PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturdays D.dly Times.)

Whilst counting up our gains and losses in no-license and the political elections we have allowed things of meaner interest to gang their own gait unheeded. The affairs of mankind at large, — what are the} in comparison with New Zealand Prohibition and the polling in Dunedin North? We have been, some of us, particularly those of us who are strike-out-the-top-liners, in a condition of hypnotic trance with galvanic convulsions, dead to the world. As it is time to dissipate these slumbers, I take occasion to announce a few events of apparent importance that are transacting themselves elsewhere ; namely, that the House of Lords has thrown out the Licensing Bill ; that the British Ministry is pretty nearly on its last legs : that the German Emperor has been put under discipline and told to "shut his head"; that people still talk of war in the Balkans ; that Mr Taft is President of the United States and that Mr Bryan, his rival, has been mauled by a bear; that the limp and nerveless Emperor of China is defunct, likewise the termagant Dowager Empress, the only man of her house ; that they demitted about the same time, under the same cloud of night and veil of mystery, no court functionary daring to approach, "their persons being too sacred"; that a new Emperor has been discovered or invented under the name " Promulgator," and that to the Chinese mind this account of matters appears reasonable and satisfactory. Add that a New Zealander has carried off the Nobel prize, £8000, and another New Zealander a lawn tennis championship ; finally, that Queen Anne is dead and that the Dutch have taken Holland. I recite these things for the benefit of Rip Van Winkle half awake again, being myself such a chronicler of commonplaces as the melancholy Jaques met in the forest : And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clcck ' Thus may we see," quoth he, " how the world w ags : 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine ; And after one hour more -'twill be eleven ; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale." A tale that might hang thereby is the tale of the present-day attempts to arrest our riping and rotting — or at least to slacken the rate of it— by suggestion, by magnetic healing, by Christian Science, by "psychic force" — if anybody knows what that is; attempts banned by the doctors, but henceforth to be blessed by the Church. The Bishop of Christchurch, it is said, will license his clergy as practitioners in this attractive field. Doubtless there is a good deal in suggestion, and I have never denied it. Toll a man i that he is a liar, you quicken his heartbeat, with the chance of producing a jerky and dangerous action of his flexor I and extensor muscles. Flatter his I vanity, you promote digestion ; he may 1 ask you to have a drink. Persuade him that there was arsenic in his porridge, and he straightway feels a ghostly hand clutching at his diaphragm. Such facts as these are facts of every day. But I am unable to follow the writer of a ! letter in Friday's Daily Times, himself a mental healer, I gather, or, to use his own word and a delightful word it is — a " psychotherapist." Nearly all diseases, he says, including malignant diseases, "most readily give way to the inrush of the higher ptychic forces that are introduced and set in motion by the psychic healer." Thie jargon leaves me uncon- | vinced. I remember that Mrs Eddy, who by similar pretensions has made herself a dollar millionaire, is driven to poultice her boils, and for relief in toothache resorts to the dentist. At a recent public meeting in York, Miss Milner, i eifit-er 0! Sir Frederick Milner, reported

a typical Christian Science failure in the case of her brother ; — with which story the subject may, for this time, be dismissed.

A Christian Scientist lady undertook to cure Sir Frederick of his deafness. She took his hand and whispered in his ear : " I ani quite sure you are not deaf." — (Laughter.) As he did not hear it, she kept repeating it, raising her voice until she positively bellowed at him. — (Laughter.) Miss Milner regxetted to say that her brother .replied-:' "I -am' quite-* sure you're a fool '' — (laughter), — " only," -saia" Miss Milner, " I am afraid he used a -tronger word." — (Renewed laughter.)

" A young man, with wild eyes and wild white face," is Mr Victor Grayson, the Socialist member for Colne Valley, as he is seen from the Press Gallery, of 'the House of Commons. When meditating his fiery outburst on b-ehalf of -the unemployed, this is how. he is sketched by 'a* Westminster Gazette reporter :

A young man in a brown tweecC suit, nervously fumbling with a soft felt hat, sat at . the end of ' the bench where the Labour members congregate- below the gangway. With his pale face, mild blue eyes, and unkempt- hair he. suggested the picture of a young poet or visionary who had by some strange chance strayed into a busin-ess-like assembly. "His nervous^ ness was apparent, -and his isolation almost pitiful, for there was no one .to speak to him. Victor Grayson, the Socialist, cold-shouldered by the Labour members, looked at askance by Liberal and Conservative alike, may well have felt a thrill of trepidation at the thought of the speech which he had come down . • to make. The speech he had come down to make was a ' violent and stagey defiance of all Parliamentary rule and' order. " " He shouted insults at the Speaker, "the Ministers, the Conservatives opposite," the Labour members by his side; finally getting himself handed out <by the Serjeant-at-arms and suspended for the rest of the session. Mr Grayson, it is plain to see, is a neurotic; but it is- of such as he that revolutionaries are made. You recognise the type in Robespierre, and in almost every other dominating figure on the stage of the French Revolution. They were all sincere and demoniacally earnest ; they mouthed much of N "principles," always of principles, great principles — liberty, equality,' fraternity ; and with steady consistency they sent each other to the block, each in his turn. It is to be noted that *' traitors " i 6 Mr Grayson's word for his Labour colleagues in the- House. But there is no guillotine available; and, anyhow, Mr Grayson is not yet in power.

As an antidote to " Civis " on no-license, we have iv the correspondence columns "of- the Daily Times, this week as last, a " Sivic," which name is "Cms" read backward, as the Devil reads the Lord's Prayer. I accept the word "Sivic" as' a parable or allegory. Spite of himself the inventor and owner proclaims that he takes thing 6 the wrong 1 way about, that his logic is of an inverted kind, beginning at the conclusion and arguing back to the premises. Which is, no doubt, a lucid and entirely accurate account of the whole argument for no-lioense. The anagram "Sivic" pute the case admirably ; I accept it with gratitude. This detail disposed of, I pass to another. Sir, — " Civis " has contrived to touch the essential vice of no-license principles [he says] with the point of a needle, and apparently it hurts! How ar essential vice can be pained bj the point of a needl«, even a metaphorical one, is beyond my topsy-tu^ey philosophy. Very likely. You can't expect much of a philosophy that is topsy-turvey, and that claps to its eye the wrong end of, the telescope. But let me explain, and in a. spirit of love, 36 Mr Chadband says. It i* the needle that "hurts." not the vice. And the needle hurts that touche.s. the vice, because the vice is embodied in persons. You can't have a vice floating in the air. Investigate a vice with the point of a needle, or with the business end of an Irish shillelagh, and, a3 I 6aid, " ithurts." On which point there is no more to be said. But, in dismissing this " Sivic." let me be permitted a word of exhortation. He thinks that I drink whisky ; and I don't. He thinks that I voted " Continuance "; and I didn't. He thinks that I don't care for temperance; and I do. Dropping these upside-down misinterpretations of men and things, let him join hands with me and with others of my way of thinking, that together we may reform the drink traffic. " Oh, reform it altogether!" he will say, with Hamlet in the play. And on that word we break off, do we? It is a pity. But my side can afford to wait. This is not precisely the Devil's world, and to reason and moderation must all things come at last. On the subject of flogging in schools I promised last week some Eton stories. In this model democracy the opinion spreads that the little Liberal ought not to be cancel. School punishments are degrading, and \\ hat is more-— undemocratic. That is where Eton and similar hotbeds of aiistocracy are at a disadvantage. For generations past the sons of dukes and lords have submitted their least honourable parts to the birch without 6hame, and almost without regret ; certainly without any lasting resentment. Here, by an eye-witne. 1 -'?, is an account of the modus operand 1 : — In the Lower School floggings -were public. Several dozens of fellows clambered up on foraiß and desks to sea Neville corrected. Two fellows deputed to act as " holders down " stood behind the block, end one of them held a birch of quite alarming size which he handed to the Lower master as the latter stepped down from bis desk. I had pictured a rod as nothing more than a handful of twigs, but this thing was nearly five feet long, having three feet of handle and nearly two of bush. Neville was unbracing his nether garments; next moment, . when he knelt on the steps of the block, and when the Lower master inflicted upon his person six cuts that sounded like the splashing of so, many buckets of " ,

water, I turned almost faint. I felt >s I never felt but once since, and that waa when I saw a man hanged " It isn't any worse than being plumped down sitting, five or six times, over / clear fire," the initiated would tell a new boy, by way of encouragement. At lea*t this could be said of the system, that |t waa no respecter of persons.

On one occasion tlio Duchess of Jfontrose had been on a visit to Windsor Castle, and was going home on the day b*fee- the school was to break up for the Christmas holidays. Her sorr, -theMarquis of Graham, then in the Lower School, was allowed to join her. Whilst waiting for her on the, platform of the "railway station he amused himself by shooting marbles with a catapult. One of tb© Eton masters saw him and ordered him back to the school to be dogged. It never occurred to the Duchess that she ought to intercede. She would wait at the " White Hart," she said, till the operation was over. Accordingly Graham.' in charge of the master departed in a fly, and- in due course returned, tingling bvt relieved, to join his mother and to - commence his holidays. Incidents~of * this kind generated no bad blood." "Iftr Goodford once swished Sir "Frederick, Johnstone on the morning of a St. 'Andreses Day, ten minutes before the baronet .came to breakfast with him in his capacity as Scotch boy. Greeting hia guest with exquisit© bonhomie, he said, /'Well, Johnstone, here we are again.' " The exact nature of an Eton swishing may not be described, but ifc may be guessed ftom the dreadful story of a' boy" - who had been made to believe that "a decoction of fresh walnut juice would harden any part of the body to -which it was applied." Accordingly he applied it, and "next morning found to his dismay that he had stained himself, to a rich mahogany colour which would not wash off." At nine o'clock he appeared in the swishing-room, and being too shy to give the head master a hint of what had h»p r pened. knelt down without a word. Dr Goodford fairly recoiled. The- thing was explained, amidst Homeric' laughter, and the culprit got off. His feeling in later years, I fancy, was that he would have preferred it otherwise; and no word said. He sits in Parliament now. Dear " Civis," — That Chriatadelphian advertisement referred to in your columns on the subject of hell was, I think, surpassed by one I read some years ago: — "Hell, where is it? By whom will it be inhabited? AU cordially invited. Nf> collection." Anent hell, let me commend to your " and your readers' perusal Canon Farrer'si " Eternal Hope." If parsons wouKli . • preach less about hell and more about heaven, and meddle leas in mundane affairs, airing their views _on subjects ofi ' political controversy, Socialism, and .so forth, of which, -n this politician-riddeDj country nowadays, we get enough during; } Bis days of the week—" Ne sutor ultrn : crepidam," — they would have more influ- j ence in 'the direction of the spiritual wel- ! fare of- their lessening congregations. — An Old-fashioned New Zealand Native. For what it may be worth, I pa6S on this advice to whom it may concern, thinking if" advice little likely to be taken, and in practical value nil. Preachers who lapse into politics are preachers who have despaired of religion. Given the raw material of humanity for, working up into sober men and! good citizene, they hope nothing from Christianity, but hope everything - from voting at the polls and striking out the top line. This is a passing craze, and we must allow it time' for passing. "Cure there is none, least* of all by the method of advice. You, might as profitably advise against that sou-west wind, or address expostulation* to the California thistle. Concerning things that might be otherwise said, particularly things said in church, a second correspondent here chips in. Hymns are given out, he says, by t reading the first line, which first line,^ when only the fragment of a sentence, has: often a comic effect. "We plough the fields and scatter" — for example, where " scatter suggests, as an equivalent,, "skedaddle." The parson, if a dull 1 , man, may also read out, "Jesus lives no longer now," and " Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed." On thie other hand' there may have been a spice of' humour; in the parson who announced an anthem,:' by the words "Oh praise the Lord all ye heathen." So far my correspondents I add an experience of my own. It was at a church soiree, and the chairman was introducing a speaker. Said he, " That Rev. Mr M 'Maunder will now address us ; after which the choir will rendetf ' ' Sleepers wake. ' ' Civis. The English mail which was despatched from Dwnedin, via Suez, on October 21 reached London on the night of November 27. The result of the election, for the Tuapeka seat ia now officially announced. Mr Scotlf 6ecured 2478 votes and Mr Maophereon 1781, Mr Scott's majority being- 697 votes: The administrative block of the Fever Hospital at LaJce Logan has just been ex« tended by the provision of further aocommo* det/ion for the- nurses at the institution. This mcane the providing of five additional rooms, a second etorey having been placed on the nurses' house. The Otago Co-operative Fat and Tallow Company, whose works at Burnside were recently destroyed by fire, will shortly commence to rebuild, and it is hoped that the works will be running again early in the new year. * During the past month 78 oases of zymotic diseases were reported to the District Health Officer. The total was made up as followb : — Scarlet fever, "26 town ami 28 country ; enteric, 1 town and 1 country ; diphtheria, 4 town and 3 coinui> j tuberculocis\, 4 town and 11 counuy.

,Sb &* United States there are 30 towns ,q^ villages nfttnad Berlfn, 21 named Ham- | fram, & named Pans, *md 13 named | :^Bfr 'WiiJiiiam Harrey, who is about to refrom the he&dmastticiiip of All Sainta' Sohoolfl, Orioßewood, haa •oholwn in his Souool who «*« &o grandchildren of bis . i^fc pupils, '

Near the Caspian Sea. there are several "eternal fires," to called by the native?, whero natural gras issues from the ground, and has been alight for age,-. It Ls expected that the returns of the kauri gvun outp4.it foi- 1903 will 6how that in© production as well as the export for the past year baa been the smallest for manj rears past.