PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.) This life is a hollow bubble, Don't you know ? Just a painted piece of twouble, Don't you know? We come to earth to cwy. We gwow oldeh and we sigh, Oldeh still and then we die, Don't you know? is the burden of a song which Crvrs, jun., and some choice spirits have been gaily 'trolling forth in an adjoining room for their own pleasure, and my information. This is presumably the latest" version of the mighty Eastern King's "AM is vanity " : the sentiment expressed in the quaint epitaph — Life's like an inn, where travellers stey a And he who stays the longest has the most to pay. The perennial question of whether we could not live longer if we tried, and if it's worth while trycng, is one of those themes which apparently — like gooseberries; — have their season : like that of 1 the homely fruit in question, it is a short one ; like the gooseberry, also, it ripens anew each year, leaving us no " forrader." In most cases it maye safely be assumed that the people whose years of existence, prolonged to a hundred or so, provoke all n this speculation, did not in the least want to •perform such a questionable feat, but having accomplished what is possibly the only , notable achievement of their lives^ pretend j that they meant to- do it all along ! There is no getting away firom the fact that once past middle age we have no alternative but the somewhat arbitrary one of old age or death. The question then is, when do we pass middle «ge? Among moderns, Sir James Creighton Brown considers that man's mental capacity is at its best and most brilliant in the decade between forty -five and fifty-five. At this age, of course, men like Daorwin, Gladstone, Carlyle, Herbert Spencer, and Disraeli, were, in the light- of their ultimate age, mere youths. But why count men — giants — like this at all? It is for the commonplace, everyday men that some famous French doctors are engaged on a very remarkable line of investigations. One of these scientists, Professor d'Arsonval, pins his faith largely to electricity as an arresting force in those processes by which so many human beings don't know they/ are dying till they're dead. And, by the way, was it not Rochefoucauld who said that "Most men die merely because they cannot help it." Having constructed alternating electrical machines of tremendous voltage power, the enthusiastic professor is able to bathe his' patients in a torrent of electricity, saturate them without discomfort with a force sufficient to cause the sparks to fly from their bodies under his touch with very much the same effect as accompanies the blacksmith's lusty strokes upon his anvil. Still more absorbing to those who cherish ambitions towards the mellowness of modern Methuselahs, are the researches of Dr Weichardt, a German scientist. Dr Weichardt's speciality is " the serum of fatigue," and its preparation is a liberal education in modern scientific methods, recalling the gruesome history of "The Browai Dog of Battersea" — of which more anon. In" his waistcoat pocket the man of the moment may carry the small bottle or tube, the proper administration of whose contends means an instant cure for fatigue, without (here's to the prohibitionist !) any assistance from alcohol. And while I think of it, here is an amusing specimen of an advertisement of the kind of liquor which would surely come under the head of " medical comforts " — mixed ! The advertiser having made an advantageous purchase, offers for sale, on very low^terms, about six dozen of prime j port-wine, late the property of a gentle- i man 40 years of age, full in body and - j with high bouquet. Returning, however, to the German scientist's elixir of energy, this is how, it is described^ and A -without .t>eipg unduly

squeamish, I confess, the remedy seems to me too gruesome to become that hackneyed thing, popular. It is extracted from the blood and tissue of other animals bled to death after first being \subjected to great fatigue, the muscular ■■ tissues bejjig acted -'ixjjon very high temperature. TluTresulting extract is injected ixrto other animaljs, also - in-3i state of fatigue, and from, the blood of these irioculated -animals ia> obtained the serum which i 3 supposed to destroy the toxins resulting from fatigue. That the point of view vtfries, however, is shown by the concluding remark of the writer of the article. These tales of researches and of claims ■will 'make ple"aaant fancies for optimists at the beginning of a winter season. The Druce-Portland oase, in its extraordinary complications, and the fine flow of imagination which has marked many of the witnesses as nothing short of unedited " shilling shockers," powerfully recalls the Tichborne trial. No such brilliant passages' of wit and repartee, however, no such sledge-hammering of witnesses as those with which Mr Henry Hawkins, Q.C;, and Dr Kenealy- beguiled the Tichborne trial have yet reached us. Still, our "Miss Eobihson appears to have held her own with the'best of the giddy, romancers. The testimony of the dead man was a dramatic finale, as overwhelming as it was disastrous, not only to the vDruce claimants but to the enterprising shareholders in the company formed to finance their claims. Had that coffin contained lead, instead of. poor humanity ' considerably the worse for wear, each £1 v share stood to win a £100 "bonus," so that every shareholder regretfully -finds himself (but I expect most of the shares are held by poor gentlewomen) exactly £181 per share richer in experience 1 A curious secondary interest had just crept into the DrucePortland case from the connection suggested between the double life of the Duke of Portland, as portrayed by the ingenuous witnesses of truth, and the plot of Dickens's unfinished novel " Edwin Drood." Presumably the collapse of the", Druce-Portland fictions will extinguish a controversy which promised to .expand into a pleasing and cultured correspondence. Personally the thing seemed cresting enough to justify me in buying a remarkably attractive copy of "Edwin Drood," and it was while committing' this indiscretion — and, by the way, is it not the indiscretions of our friends which make us able to 'endure their virtues? — that I came across a treasure — nothing less than that classic beloved of our youth, "The Ingoldsby Legends," illustrated by , Arthur - Rackham : a -thing to make a note of. Nod was that 'all; Hans Breitmann, iis "Barty" (that immortal Barfcy), his " Phlosopede " his Election were reposing before me "neglected and unsung," tn sixpenny and shilling guise. It is only a little tune," as years go, since Kipling set forth, much to the satis- . faction of the British public, that — Two things greater than, all "things mrO, One is Love and the other War. We have, however, changed all that so completely that the lines -which then ap- v pealed so agreeably to "the, old Adam" in the respectable B.P. might have been written a hundred years ago. -To-day, also, we Jiave only time for two things, but they read Socialism and the- problem of the Eastr— these are the great arteries on which life itself depends : lesser things are mere veins to feed their vast vital force. Socialism is going the way of all movements bent on being popular — going the way of the church that sprang from the world's truest Socialist — and splitting up into innumerable blends to cater for innumerable tastes. One is tempted to adapt Rochefoucauld's definition of love, and say " There is only one sort of Socialism, but there are a thousand copies of it." There is 'Socialism to suit all tastes, and the vendors are prepared to suit our little fads as carefully as the family grocer chooses our cheese: "mild," "strong,' 1 or "lively." There is the blood-and-thunder section who "do their murdering out of sheer philanthropy* " as Tame said of the Jacobins ; ' there is the purely business section whose chief anxiety is to get, with as little delay as may be, to the Socialist redistribution of property on the eminently simple plan of taking away from those that have and giving to those that have not. And again, there is the ethical (or, if you prefer it, spiritual) section, and its members turn up in most unexpected places. Some of these last find all the churches, as they also find all the conventions, too " immoral "^J or them, for they not only love their HMghbour with . gusto, but also their neighbour's wife and daughter, and are by way of sharing these possessions with him in the friendliest manner possible. Others are still in the ranks of what we may call " the moderates," and for them the large liberties of the New Theology offer — at present — sufficient freedom. Meantime it is abundantly clear that though there is only one true Socialism, there are " a thousand different copies of it." M. Clemenceau, speaking the other day at Amiens, describes the Socialists as " Merchants of absolute happiness, who had nothing but illusions for sale, and dealt in Utopian nonsense instead^ of common sense." As to "Utopian," I don't know so much about that, because Utopia provides for the ideal happiness of all classes of the public, and this the Socialist never pretends- to do, any more than the labour agitator recognises anyone as a worker but himself.. There is one Little Bethel of Socialism which insists on the abolition at the earliest possible moment of "the great ' English middle classes." Well, if this ■is so,- and you and I, and all our peaceable, paper-read-ing, church-going, monthly-account-pay-ing connection are to be done away with, why, the' sooner v somebody gets tp war and all this febttled-up destructiveness

which finds its vent in Socialistic humours is given a wholesome outlet, the better ! Personally, I prefer to look upon the Socialist as a well-meaning if somewhat mistaken person. "As, for instance, when H. : G. "Wells' declares : The ideafl *of^ .the private individual rights of the parent, and of his responsibility for his children', «.re harmfully exaggerated in -the contemporary world. . .■ . . Parentage -is altogether tool - much a matter of. private adventure, and the individual family is altogether too irresponsible. Yet how old it all is ! Even Wells him* self, who may be almost take^i as oust modern Plato, does not outdo his master': take the' latest translation of Plato's description of the Democratic State as a proof : ' In this city there is no inecessity to rule, even if- you are capable of ruling, or "to be ruled if you don't want to, or to be il -war because the . rest of th# -.., city is, or when the* rest of th« city, ,„ is at peace, to- observe peace if - you doa't wish to ; if therei is a law "forbidding you to be a magistrate ox a' judge, that is no reason why you should not be ' both magistrate . and judge ,it you have ,a mind, to. . .Is it not sublime how this, » city tramples all such! things- underfoot, and is supremely indifferent as to what life a mari-.has.led before he enters politics? If only he asserts his *zeal for the multitude, it is rejady to honour him. v As> a sequel to the topic in hand thj" following instance of unconscious cynicism is rather apropos : , Sundfey School Teacher: "Why must we always be kind to the ptfor, Ethel?" Ethel (slightly mixed) : " Because among the sundry and manifold changes of this wicked wojrld we don't know how - soon they may become rich."

" Out of a full heart the moutK speaketh," and that is the vital impression which a man must give if his utterances are to be elective. It is the impression which Keir Hardie^ gives, and whether one is in agreement with the man or not, the impression makes itself felt that he is . in ' deadly earnest. Socialism is, he is convinced, the universal panacea for a world sick unto death' of unsolved problems, and if in the exer* cisc of a sound (one might almost say, "pawky") discretion. Jhis party prefers to label their Socialistic picnic a Labour picnic, why — all's fair in love and ,war. I I don't complain of any disillusionment us the terms, though it was perhaps as well to elicit iW'franK ayo-tfal thq,t " Labour; .movement" and "Socialism" are practically one 1 and the same' thing." It waaon quite another matter that I found, thef Labour.rcum-Socialist-le,ader disappointing.-. After the profession of large magnanimity, with which ,Mr Keir Hardie, opened his (quite unnecessary) remarks on the--absence of the Mayor, -it "was a poor; exhibition of hurt vanity^ to hear hxm notf only adding "to the feeling of affront already referred to by his chairman, iufc actually in so many words suggesting the Vendetta, he handed over to the, Labour party— " Elect a Labour .Mayor. OstensibFy Mr Hardie was. there to show us his convictions-^incid^tally he showed us a much more intimate thing : himself.. l" W d«t one of the little -^e^rsea effects by 'which, sometimes a. man becomes his own ■severest critic for it proved the truth of the contention -.that wC all .the fine theories of the rights of -Socialism- and the wrongs of Labour are brushed "away there remamsjhe same vendetta between them expressly sanctioned by this very Q pleasant, , and very human, Labour-cum-Socialist leader l&e incident is the merest straw, but it is a straw which shows the set of the current If this is any key to the Socialism which is founded (as we were assured last night) on the Sermon on the Mount, .and had for its noblest exponent the magnanimous figure 'of Jesus of Nazareth, then we are being offered a* cheap a substitute, as ever was launched npon P the market to defraud the carelesf bu y er - Htvts.

At the sitting of the v Conciliation, Board in. Geraldine on' the 7th .something of a °°«*f c " was thrown into the camp when Mr Thorn, as representing the Labourers' Union, gave an interpretation of one of the more ambiguous clauses in the demands of the union. This was in regard to the wages to be paid during harvest time, and Mr Thorn said that what the union asked for was that all farm and station hands, whether there was any grain cut on their places or not, should' be paid a minimum, wage of £2 15s per week during the months of January and Eebruary in^eacli year. Mr Acland said this meant that .a. cowboy on a sheep station, say at Mount Cook, woul«J have to be paid £2 15s a week for eight weeks of every year.

Twenty young men have been engaged during the last few months, under the auspices of the New York Department of Agriculture, in drinking chocolate cream sodas and acid' phosphates. They fornt the latest squad" of Dar Harvey "Wiley, head of the chemistry experimental bureau, who wishes to prove that he is correct in attributing the gastric troubles of the average American to ,tbe £oda> water fountain habit. Dr Wiley has oornfl? to the conclusion that the present experi< ments are^the most unpopular 'he has yet, attempted. He had no difficulty in per< suading 50 sociological enthusiasts to-drin^ salicylic acid V* demonstrate to tKe world, that this rmivJh-used- preservative ie .a poison, and another " squad "engaged ta driak^ alcohol fc*r the same purpose under* went the tests -.with the greatest enthusiasm. The" present " njuad," however, . descx-ib< sodawater .drinking ac "the limit," and tfireaten to »m>lfc. ■