FASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 5

FASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's D.iily Time 3») Sir Jcoeph Ward is not by nature a dramatic artist. His gifts and graces pts of quite another complexion. And yet he has contrived for us a genuine dramatic surprise. By force of circumstances. It is told of Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's earliest and most trusted political adviser, that when a doubtful thing had to be dons hi* maxim was, "Do it, and 1 1st them howl." Let the howling be over I a thing done, not over a thing proposed This useful rule Sir Joseph has followed in reconstructing his Ministry. In fact the doubtful thing he purposed, a thing in three acts, so to speak— Hogg, Buddo, i Roderick M'Kenzie,— was a thing of such ' exceeding doubtfulness that it had to be 1 done in Lord Melbourne's way or not at all. And so we arrive at the dramatic t surprise. Nothing was to be known until 1 a set day, January 6, when the curtain i should rise disclosing the Ministry recon- ! slituted and complete. Till then Sir 1 Joseph would sit tight and hold his tongue. It has been a long wait — all through the holidays, with much useless guessing, public impatience, and the usual pit and gallery cries of " Up with the rag !"— till the fated day ; when, 10, as the rag^ goes up. a proper Christy Minstrel ensemble ! — Sir Joeeph in the centre as Mr Johnson £ alongside him his "doubtful thing," Messrs Hogg, Buddo, Roderick M'Kenzie, duly installed, tambourine in hand ; the show commended to a scornful audience i by two new corner men, smart men both, Mr Tom Mackenzie, and Mr Ngata, a Maori. Thus the thing is already a thing done, and over it we are at liberty to howl, if howling may do us any good. I don't permit myself to howl ; it is sufficient to record the general verdict, which is, that they are " a scrubby lot." " Sir Joseph's way, already Lord Melbourne's way, was in truth the only way. If the appointing of Meters Hogg, Buddo, and Roderick M'Kenzi© had been to do in three acts, coram publico, subject to public discussion and approval, it would never have been done at all. We swallow the pill it h a wry. face, yet are thankful that we have not been required to swallow each nauseous ingredient separately. And then the pill is sugar-coa-ted, for Dr Findlay"* sphere of activity in enlarged, Mr J. A. Millar should do well at Railways, and there is tin- clear gain of Mr Tom" Mackenzie. The most curious detail of this comedy of high politics is the ex post facto recommendation Sir Joseph Ward has given to . each of his appointees and telegraphed throughout the country. For example : Mr Buddo is a practical farmer of wide experience, and I feel sure that lie will be able to Successfully administer the of Internal Affairs and Public Health to the advantage of th» country. What are our '•Internal Affaha"'? And have we any antithetical department of Foreign Affairs? If not, I should say that our Internal Affairs must be questions of digestion. But it Ls Sir Joseph* delicious non sequitur that beJ=t deserves recognition : — Mr Sod-es-and-weights is a respeclable grocer who has never been insolvent, and I feel sure that he will be able to snocessfully administer the Department of Education and to navigate the Hinemoa to the advantage of the country. Mutatis mutandis, this is Sir Joseph on the qualifications of his hopeful nominee Mr Buddo. I observe that the newspapers, both Government and Opposition, addies-b the most ominous warnings to Mr Roderick M'Kenzie. There is evidently something peculiar in this case, something about which it is well to be merely allusive and not explicit. We must wait and 6ee. What do public school teachers intend by the "formal grammar"' -which came under condemnation in their Educational Institute this week? " Formal grammar,"' — js there any other grammar!' Are we to infer the * existence of an infoimaJ

grammar? Speaking more or less anent questions of this kind, Miss M. H. Craig, of Wellington, eaid : " Even amongst the orators who sifc around this table I bare noticed that some are not in agreement with the highest standards on grammar." Whereupon answer was mad-a to her by Mr Gibbs, of Nelson, in effect as 'follows: That as a means of training fear accurate speaking formal gTanflnai was of no value. They had the prccjf before _■ them. They had all been through the old-fash : oned teaching of grammar, K&d yet, as Miss Craig had said, they were bad 1 speakers. At a later session the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, who with his xisual good nature had attended by request-, gave an interesting recital of bis early experiences as. a dominie at the Dunedin old Stone School, and incidentally committed himself to the same amazing heresy : I don't mean to say ihat formal grammar is necessary for writing good English. The power of literary expres- j sion is a gift, and it comes like other i gifts, v.-ithout, perhaps, the training in formal grammar. The nearest parallel to this is Dogberry's belief that "' to be a well-favoured man i is the gift of fortune, ""brat to read and writes comes by nature." "The power of literary expression is a gift," says' Sir Robert. Then we must infer, lam afraid, that this power has been given in very imperfect measure to the Educational Institute, since two of its members aa*e responsible for the following literary effort in recognition of a lecture by Dr Pklcerill : That this meeting of teachers, having heard of the initiation -cf a campaign by Dr Pickerill for more attention to h& paid to the dsntal hygiene now being taught in our echool. wish him every success in his effort." "This meeting wish"! Something of "formal grammar" had been useful here. Loose English is, of course, the prerogative of great writers, as consecutive filths and other cacophonies are within the privilege of gieat musicians. It is neefssary to know the rules, said Beethoven, in order to be able to break ' them,— or words to that effect.' You can break rules, it seems to mo, with less knowledge than that. But, as respects loose English, the one gin that cannot be forgiven, even to a creat writer, .is ambiguity. -Let him be, it you like, above all rules, a Sigismund super grammaticam ; since rules get their authority net fiom grammarians but from usage, Quern penes arbitrium est, et jus et ntoma loquendi, and the great writer sets the fashion, thereby determining usage; — usage first, then rules. And yet, nevertheless, he is always wrong if his sentences need to be read twice over. Here is a passage from Mr G. K. Chesterton as quoted, with grandmotherly approval, by the Spectator. Can anyone deny that the first sentence is ambiguous ? It is the modern literature of the educated, not of the uneducated, .which is avowedly and aggressively criminal. Books recommending profligacy and pessimism, at which the high-souled errandboy would shudder, lie upon all our drawing room tables. If the dir'ufest old owner of the dirtiest old bookstall in Whiteoliapel dared to display hooks recommending polygamy or suicide, his stock would be seized by the police. These things are our luxuries. It is the sentiment or doctrine that the Spectator approves, to which approval I humbly say ditto. But the first sentence is in such a form that for a moment the reader hesitates, unsure of the meaning. Mr Chesterton has failed to dis- ; criminate the uses of " that *' and " which." Substitute the one for the other and try his sentence again : " It is the modern literature of the educated, not of th« uneducated, that is avowedly and aggressively criminal."' Here everything is clear at a glance. Often I find myself reading a sentence of Chesterton's twice, not for its importance, or for the pleasure I get out of it, but because a single reading fails to yield a clear sense. More than once I have expressed the charitable \ iew that printer's errors, so called, have a humour of their own, not to insist that sometimes they improve the text. Errors of the reporter iall under the same rule. One of the speakers at a recent Church congress quoted the Hudibras couplet about disputants in religion, Who prove their doctrine orthodox By apestohc biows and knocks. The word " knocks " when reported appeared as "Knox." In Presbyterian Otago, whatever it might be in England, you could hardly call this an error. The reporter had probably learned his reporting North of Tweed. Writing in this column last week I had an eloquent passage about the " hapless mariner " who, trying to give Scylla a wide berth, tell into Charybdis. In piint the " hapless mariner " appeared as the " Naples mariner," and up to this moment I am doubtful whether the change is not for the better. A hapless mariner might be a Naples mariner, and a Naples mariner might be a hapless manner, especially if his business lay in the Straits ot Messina about which I was writing. Anyhow the printer had the last word, the tasting vote as it were, and I hold it politic to say that the printer was right. It is wonderful what worlds of meaning, malicious sometimes or sarcastic, turn upon the omission of a letter or the insertion of a comma. If you read at the end of an obituary notice, "Fiends will please accept this intimation," only one letter is wanting. And here is a story illustrating the power of the comma. A distinguished graduate of Oxford determined to enter the Nonconformist ministry, and quite unnecessarily, published a manifesto setting £orth his leasons and his intentions. In his enumeration of the -\arious methods by which he was going to mark his aloofness from the <-<<cerd">tah<=m or the Established Church he wrote, ci the printer

made him seem -fo have written: "I shall wear na ajoth.es, to distinguish me fr«» my feM»w-@hristians." It resulted that all the picture shops of the University piaaaptly displayed a fancy portrait of the newly-fledged minister olad in what Artomus Ward ■ called " Th# ' scandalous style "of Ihe Greek slave," and bearing the unkind description—" Zhe Rev. K. Y. Z. .ifistinguishing himself from his fellow-Christiana," This is confessedly an 014 story. But it is always a sign of mer>t in a story that it lias lived to grow old. Put an old story and a nay? etory side by side, and: you are often compelled to say that the old is better. Some old stories met again after years of forgetting have yielded mea' genuine delight. About odd epitaphs for example, the unconscious humour of the lapidary artist. In the English parish, of Ledbury is a memorial stone corresponding to the single monument in the old Dunedin Cemetery at the top" of. Ra-ttray street, and serving a similar ./purpose ; — with this inscription : Under thi3 place lie several inhabiiN ants of this parish. Further particulars the Day of Judgment will d : sclos«. Comprehensive and ominous. Another example is from one of the South Coast towns : In loving memory of William Scoti, late .commander in the service of the Alderney Steam Packet Company, now with Christ, which is much better. Of their kind these specimens would be hard to beat. Another excellent old story redivivus, and a true one, is tliaf of Alexander of Batitenberg when a boy at school, writing to his grandmother, Queen Victoria, for more pocket money, and! getting in reply an intimation that he must keep within his allowance. His next communication to the Quean ran thus : " Aly dear Grandmother, — I am sure you will be glad to know that I need not trouble j r ou for aaiy money just now, for I sold your last letter to another boy her© for 305." Let me digrees to a story of the lecent English bye-electiom. Liberal canvasser, a lady, calls at the cottage .of Mr Smith. Smith was out, but his wifa. answered for him. " No, he bain'i going to vote for u.o Literal. His vote goes Conservative same as his father's afoxe him, and my father's, too." " But perhaps Mr Smith might change his mind if he read this little book," said; the lady. "He won't change his mind," said 1 his better half. '* He's been promised a new pair of trousers if he votes same as he's been told." The eyes of the canvasser nearly left ' her face with excitement. Here was a. case of bribery ready to hand. "My good woman, fell me who promised your husband that, ami I'll give you five shillings, she sa-"d. " No, miss, I couldn't do that." " I will give -you ten shillings," persisted the visitor. In th© end Mrs Smith feigned to give way, and 1 tbe coin changed hand?. " I promised' them to him myself, mis*. His Sunday pair's a disgrace, and I shou'd have had to have- got them, anyway. Bu-. three, 'twill be much easier row, thanks to you I'll say gocd-morning, miss, and step up along to th« shop and choose them." This story is bran new and passably goodL But I suspect the hand of that ingenious fabulist, Bon Trovato. Crvis.

A rather interesting discussion was caused at the New Zealand Educational Institute on the sth by a motion that rifle-shooting should be placed on the syllabus as an optional additional subject. Some speakers deprecated the idea of " games " becoming part of the compulsory curriculum. One or two prophesied a time when cricket would be so included, and drew a dismal picture of teachers going to teach i(. on Saturday afternoons. Others objected to rifle-shooting being called a "game." Ifc was a most serious matter, especially wheni boys did not know which end of the rifle to put to the shoulder. Nothing was said' of the fear of invasion in the future, but if> seemed significant that the motion y,sm lost. Messrs Wrigley and Thornley's motor cai 1 service from Fairlie to The Hermitage is running this season with great regularii-y and satisfaction to lourist* and eiiy residents who are spending their holiday* at Mount Cook. There are. cf course occasional punctures', which involve 9hort sloppages, but wonderful regularity in arrival at The Hermitage and Fairlie respectively is generally achieved. There are stiU 18 miles of coaching beyond Glenianner Station, but it is expected that in about a monch'i time the final' creeks will be bridged, *.» the work is proceeding steadily, and thtf being accomplished the trip will tw shortened by an hour and a-half. The fin»< stage of the return to Fairlie if usually oi a somewhat exhilarating character, as ih« chauffeurs are able to put on speed in tha stretch of good, level road inco the township, and, like the good old coaching day*, when Ned Devine or some other of tha famous drivers of the period swept, into Manse street at a fast trot, so in these days of the chauffeur and his motor the final mile or two and the smart sweep into tha garage carries with it a pleasant recollection of exhilarated spirits. The scientific expedition which recently visited the Sounds in the r.s. Rakiura for the purpose of completing die magnetia survey of New Zealand returned from tha Bluff by the second express on the sth inst. As far as could be gathered last evening the results will be most satisfactory, 11 stations having been formed. At Miiford Sound seven of the party left, the beat and j proceeded, via Sutherland Falls and Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri, to Dusky Sound, where they rejoined the resL of the party. The track, although in a very bad state, was passable, and an interesting trip wa«; the result. On the whole very bac 1 weatnsr was experienced, although the party wai favoured with three fine days at tha out- | sot.