedral city, yet withal rather notorious for vagaries in religion. " Christchurch afc one time built a Temple of Truth for Mr Worthington, who is now in gaol. The Wainoni Cyclists' Church, with a fixed charge for admission, no collection, and boiling "water free, represents, apparently, a reaction from the more regular forms of ecclesiasticism. "We have religious oddities in Dunedin, but not precisely of th,e same type. Nobody has been able to explain what good the University students can. achieve by standing in a ring at the midday .hour in our busiest thoroughfare to sing Moody and Sankey. This is. one of those mysteries which, as Kinglake said of the fatal snowstorm in £he Crimea, may ba explained hereafter, but will get no explanation lier.e. Then-tße other day in tlie advertising columns of this journal, we had "A Christian" requiring the services of "a saved person" for duty in a bookseller's shop. I don't comment on this, except to say that I suffer an agreeable surprise in the suggestion that " a saved person," eligible for the solemn troops and sweet societies of an upper and a better world, may be looking down the "Wanted" column of the Daily Times in quest of a billet. Between us arid the Christchurch people" there is perhaps not much to choose after all. Civis. — — — — — »-t»

Our Queenstown correspondent wired on Wednesday that there was a heavy rainfall throughout the district on Tueslay night and on Wednesday a thin coating of snow' covered the mountains almost to their base. Our Cromwell and Alexandra correspondents report in - somewhat <■ similar terms. The rivers rose somewhat, but are expected to go down again in a day or two. The weekly meeting of the trustees o£ tho Benevolent Institution was hold on Wednesday afternoon, the members present being— Messrs R. M. Clark (in the chair),A. Tapper, R. Wilson, W. T. Talboys, TV.. Burnett, and A. 11. Burton. The Secretary reported that the cost of maintenance for the month had been £361 5s 6d for 259 inmates, ac the rate of 6s 3^d per head per week. Donations of books and newspapers wero acknowledged with thanks from Mrs Maedonald, Miss Melville, and Messrs Harker and Shepherd. Accounts amounting to £130 4s Id were passed for payment. The applications for relief dealt with numbered 46. The Otago University Museum has recently received four donations of widely different nature, but each of considerable interest and value. Mr James Mills has presented a valuable collection of weapons and • other articles from the South Sea Islands, which he had gradually aceiunu laled during many years. Dr Fulton, a 9 has previously been mentioned, has gene rously donated his fine collection of Net? Zealand birds' eggs. A collection of palaeozoic fossils from New South Wales has been presented by a former student of the University, Mr H. Sargeant, A.0.5.M. ; and last week the curator received from Mr Thomas Mailing a number of minerals from New Caledonia, including ores of nickel, cobalt, iron, and chromium. None of these gifts have yot been placed on. exhibition, as Dr Benham's time illy occupied with the duties attaching m his University chair; but it is hoped tha* when the session is over .these interesting additions will be suitably displayed. It will be remembered (says the Ashbarton Guardian) that at the inquiry into tli.. causes of the memorable Rakaia railt!t.y smae'u of some years ago the driver q'l the second train, as his extenuating plea for bii aprarait lack of judgment, stated lha'', the down grade of the line, tho h(W>y traia, air. 1 - slippe.-y rails com-tut-su' to pre'v-nr; hiio iving able to y.\\\ up in linie to Tvid crashing iutr. tl« preceding iira-.n, wftiw; waa standing at tie p'.atfov.n. A i>:».!iica» piece of evidence in sup p. oil a this o.oqtcntion was afforded on a veco.it o-.-Mijnj, when a Christchurch-bcund trail, UVouvsng under similar conditions to thorc vrkicb Driver IvTCartby said contributor, to iha Rakaia disaster, ran clean through Rakaia station before coming to a standstill, and had to be shunted back before passengers could alight or entrain or luggage be dealt with. The following letter has been received by the Rev. D. Maclcnnan, minister of Chalmers Church: — '" Dunedin, September 26, 1905. — Dear Mr Maclonnan,— l want tof thank you "Very sincerely for v the instruc» tive sermon we had from you on Sunday last. It is a very great pleasure to me to, find our dear mother tongue being spoken in thh f? v land, and I hope your generous efforts to keep it alive may meet with: every success and cncoxiragcmcnt. — With very kind regards, yours, etc., Jessie N« Maci,4lohlan (Buchanan)."