PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2857, 16 December 1908, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

I The Otago Philosophical Institute enjoys a reputation for decent dulness of many years' standing. Only once within my recollection has the brooding calm proper to its sederunts been ruffled by a breeze. This once was when Professor ' This and Doctor That, addressing each ' other with ill-advised asperity, began an altercation which for the moment promised well but presently fell dead, choked by the solemnities of the place, as if in a church. There are indications, however, that science and philosophy as embodied in the Institute may assume a , more animated character. Mr Rawson of the Progressive Society is taking a hand in its affairs. A. paper read by him at this week's meeting began modestly with i a classroom chestnut, somewhat musty,

! the warfare of the phagocytes in human • blood against the poison germs that would destroy us. Alexander Pope, who sang the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, would { just as readily have celebrated this perennial warfare in our own insides, had he heard of it. According to Mr Rawson and his authority Metchnikotf (whose latest book, by the way, I have read) the trouble is that our phagocytes may be either overfed and lazy, or starved and " driven to batten for lack of food on the nobler organs of the human frame." And so an intelligent inquiry after each other's health would take the form, How

are your phagocytes? The large intestine, otherwise "practically useless," is the chief seat and chosen home of the poison-germ; yet neither Mr Rawson nor Metchnikoff recommends its removal by surgery, " though man could well do without a large intestine." To correct this error of construction we are to drink buttermilk with other dairy products m a sour state, and so may live to 140. Metchnikoff' s idea is that the instinct of death will not appear until 140 years or thereabouts from birth, and then we will desire d»ath as an infant desires sleep at dusk. It was hinted that when this* stage has been reached man will have been satisfied with life, and will desire no after-life, the present longings for a life after death being due to senile decay setting in too soon — before the instinct of death has been developed In which hinting we may recognise the Progressive Society and the cloven foot.

Incidental to his main theme, Mr Rawson brought in another, which other, in the present state of public feeling, 3 am bound to pronounce inflammatory and dangerous. Sobriety, he said, though certainly favourable to long life, was not essential. Quite a number of centenarians! had drunk freely.

Catherine Reymond, for instance, who died in 1758, it the age of 107 yean-, chink much wine , and Politiman, a burgeon, who hved from 1685 to 1825 (140 years), v.as in the habit, from his twentjtifth year onwards, of getting druiik every night after having attended to his practice all day As a further instan.e, Mr Rawson mentioned that Ga=cog;!e, a. butcher, who died in 17C7, at the pge of 120. was accustomed to get drunk twite a week If teaching of this kind establishes itself at the Otago Institute, and it the chief rabbis of science and philosophy who there foregather are disposed to celebrate it convivialiy. and musically, T can gi\e them a tip. " There is an excellent dunking song by Professor dc Morgan, a man of their own kidney. I supply a sample \ cisc : Great Newton v.lio wa= never be?*.

"Whatever :oois may think, sir , Though aom-etiii-'es he forgot to eat,

He never forgot to drink, sir' Descartes iook naught but lemonade; To conquer him w?s play, *H' , The fir&t advance tbit Newton made

Was to drink his bottle a day, sir. There are many verses, and they all end the same way — with "a bottle a day, &ir." But one verse is as much as the reputation of Passing Notes, will bear.

This brings me naturally to niy

anagrammatic friend " Sivic," so complete an antithesis to "Civis" that he writes himself "Civis " backwards. An unconscious humourist, this, ■whom to neglect were a sin. The difference between monasticism and prohibition, which 1 have shown to be in principle one, is, he says, "that, whale monasticiflß is founded on selfishness, prohibition is essentially altruistic." " Altruistic" a hybrid coinage from the mint of Comte the Positivist, I copy, since I must;- but nothing could induce me to use it for myself.. What " Sivic " wants to say is that mbnasticisrii is selfish; prohibition, unselfish. Wrong; wrong twice over. There are perhaps five-and-forty Christian congregations in Dunedin, each of which should be a temperance society. There are as many ministers of religion, each of whom should be a temperance lecturer. But their idea is to get rid of the whole business by doing something with a voting paper. And this they call "altruistic." Then, as to the "selfishness" of monastici'sni, let me suggest to " Sivic " as light holiday reading Montalembert's " Mopks of "the West," six volumes, large octavo. ' If he will begin at the word " Finis" in volume vi, and plod steadily Backward to~ the preface in volume i, which is his usual mode 1 of progression, he will for ever after be" ashamed of applying the epithet " selfish " to either Francis or Dominic, to the Black Friars or to the Gray. As matter for shame, when he is about it, let him take in also his narrowness in thinking that opponents of no-license — the Daily Times for instance, when recommending its thousands of readers to vote against it — have no care for temperance, nor any desire for liquor traffic reform.

As respects this question of liquor traffic reform, my poor friend, inverted ac usual, is found standing on his head. A prohibitionist, you would say, would bs for prohibition. Not at all ! " I shall be happy to aesist," he says ; " and, as a first instalment, suggest that licensed piemi&es close at 7 p.m." Gracious! — at 7 p.m. ! I have gone one better than that mxsetf. A month ago, commenting on the* riotous no-license debate in the Garrison Hall, when the police, at their wits' end. resorted, to the fire lioee, I wrote as follows :

J am myself a liquor-trade man, and my first proposition r*«3Ut the- liqtior trade is that it must be reformed. The reason for which we are at present rniab.e

to reform it — limiting hours, limiting sales', abolishing (if you like) the open bar — is that the anti-liqiior people will attend to no other thing than bellowing, braying, howling,' and striking out the top line. Reform must wait till these ecstasies are overpast. Between 5 o'clock, when he kjnocks off work, and 7 o'clock, when " Sivic " would close all licensed pi*emises, the man who wants to .get drunk may get drunk twice over. It is I that am the vadioal reformer, after all.

Dear " Civis," — Lieutenant Knox, when exhibiting pictures of our warships in the Garrison Hall the other night, must have got a bad impression of discipline in New Zealand. Some of the town schools disgraced themselves, and their teachers have reason to blush. Though getting a free show, a number of illmannered boys deliberately set themselves to interrupt and embarrass the lecturer. According to your Notes of last week about discipline at the arisiocratic school of Eton, the young Marquis of Graham was flogged for misbehaviour at a railway station, which, of course, would be out of school bouiid-s. In New Zealand the doctrine aeenis to be that ■when out of school a boy may behave as badly as he pleases, e v en in. the presence of his teachers. The old motto of the Edinburgh Review comes in aptly heie : — "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur," — When the boy that should be thrashed goes free, the teacher himself deserves thrashing. But, as respects misbehaviour at the Navy League lecture, Lieutenant Knox, if I may venture to say so, had the remedy in bis own hands. "If one of the hobbledehoys that are interrupting will come on to the platfotn, I will show this audience how we deal with cubs like him in the Navy." Had the gallant Lieutenant grasped }ob nettle in this fashion, not only would he have had the multitude in front of hiinshreikin<y with de]ight r -hut he would have raited tlie standard of education throughout New Zealand. We may regret a lost opportunity. Our school system greatly needs the "object-kuson " on this occasion mi?s&d — a Sixth ' Standard hooligan publicly '"cobbed" in the presence of two thousand people.

After reading the full text of the Kaiser's lucklees 'Monologue on Anglo(4eiman l'elations — two solid columns of the Daily Telegraph — I feel myself a good deal conciliated to the Kaiser. TlHie is nothing bogus about this much canvassed "interview"; it is really the Kaiser that speaks ; and if the note of sincerity in not there I am lntrch mistaken. Accepted as sincere, it- is an outpouring that in also pathetic.- A& sohietimes Defalls meaner folk, the master of thiity legions may feel that h-e is "not imd.eii.tocd," and may pity himself accordingly. That is the situation here. As for the " blaaing indiscretion" to which the European pre?s testifies with one voice-, that is tha Kai&er all over. He is just a big boy — though in Germany U were le s e majesty to say co ; — a big boy, I repeat, with a boy's vanity, impulgiven^is, volatility. Sir Frederick La=eelles, our Ambassador at Berlin, on w akini> o«ve moining found tfce liaJ«?er standing by his bed. " The surprise quite tcok away my breath, and all I could ejaculate was, 1 God I>!ees me 1 ' I essayed to rise, but the Enipeior pushed me back into bed. 'At least your Majesty must allow me to giv« you a cigarette/ I eaid. The Emperor took one, and sat there on the

edge of the bed talking for half an hour." Nor was this the only occasion of the kind. Here is another:

" I must see your Majesty out," said the Ambassador from the bed. " Oh, no, you mustn't come down," replied th«

Emperor. "At least to the door of my room " ; and Sir Frank, in pyjamas, escorted the Emperor to the head of th* stairs. And to conclude the story in th© Ambassador's own words : "As the Emperor caught sight of his adjutant sitting waiting in the- haH, he called out, ' Jetzfc giebt's cine Erscheinung ' (' Here's a sight'), and I appeared 1 I thought the adjutant wou'.d have 9one himself some - serious bodily harm. I never saw a man laugh bo much in my life." Yes, there is something . very engaging ia the Xaaser's boyish inconsequence. H« doesn't make- me quite a pro-German, but? I am tending that way.

A critic of French literature writing I in a London paper quotes a one-syllabled)

poem and gives to it the highest t>raise, talking of its wonderful finish, and commendarig it as altogether a prodigy,—, "a tou? d<? force if you will," he says, " but a poem all the same." Here it is, with translation at the bottom: Fort Soft Belle, " ' tffele," ■ " Elle Quelle Dort. Mort! (Beautiful exceedingly, . she sleeps. Ephemeral destiny, what (a) death!) 'Wherein* lies ths supreme merit of .tha* performance? .Without any praise from the critics we "have done as well our> eelves : B °T> - Gun Gun ; Bust ; Joy, Boy - Fun; Dust. I maintain this to be every whit a« poetical as , the other, and a good deal more intelligible. If any of my readers care for such things', I ani able to offer them a genuine French curio — a dramw complete, fa-om curtain to curtain, in th« mere letters of the alphabet, taken ia due ordsr nud phonetically written. "Abbs! cedez! Eh-eff, j'ai hache! Ikael aime Enno; Pequ est reste! Uvx Ygreczed!" That- is all. It is a love story with » hint of tragedj\ Any translation thought; necessary may be supplied next week. Whilst on this sort of thing I may give an interesting example of monkish' Latin, ■ that has Tcome my way. I dare say there acre students who will thank me for putting it into print. Irrevocabilis Dabitur hora; Xulli optabilis Dabitur men. Tv, ne sis futilis, Semper labora ; — Xo sis inutilis. Vigila, ora. Someone, in the back-blocks as likely v anywhere, may be moved to put this into English verse as graceful and compendious. Put into prose, it is merely pious platitude. - Cms..

The new Government Houee, on the sit# of the Mount View Mental Hospital, will' cost £25,000. ' Surprise js expressed locally (says our Wellington correspondejit) that the building is likely to be a wooden one. but it. is stated that an earthquake-proof' brick building would be too costly. Tha Mount View Mental Hospital will b9J shifted to the country, and it is understood! titat an endeavour will be made to secure for the rnstitution 1000 acres of land, so that the patients may engage in farming 1 , pursuits. The scheme will, of course, entail a largo expenditure, but it is hoped that it will be warranted. The Cabinet has authorised an expenditure of £2300 on the Auckland Railway Station yard«. Tenders for the erection of the Auckland Pest Office have been considered. They varied from £124,000 to £189,000, and, as they were all very much above the official estimates, they were all declined. Df Coulter, the Canadian Deputy Postmaster-general, now on a visit to Australasia in connection with the proposed forroatior of an "all red" route, was iw Dunedin on th-e Bth. Dr -Coulter stated x> a. Times reporter that he could honestly say that he had been very favourably improved with the country he' had so far seen. A« to hie mission in j regard to the "all" red" route, lie was not in a- position to make any; statement -until he had eeen Australia.

Speaking at the t>tago Institute on tha Bth met. on Professor Metchnikoff's book o.i "Tfte Prolojlgation of Life," Mr G. A. RawGon said that while sobriety wa6 certainly, favourable to long life, it was not necessary, booaUee quite a number of centenarians had drunk freely. Catherine Reymond, for instance, who died in 1758, at the age. of 107 years, drank much wine, and Politiman. a surgeon, who lived from 1685 to 1825 (140 yearte) was in th-e habit, from his twenty-fifth year onwards, of getting drunk every night after having attended to his practice all day. As a further instance, Mr Rawson mentioned that Gascogne, a butcher, who died in 1767, at the age of 120, wa= accustomed to get drunk twice a week. Smoking and coffee-drinking, it was aUo pointed out, were not necessarily barriers to longevity in Borne cases, and! instances of centenarians addicted to these a-nd other habits were cited.

Mr G. M. Thomson. M.P., thus referred! on the 10th to something remarkable in the way of attendance at school: "This young lady [Mies Minnie Roast] attended the Union Street School for" seven years ancl the High School for two ye*rs t and -never during those nine years, has Bbc jni&ed halt a day from schoot — (Applause.) X am not' done yet. This appears to be a family fail* ing. Her brother Albert attended fch.B. Union Street School for eight years, and" never missed a -day, and her sister Jessi« has been seven years at the Union Street* School, and never missed a day. Unto him that hath shall be given, you know, and i 8 you ge-t such splendid opporhtnitie^ in life we expect great thins* from jou."-— (Applause.)

Vshe first Englishwoman to take a prac- I A unique silver- w&ckling- gift to Sir Joseph -ifeal Interest in the aeroplane i< Miss j and Ward ha, been xnada by ih a ships -, •. ♦ . . .. , it. company or the Government steamer lu{porothy LeTit*, the holder of many ladies | tanekai. It takes the form of a perfectly jpecondS in motoring, who has announced her j modelled representation of the ship in iateooon of entering for the French prize silver. Every detail of the ye-^1 has, been MR til* finrt woman aeroplani«t to fly a Wlo- made, and all is in proportion. The work m*tre. She has written to Mr Wilbur Jis a very fine specimen of the silversmith's Wtighl to *Sk him to aocepfc her as « pupil, art.

SHOW DATES. Dec. 19. — Peninsula Show, ai Portobello. Dec. 29.— Waitairana Summer Show. 1909. Feb. 2.— Feilding. April 12. — Mackenzie County.