PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.) .The regrettable -indisposition of Mr Deakin could scarcely excite even the faintest surprise in the mind of anyone who followed the triumphant course of the colonial Premiers through their arduous and prolonged picnic. The only wonder — to plain men Hke myself — is that any of th*m survived to tell the tale! always excepting the discreet Sir Wilfred Laurier. The little question of who pays the bill for all this magnificent hospitality will prove interesting, though it scarcely sounds gracious to make inquiry. " Probably more than £6000," the ingenuous Winston Churchill thinks. Well, if that's all it cost, then one can only say it was cheap at the price — if the following chronicle of the proceedings of a single day by a happy participator in the " cakes and ale " may be taken ac a sample : — " I had the pleasure of accompanying three of the Premiers the other day to Edinburgh. We left at 10 o'clock in the morning from King's Cross. At precisely 10.30 there came along refreshment in the shape of pineapples, peaches, and grapes ; at 10.45 champagne and cigars made their appearance ; at 11 o'clock further tangible evidence of British hospitality in the form of chicken sandwiches, cakes, and more champagne ; and a light collation of plums and plovers' eggs and champagne, this time a different brand, occurred a quarter of an hour later. At 12.30 luncheon was heralded by olives, \ anchovies, vermouth, and sherry ; and still further and stronger portent of events i i that direction happened at 1 o'clock, when the waiters brought round hors d'oeuvres of sardines and caviare with cocktails a l'Americaine. Luncheon lasted from 1.30 to 3.45, and after a slight interval of seven or eight minutss preliminary tea was served, a substantial meal not making its advent until 4.30. None of the Premiers appeared daunted. If these were British traditions, not a statesman from overseas shrank from upholding them. At last a slight unpretentious observation escaped the lips of the New Zealand Premier. He wanted to say that he was full of admiration at the hospitality of the Mother Country. But he got no further than ' I am full,' and the waiters came along with champagne." In any case the sorely-tried Winston, in his "heated" , allusion to the subject, relieved the guests J of the Government, or the nation, of all obligations -. on the Shakespearian maxim of reproach for benefits conferred, etc. There is really nothing like the contemplation of other people's miseries to give a fillip to our own blessings. This praiseworthy spirit has marked much of my reading of recent developments in the musical world overseas. Last Christmas one read of the tired residents of certain English towns being roused from their | midnight slumbers by the sound of huge" gramophones reeling forth Christmas carols in the streets. If any sentiment of bygone years and primitive village waits could j possibly have struggled into being, it was crushed by the strident tones of the gramophone shouting out before each item the i name and particulars of the firm respon- ' sible for it. That was an occasion — coming in the very heyday of our wn street gramophone nuisance — for a deep thankful- ■ ness that in this aspect of modern music ! we were slightly behind the times. Since ' then another arid even worse horror looms upon the horizon of possibilities. In an address on "Vocal Culture," delivered to the Incorporated Society of Musicians ;n; n London, hx Cunuuings advocated "huojo

facial expression— <the free play of the cheeks, the eyes, the mouth, and the Idwer jaw." It is impossible to contemplate with calmness this new and terrible development on the part of " the amateur tenor whose vocal villainies all desire to sfhirk." And when the learned, doctor suggests that it is " a good thing to 6ing with a walking-stick passed under the aims at the back," ong^^Bg^.^cresiottbtj^, wmrc' mental pictures o^'^Be s^outl baist on© .^or bass, chest well inflated, "walking-fetick -in position — reminiscent of the trussed fowl. A pleasant exposition of the charm of modern music, and one which, if imitated, would lend a grace and dignity immeasurable to the art that Lowell describes as " One of his great charities," is the picture of the Lord Chief Justice of England singing in his chorister's stall at St. Mary Abbott'6. Church-going is said to be in a parlous state ; would the elderly man find it more easy to go to church if he went to sing? Everyone cannot carry round the plate, and since congregational singing. is rapidly becoming rare enough to render a modest man chary of indulging himself within tihe limits of his own pew, the average man is apt to feel himself an almost unnecessary* detail. Why should not the old boys, frosty-headed, but mellow of voice and dignified of mien, resume the seats in their church choir which they vacatsd long ago? The impromptu " bier-gartens" at Waikiwi, described by Inspector Mitchell in his report on the no-license district of Invercargill as having been inaugurated by the local inhabitants, are not attractive. The requisites are simplicity itself: it is th» "simple life" expression of a carousal with a vengeance A bit of vacant ground, a keg or so of beer, and a number of more or less beer^logged young men, and you have the position. At any rate, there is nothing to divert attention from the matter ia hand — the consumption of as much beer as possible. No seductive barmaid, no creature comforfs or luxuries to enhance the primitive man's joy in getting drunk. It, is the ugly truth stripped bare. Waikiwi, representing the most up-to-date legislation, is on all fours with a certain lately-discovered district in Central Africa., and the Southland young man and his beer keg may claim brotherhood with, a tribe of natives who have attained the only fame they ever knew by the fine abandon of their al fresco carousals. These people were first encountered by Commandant Moll, while he was engaged on a delimitation expedition, and they inhabit a region known as Laca. They live as far as possible in a constant state of intoxication. As they depend on their own brewing, one may safely assume that their sober periods are the intervals between, the "heeltap" of the old brew and the fermentation' of the new. Like our Waikiwi roysterers, too, they are beer drinkers, brewing their liquor from a kind of millet. Arriving at a Laca village during the progress of a mellifluous " drunk," with the " beer flowing in rivers," Lieutenant George and bis tirailleurs were cordially invited to join the festivities: drink, dance, or fight — all the ingredients of an Irish fair, except the coat-tails to be trodden on! Fortunately, the refusal of the white men was accepted without offence, and the chief, just to 6how there was no ill-will, generously determined that sooner than let the affair drag at all they would amuse the strangers by fighting themselves. This they proceeded to do, "and so effectively that "in less than a quarter of an hour twenty of the villagers were killed, among the first to fall being the chief himself!". As a striking example of the truth of " when wine's in wit's out " Commandant Moll states that wEen drunk the Laca are incorrigible thieves, but when sober tbey punctiliously Teturn with some ceremony the goods they have stolen. This i virtuous restitution must lend quite- a j moral interest to the 6ober intervals of life in Laca. A correspondent ingratiatingly signing himself " Expectant " requests my sympathy and advice on a very delicate matter. One, too (as he justly observes), of general interest — for no doubt we all have our milkman, and bills; no doubt, also, accidents happen in even "the best regulated families." I shall therefore coneider my friend's complaint in detail. Mrs B. *is the fortunate possessor of a cow, or perhaps two; and though they very considerately supply her with more of what my friend delicately describes as " lacteal fluid " than the excellent lady requires, yet with admirable restraint she abstains from selling it. Mrs J. — some •way down the alphabet, you observe — has no cow : she buys her milk " regularly from a licensed milkman." So far so good. One day — unfortunately, too, it was a Sunday, and no shops open — Mrs J. upset the day's supply of milk, and had recourse to the fortunate Mrs B. " And that kind lady," says my veracious chronicler, "very obligingly consented to relieve the stress by giving Mrs J. some milk.' 1 Now comes the crisis. Generosity such as Mrs B.s refuses to be hidden; these good deeds naturally are noised abroad : with the result that a gentleman of the licensed milkman profession waited on the erring Mrs B. and brought her sins home to her by the information that she had laid herself open to a fine of £5 ! I certainly sympathise with Mrs Brown, yet find in her extraordinary case an instance of what may daily and hourly befall us when the unions of everything and everybody are complete, and " what is yours is mine, and what is mine is my own," becomes the unwritten law. Mrs Brown, Mrs Jones, the milkman, and the milk, after all, are but a neat exposition of socialistic principles. You must not give away anything that I have to sell, for fear you spoil my market. One thing appears pretty certain : whatever " lacteal fluid " the licensed gentleman dealt in, it was not the milk of human kindness — not even the now famous "humanised milk" of our newest philanthropic society. As to ad vies? Well, I should cay that thia is a case where the

friends of tlie ladies B. and J. might t*y the boycott on that licensed milkman with immense relief to their own feelings. He appears to need some such gentle moral suasion quite as much as the inoffensive Chinese gardener, against whom the menace of the "White Race League" direc{sliteelf^~\^^ Yet,. another' 'correspondent —and thie time'a woman —asks my help in the matte* joY UTtoo .ponderous jname. She professes herself an supporter of the S.P/H.WtG.,: but complains that life is far too short for- tibe ~us<& of all this title, and that the general public will take a long time \o become familiar with the true i inwardness of these cabalistic letters. - I take it eke is herself something of st "hustler," for she expresses herself - in virile language, witlh. a "J" pen, as follows : Por Heaven's sake- get our society for looking after the health of the women and kiddies re-christened. No one uses the name: they call it Dr King's Society, but - outside-Otago that would convey nothing. W.C.T.U. and S.P.C.K. were bad enough: by the time wb can reel off S.P.H.W.C. as glibly women will be able to take care of themselves and their kiddies, and we shall be - taking' up the neglected, merrj. %nd" ihe incurably, aged. I enclose a cutting from an English paper: it suggests a name, short find bandy. Don't know the word myself, but it seema just the thing. ""Eugenics Society" is brief arid businesslike; don't you think so? Thanks - awfully. "A 'Eugenics Record Office' has been established in connection with ♦he University of London. 'Eugenics* is the study of those agencies under social control thai may improve the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or morally." There is still a word to be said on names and their choosing —a word indigenous to the soil. Maori nomenclature has always been in the nature of an embodied ideograph, as their place-names abundantly testify. The modern application of an areienfc custom, however, produces most unexpected results. 'Thus I learn from a recent number of the Maori Record that a Maori gentleman, of the Hawke's Bay district, who kept pace with the fashion of the times by undergoing an operation for appendicitis, commemorated the important event by haying his. infant son. christened " Operaitione," a musical rendering of the dismal word operation. Again, in another, the exciting episode of a serious illness, in which it had been necessary to send " a wire" for the doctor, resulted in the next born child being named " Nga Waea" (the wire). Mcsb curious of all, perhaps, is the instance of mistaken vSnity by which a Maori who had undergone two years." hard labour" as his share of one of the Native troubles of, '96, immortalised his patriotism. A) son being born to him not long afterward© received the extraordinary name of " Harf Rewa," a euphbnistic rendering. of hamlabour.' More picturesque this than the loyalty which induced "the mother of twins born in an-English village to christen, them respectively "Charles Denmark" an 3 "Maude JJorway"; or the farmer ,w=ho named his" sons in the order of ithe" English peerage, beginning with. Duke and ending with Baron. .•'The Sunday Lay Movement," as it is termed, is running with great briskness and enthusiasm at Home. One of its developments marks a striking difference between the English journalist and his colonial brother. The journalists have, so to speak, struck on sermon reporting, an* claim their rights as fellow men to one day's rest in the week. It is bad enough to hear sermons —worse to report them, — and the Devon and Cornwall journalists who have rebelled may. be pretty sure of the sympathy of everyone —except the parsons. Apropos of the new step the story" is told of a certain bishop who, having "proved so obliging and delivered up hie MSS.," had occasion to recall the reporter eaying that he wished to cut out some of the matter, as he had not preached it all, when he was met with the assertion from the journalist, who had already put the "copy" in hand, "But you have not cut out half as much as I'have, my Lord!" It is not so much the religious aspect of Sunday that is making itself felt as the growing conviction that a great national 1 necessity exists, for the observance of one day of rest for all classes. Already the Great Central Railway has issued orders "that all goods trains are to be stopped 1 after 6 a.m. on Sundays at the nearest convenient station, and are not to continue running until 2 p.m., whilst the directors of the Furness Railway have decided to discontinue Sunday excursions and the sailing of steamers on Lake Windermere." I have my little doubts about this latter benefaction, and think it highly probable that the Lake Windermere excursionist has already been showing a disposition to take his day's rest at home. The position recalls that historic Good Friday on which Mayor Lawrence "put his foot down" and ran the city trams for a graceless public who mostly stayed at home. Sundays, churches, and clergy —a list of ingredients irresistibly terminating in a little clerical! story. At a village church a wedding was fixed for a certain date. The happy morn, arrived, and in due course a youthful swain, and fair lady presented themselves at the chancel steps. The service proceeded smoothly as far as the question, "Wilt thorn have this woman to thy wedded wifoY"Whereupon the supposed bridegroom stammered blushingly, "Please, sir, I'm not the right man." "Not the right man!" exclaimed the clergyman aghast. "Thea where is the right man?" "He's down at! ( the bottom of the church, sir. He's' asheeamed to come up." Cms.

The eecretary of the Shipwreck Relief Society of New Zealand (Mr E. D. Grace) wishes to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of a cheque for £11 9s lOd, being the amounts collected on various steamships of the U.S.S. Company trading to New Zealand. Also a cheque for £10 10s as a donation 1o the funds of the. socictj from tie Bluff Harbour Board.