PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2695, 8 November 1905, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

According to The Times, or its St. Petersburg correspondent, "the Constitution [put forth by the Czar] came too late, and has fallen flat." In which opinion concurs a political authority of less weight perhaps, but nearer home, and for that reason not infrequently quoted in this column. I allude to the

ruler of my domestic destinies. Mrs Civis,

after a patient perusal of the Czar's manifesto, pronounces It "rigmarole" and protests that she can make of it "neither head nor tail." This may not be the last word of wisdom on the subject; but in my opinion it comes pretty near thereto. Meanwhile wa may note that the Bussian conflagration as a whole still rages; so far as appears the hose turned upon it from Peterhof doesn't in the least damp it down. Moreover, if precedent counts for anything, it is after concessions that a revolution may be expected to take on its worst phase. In France the guillotine,, the Terror, the September massacres, the killing of King and Queen, came after the Constitution, after the capitulating of court and nobles, after the surrender of all privileges and the righting of all wrongs— after these things, not before. . When the deeds were done which made the French Revolution a thing of horror at which humanity shudders to this hour France was under a Parliament fashioned entirely to her own liking. And this fact, if historic precedents are to be regarded, ie of evil omen for the Czar and for everybody about him.

Always there presents itself the obvious consideration that if the army continues to obey orders — which is a delicately poised " if " — the insurrection must come to nothing. The Czar may be assassinated, every visible representative of Imperialism may go down in turn, and yet Imperial authority in some form will survive. Against disciplined troops in mass an insurrection, though it~be of a whole people, must fail. For one thing troops have artillery. If I am not misfaken the Czar, though shooting down his insurrectionists with small show of scruple, has never yet used against them a big gun. We read this week of Cossacks storming barricades, but there is no hint that they employed cannon. Yet the employment of cannon must have been often in the Czar's thoughts. Though he reads no newspapers he has probably read a -little history, a little French history, even a little (French Revolution history ; hence will not be unaware of the virtue that may reside in a whiff of grapeshot. The agency by which the French Revolution was blown into space, as Carlyle's phrase runs, was a field battery and a competent artillery officer, — a dozen or so of big guns and a man behind the guns with courage to use them. I don't pretend to have read with closeness the Russian cables of the last week or two, — the tale of horror grows monotonous and palls ; but I am pretty sure there has been no firing with big guns. That may come yet ; for, clearly, as long as the army obeys orders the Czar has this murderous weapon under his hand. Hitherto, however, he has not mustered courage to mow down his mutinous subjects by artillery fire, and we may hope he never will. More to his credit would it be to get himself blown up by a bomb, or to make a bolt for Denmark.

All the world's a, stage, And all the men and women merely playeis: 'They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts. It is the lamented death of Captain Hutton that thrusts into my mind this familiar quatrain, — not only for the reason that bis career may be. read as a footnote

to the last line of the four, but for other reasons presently to be explained. As for the footnote, that is easily made out: A man who in his time plays many parts may play them all honourably and play them well. Not that we of the colonies need this trite moral,— not in the least. With us versatility is itself a merit, counting as a factor in the struggle for existence ; not seldom the successful colonist is proud to tell you that he has been all things by turns and nothing long* But in range of parts Hutton is easily first, the rest- of us nowhere. He was a clergyman's son, educated for the navy. Missing the navy, ruled out on a question of age, he took the next best, which was the merchant service in Green's ships — frigate -built liners of the old school, well I knew them ! After three- voyages to India as a brassboimd middy, Hutton, still in his teens, was already a mariner of experience when he left the sea and began a series of lightning changes ; first, a science student at King's College, London; next, an ensign in a marching regiment, the Royal Welsh Fusileers, serving at the Siege of Sehastopol and the_Relief of Lucknow ; a' student again at Sandwich and Woolwich, lieutenant in the Royal Horse Artillery, captain in the 9th Lancers, musketry instructor, brigademajor, deputy assistant quartermastergeneral. It cannot be said that" -Hutton in his military, phase lacked either variety or distinction. Then, the wars being over, he sold out and migrated to New Zealand," where he developed into a University professor and our chief man .of science — biologist, botanist, geologist, Fellow of the Royal Society, president of this and that learned body, author of half aT dozen ' science text-books, being withal a modest man and a kindly whom colleagues and students alike "held in esteem and affection. It is an extraordinary career, ending, as it began, at sea. Apparently, though the telegrams are not explicit, Hutton has found at last the mariner's grave, and the Atlantic will have his bones to toss with tangle and with shells.

But it was of other people as well as of Hutton that I was thinking when quoting above the . philosophy of the melancholy Jacques. I have here a copy of the New Zealand Magazine, a Quarterly Journal of General Literature, No. 3, July, 1876, published at the office of the Otago Daily Times, corner of Rattray and Bond streets, Dunedin. Of this ancient classic Captain F. W. Hutton was an editor along with certain others whose names are duly set forth,- amongst them Professor D. MacGregor and the Rev. R. L. Stanford. Associated a good deal with this group was a rising lawyer, Robert i Stout the name of him, an advanced democrat, of pronounced hostility to titular I distinctions. Amongst the contributors to ! tbe Magazine appears the -B,ev. Wm. | Salmon^, described as Professor of j Theology to the Otago Presbyterian Church ; In No. 3 he is lifting up his testimony against Evolution, asking in the tone common to t?ieological professors of the period " How is it possible that Evolution and Christianity can dwell in one -house?" All these are honourable men, their names as ointment poured forth ; but where be they now? I am not : speaking of Captain Hutton, who, to our lasting regret, has just gone over to the I majority ; but of the others. Where are I they now? In ghostland, every one of them. They have had their exits as they | had their entrances. People of the same l name are still walking about amongst us, I I admit; but what's in a name? The MacGregors, the Stanfords, the Salmonds, the Stouts of 30 years back have vanished into thin air. Their ghosts still people the pages of the New Zealand Magazine, but themselves in the flesh you find not. I defy you to lay hands on any one _of them.

Prohibition statistics are a kind of preaching to the converted ; the people who. read them don't need them, the minde they bring to their perusal being minds already made-up. The same holds of medical testimony, in lengthy lists of eminent names, to the doctrine that alcohol is a poison. The believing are mightily impressed by this testimony, the unbelieving heed it not at all. Why should they? All experience is on their side, the experience of the ages ami universal mankind ;—-let; — -let the prohibition doctoi's go hang ! That is how I myself am accustomed to reason, anyhow ; hence, personally, I am able to take- my glass of beer as Spurgeon took his cigar — to the glory of God. As for statistics, it must have been for this self-same controversy that the saying was invented — there is nothing so deceiving as facts, except figures. And that is true for both sides. Nevertheless it is not fair that the prohibitionists should do all the deceiving ; there are facts and figures on the other side as well. Prom the Christchurch Press I extract an instructive table published by the Lancet as the report of a committee of the British Medical Association.

The committee passed under review the habits of life of 4234 persons. They studied those who refrained absolutely fvorn alcoholic drinks, those who indulged more or less in moderation, and those who drank excessively. Those persons, taken indiscriminately, were divided into five categories, and the average age attained in each case is as under: —

Years. Days. 1. Habitually temperate drinkers 63 13 2. Careless drinkeis 59 67 3. Free drinkers 57 59 4. Decidedly intemperate diinkers 51 30

5. Total abstainers 51 22 It will be seen that there are two sorts of " decidedly intemperate," the drinkers and the total abstainers, both at war with nature and in the same degree. If there is any difference, it is against the total abstainer, wherefore and whereby his expectation of life is by a fcmall fraction the lower of the two. Do I vouch

for these figures? Not at all. " I vouch for nothing. At the most I suggest that these figures are a fair set-off to figures on the other side, and are just as much, or as little, likely to be trustworthy.

A correspondent sends me a paragraph! " cut from a recent German paper " ; also she obligingly supplies a translation, adding—

Please consider yourself quite at liberty to alter anything in the English of the translation — I have done it in such a hurry. I am not sure of " fldeles," but think it means " confiding." The phrase is "em fideles Gefanguis," which she translates "a trusting prison discipline." The "word " "Gefanguis' 4 means " prison " merely ; and altnouglt "fidelee," which is not a German word, has a look of (; trusty " or the like, there exists a German adjective " fidel " meaning "jolly," and "jolly" would better suit the context as we shall see.

It seems they Kave a trusting prison discipline in the little village of Dunedin, in New Zealand! The prison consists of a small hut, in which the prisoner^ aie shut up. , The mayor of the town has the light to make use of the prisoners as messengers, and makes extensive use of the privilege. The prisoner are simply admonished to be back punctually in the evening again, or otherwise it might happen- "that they would be locked out. Moreover, 'that would hring r in a critical situation, f oiMiobody in the little tow_n would be inclined? to admit to his house a, man who rightly belonged to the prison. In other prisons in the same country the custom held, until quite a little while ago, that prisoners, instead of doing labour, must learn loag pieces from the 'Bible by -heart.; ' - A joke as is a joke can never die. In Germany, where' there is not enough native humour to go round, they have evidently borrowed and dressed up an old joke of ours about the prehistoric Bell JBill watch-house. The prisoners, when prisoners there were, had the run of the town in the evenings with the warning that if not back early they -would be locked out for the night. This humorous invention of the old identities is clearly aliv« and well in Germany at the present hour, dress and details Germanised as is natural, hut the essential idea intact, indestructible, immortal. The other New Zealand prison story— about learning by heart long pieces of the Bible as a' substitute for hard labour— appears to be a German joke in process of evolution, the^ basis of it some confused account of Dr Gibb's movement for the Bible in schools. Civis.

The -.vital statistics for the Dunedin district for the month of October show that, compared with October of last year, there has been an increase in the birth rate of 12 md a decrease in the death-rate of --23. This year the figures for the month were:" Births, 139; deaths, 55; and marriages, 45. October last year they were: Births, 12Jj deaths, 78; and marriages, 45.

During the past two cv three seasons : fc has been apparent that the accommodation for tourists at Paradise, head of Lake Wakatipu, has been insufficient to meet requirements, and those who contemplate" visiting that charming resort will bepleased to learn that there is every "prospect that an up-to-date accommodation .house •will be shortly built there, a syndicate having been formed in Dunedin having that object in view.

We find, upon making further inquiries, that although the Goldflelds and Mines Committee of the Legislative Council excised from the" Mining Acts Amendment Bill the clause, inserted in the Lower House, providing that " time " in a mine should be reckoned " from bank to bank," the Council itself reinstated the clause. The effect is that the award of the Arbitration Court in the mining cases that were heard on the West Coast early in the year is practically rendered of no avail.

A party of workmen are on their. way to Milford Sound, whence they will proceed to the Falls Hut— or, as it is more familiarly called, Beech Hut,— where t'Arwill erect a commodious dining room for the accommodation of tourists making the overland trip from Te Anau to Milford Sound. The dining room will be in charge of Mr and Mrs C. Jones, who have been engaged for that purpose, and Mr and Mrs Garvie will again have charge of Glade House at the head of Lake Te Anau. The touirist season begins day, and several parties have alre signified their intention of making the journey to the Wonderland of the South.

In the list of donations for March, 1905, to the new Orphan Homes at Bristol founded by the late George Muller, there appears the entry : " From Dunedin, New Zealand— £loo for missions, with £100 for the orphans." The names of the donors are not given, but in the letter written by them when forwarding the donation, which is an annual one, it is indicated that they are a business firm They write with great religious fervency, and announce their intention of devoting 25 per cent, of the profit* .they make in their business as a thankoffering for the prosperity vouchsafed tc them.

In order to secure the adequate consideration of Lord Roberta's proposals o£ universal military training for Home defence Mr Harold F. Wyatt, lately the envoy of the Navy League to the colonies, has undertaken to act as the special representative of the National Service Leaguo. He will, is that capacity, -address meetings in the principal centres of population in England and Scotland during the autumn and winter. A special appeal will be made to chambers of commerce and io municipalities to aid the movement aUrao- nitiated by the London Chamber of Ccm.i.cioa in support of Lord Roberts's rjroDosalsc