PASSING NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 2818, 18 March 1908, Page 5

PASSING NOTES

(From Saturdays D.iily Times.) Commercially and conversationally, interest has centred in the Blackball affair. In the whole business nothing has struck me as so ludicrously perverse as the petulant claim of the secretary of the union for the right to be imprisoned. "If," he says, "we break any other law we are given the alternative of going to prison, and we want to know why this law is an exception ?" Now. beside this pathetic plea it is interesting to set the viewpoint of the militant slaughtermen last year, when imprisonment was offered them as an alternative to fines. If my memory serves me rightly, there was a loud outcry against the iniquity of imprisoning men whose only crime was the refusal to sell their labour too cheaply. Use is second nature, and it may be that miners are, in virtue of that second nature, inclined to prefer imprisonment to " having confiscated the last coin we possess." A' mere figure of speech this last — chosen for dramatic purposes, like parliamentary abuse, — since I note that the various unions unanimously declared that their intention to stand by the brotherly " what's mine is thine." But I strongly suspect that the eye for dramatic effect does not end with "the last coin we possess" phraso. To make oneself a martyr is often to cave the situation so far as public sympathy is concerned, and the secretary of the •union may realise as keenly as the English suffragettes that to play the martyr is an effective advertisement. One recalls the M;ory of a certain staunch Nonconformist in England who found that as he had no property neither had he any rates of which to refuse payment, and consequently no chance of being imprisoned. To remedy such a disastrous possibility he forthwith bought a property, refused to pay the education rate in almost the same breath, and jn due course achieved the pleasures of martyrdom through the somewhat primrose path of imprisonment. In any case, I fancy that the worthy secretary is being a bit premature in his gii-evance. Has that bill by which the Minister of Labour proposed to obviate imprisonment as an alternative become law yet? I rather doubt it. Only a »ve*k or two ago I hailed with delight the promise of an awakening sense of humour in the Auckland Trades and Labour Council. Perhaps 1 was too hasty ; it might have been second-hand humour after all ! The instance in question was the council's child-like request that the Prime Minister should regulate the export of meat and butter so that local demands should be supplied at a fair price. I see by an Australian paper j that the New South Wales Political Labour Conference made the same brilliant proposal — a proposal which was ' combated by exactly the same argument which I advanced against our own arcadian would-be reformens — namely, that j our annual little bill for foreign interest could only be paid for in meat and j such exports. If, however, it is any consolation to Its members to know it, the New Zealand Political Labour party can always feel pretty sure of finding any of their "howlers" capped with a, worse one from Australia. \Vitness the delicious piece de resistance promulgated in Australia lately to the effect that the British Government be asked to arrange with the other Powers that Australia be . treated as neutral territory, and that all ; questions affecting it be settled between the Powers by means of arbitration, j Could anything be cheaper or simpler? j All conscription, volunteering, and the expense of a national system of defence avoided by this simple jewel of proposed legislation. The first foreign fleet — and latest cablegrams seem to promise that it won't be a German fleet — that reaches the shores of Australia on mischief bent may find a notice board of national proportions to this effect :—" NOTICE. —AH questions affecting the international rela- j

' tions of the Commonwealth must be dealt with by ARBITRATION. Apply to John Bull, England " — a modern version, practical as all modern renderings are, of the philosophy of the lotus-eaters — Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil ? Is theTe any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? The irresponsible schemes which the Labour party proposes for solving such ' and similar questions are apt to retard its , influence, and arm its opponents with that keenest and most effectual of all weapons — ridicule. If Chinese petitions are as elaborate and detailed as most other Chinese productions, then King Edward has the prospect of a league or so of Chinese eloquence before him. Our own Mongolian i 6 petitioning against his disabilities I see, and a comparison between his 'arguments and those advanced by the Chinese Transvaal Association would be interesting. The petition presented to the King, by the Chinese Ambassador, on behalf of the Chinese on the Rand, points out, imprimis, that by the Registration Act the Chinese in the Transvaal are placed in the same position as British subjects coming from India, and ■proceeds — " While it may be proper for the British Government to treat its Indian subjects as it pleases . . eubjects of the Chinese Empire should not bo I treated in a manner so derogatoiy to the ! dignity of the Empire . . . especially as the subjects of Great Britain receive the moet-favoured-nation treatment in China." This is a point of view far too simple to have struck the Yellow Peril party of j politicians. It almost seems as if Mr Booley's pathetic foreboding that "Be hivens! it won't be long till we'll have to be threatin' the Chinese dacent" would be realised — a point of decadence as disgusting to the young American as to th« young colonial. The compilation of the petition from the Dominion Chinese to his Majesty I look upon as a veritable triumph of diplomatic art, full of the inscrutable innocence of that " smile that was child -like and bland." With suave, Eastern courtesy the petitioners "acknowledge and appreciate the many blessings afforded them by living under the British flag," etc., but in the letter addressed to the Chinese Ambassador they make it pretty apparent that these same blessings are by no means undiluted. While gently disclaiming lesser issues, these Celestial petitioners contrive to make it amply apparent that not only is the Government dead against them and their very existence in this favoured land, but they specify that unkindest cut of all, the market-gardening "episode, as a clincher. The Attorney- , general's oracular pronouncement that | "East is East, and West is West, and we i don't want the East," i 6 quoted, but without malice, you , understand, " merely to show to what extremes the Government is prepared to go." All very neatly and effectively put, and presenting more delicate problems for the Colonial Office — and his Excellency Li Chung Feng. j As a novel, Maarten Maartens's last book, " The New Religion," is distinctly disagreeable. So was "The Jungle," yet few people will deny that the latter justified its existence very fully. And though the true inwardness of the book, the very core of moral misery and brutality which it sought to reveal, passed by almost unheeded in the terror and nausea of the meat-packing revelations, " The Jungle " at least effected the material reforms it aimed at. What "The New Religion" will accomplish — if anything — remains to be seen, but I take it that no intelligent man , or woman can glance through the p< r ti,es , of the magazines, however cursorily, with- ' out the conviction that the cult of the | body grows apace. To put the thing plainly, there never was a time when the restless vanity of both sexes had bred a bolder, more shameless crew of parasites and purveyors than the endless ; quacks who make a more or less comfort- [ able living by ministering to the modern | cult of the body. Nature may go to, and hide her diminished head ; she merely sup- ! plies the raw material for the art of the beauty specialist and the professor of physical culture. All that you are not, you can be ; all that you have not, you can have ; — so say these worthies, by paying for it. It needs a Zola to tear to tatters the specious representations of those purveyors of physical perfection who " make a fool of the Bible." as I heard an old farmer epitomise the advertisers of nostrums to grow hair on bald heads, kill it on pretty faces, make fat people thin and thin people fat. and generally disguise the somewhat indifferent job that Nature has made of most of us. The new religion is the cult of the body, and it is a cult to which eminent physicians are not above making such concessions as meet the needs of the decadent, for we find a prominent London physician prescribing " temper powders" — preparations of bromides to soothe the disturbance caused by fits of worry or annoyance. When some brother philanthropist "shall compose the "joy tabloid," we shall begin to feel independent of home-grown emotions. Nothing short of lifting the cult of the body to the status of a science could cieate a situation in which London may claim to pose — even in advertisements — as a "Health Resort." A Sandow health resort, be it noted, where our erstwhile guide, philosopher, and fiiend in the cult of the body — he whose gospel is still practised with faith and fervour among us, enabling elderly buffers to show the younger sons " a thing or two " — has pitched hie final tent, " a curative institute" for such a varied number of ills that the list almost smacks of quackery ; yet it is no doubt perfectly honest, is this temple of health. It is described as distinguished by " a pervading note of luxury," with " lichly-decorated reception rooms," a " dominating colour scheme," and all the paraphernalia for rendering the cult of the body as fascinating as it is beneficial.. Xn fact, the Sindow tasti-

tute is an embodied text all ready to th.3 hand of the pessimistic preacher crying "Woe, woe!" as he draws .his analogies between the luxury of modern London and ancient Rome. Nor 16 the never-failing draw of the personal element lacking. The Reception Halt par excellence offers a pleasing tribute to the domesticities in the shape of a magnificent full-length portrait of Mrs Sandow. London is without doubt the very place for such un institute, so extensive and so well equipped that 2000 attendances per week can be accomplished —and that with, owing to the privacy afforded by the curtained cubicles, the dignified seclusion so dear ti, the heart of the Briton. And, by the way, how that same British modesty will " glow responsive" to the amended regulations for bathing gear in the Commonwealth, where, like the Pharisees of old, they have been enlarging their phylacteries L To return, however, to the Sandow Institute: If palms, and yataghans, and South Sea Island trophies may make amends for the attractions of Carlsbad, or any other " bad," then these accessories are not wanting, neither is any known (and many hitherto unknown) variety of bath. Over all reigns the pleasant personality whose biceps we are accustomed to admire in high relief and liberal undress, now clothed and very much in the right mind for the science of money-making —per physical culture. After all, this is an attractive form of the cult of the body, and if the incorrigible pessimist, who is perhaps as needful to our moral discipline as the pea in the pilgrim's shoon and the hair-ehirt of the penitent, objects that it is for the wrong sort of people,—well, there are worse gospels than the gospel of Sandow. The problemette touching the theatre ticket, the pawnbroker, and impecunious Jones evoked very little interest. Possibly the situation was too wild a flight of fancy in 6uch a prosperous community as ours. Here is the sole solution of the question, and the original propounder oJ the problem will be like to embrace G. C. B. —figuratively —as his saviour from that cruellest fate of all—oblivion. Jones pawned a piece of silver plate worth one shilling, getting an advance of lOd upon it; he then sold the pawn ticket to Brown for Bd. Brown, to redeem the piece of plate, has to pay the pawnbroker lOd, making eighteenpence he pays out altogether. He receives tho piece of plate from the pawnbroker, and ie just sixpence to the bad. Who made this sixpence? Jones did, having received lOd and 8d for his shilling.—G. C. B. "O. C. B. ig a man with a sense of humour. Ifc was he who sent me last week the following paragraph with the simple legend attached —"Our Babies." It is a clipping from the letter of one Jacob, a native teacher in New Britain, written to his old 1 pastor in Fiji, describing the trials of the infant New Britisher, who evidently is sorely in need of a society for hie pi- o» tection: — As soon as it is born the child i* smoked over the fire, juefc like we smoke fish; then taken to the sea and washed; after it is washed it is taken to the beach, and it 6 head and. forehead painted with wet lime; and then it is taken back to the village to be fed. A feast is made in the village according: to their custom, and there is prepared a baked taro and some coeoanut milk. Some of the baked taro ie chewed, and the child's mouth is rammed full of it. until it cries. Its cry ie like the squeak of a rat, because its mouth is so full of chewed taro that the cry cannot get out. After a little while the taro is taken but of the child's mouth, and it gete a drank from the coeoanut. Candidly, though, I have my doubts oi Jacob. There was a difficulty about a cow and Jacob, and the cow came off much, the worse, inasmuch as the worthy Jacob's discipline for disobedience resulted in the cow's losing a horn one day and having a leg broken another day. Being dismissed from the mission after this episode, Jacob next turns up in the position of teacher in a distant group, writing virtuous letters to his old pastor. Yet a third correspondent draws my attention to the case in which the German insurance agent was fined for kicking downstairs a canvasser who could not understand his instructions —a process of reasoning which may be called the "a posteriori process." Whether or not the victim of the assault made on the transaction remains doubtful, details being meagre. At anyiate, he got half the fine —£s—as5 —as what boys call shinplaster ; but then how many kicks did that cover? My correspondent thinks w« 1 have a use for such strenuous methods: Would it not be a good idea to import a few Germans of this type? We might then be able to keep alongside Germany in matters of business. —Yours, etc. —Country Bumpkin. For me the cream of the joke Beemed to lie in the fact that the society the assailant represented was the Widows' Fund! Cnrcs