PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2862, 20 January 1909, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturdays Daily Times.) It is a nasty snag that Sir Joseph Ward's new Ministry has stiuck so eaily, and a snag of his own providing. Pneumoconiosis, a word that the public cannot pronounce and the newspapers cannot spell, is embedded in an act of Parliament of date October 10, 1908, whtn the rule of legislative procedure was hurry, huddle, hugger-mugger, and devil take* the hindmost, in view of an imminent Dissolution and General Election. Amongst the persons concerned in the passing of that Act there may have been half a dozen who knew what pneumoconiosis meant, but there certainly was not one who knew what it involved. Of that you may take your 'davy. Sir Joseph Ward had no glimmer of suspicion that pneumoconiosis involved his signing a blank cheque for each and every coal miner in New Zealand. That for one thing, and what else there may be in it he would be glad of anyone who could tell him. For though the cheque is signed — a cheque on your bank account and mine, observe, not on lus own — there is vet trouble ahead, heaps of it. I notice wh-h interest that because coal miners in New Zealand refuse to be examined for pneumoconiosis miners in New South Wales are to refuse to send us coal, and have professed with enthusiasm their determination in that behoof. Such extension have the octopus tentacles of organised labour. Pneumoconiosis is a dust disease (konis, dust) ; millers, I understand, are exposed to it. And if the millers follow suit to the miners, the rest of the world will be requested and required! to refuse us flour. Thus we arrive at a bi-eadtess cupboai-d and the reductio ad absurdum. But you can't frighten a labour unionist by logic

The threat of stopping our external coal supply involves the principle of the boycott, "and the boycott — though no politician lrts the courage to say so — is a rmsi odious form of antisocial crime. "We will neither buy with you nor sell with you, work with you, nor play with you" —that is the boycott. In other words it is- a refu.-al of the reciprocal services for which human society exists. The British ia Indi«i are doomed to succumb, not to bombs, but "to the boycott. So says Mr Krishnavarma, a Parsee agitator now in Europe, an M.A. of Oxford, and a member of the Inner Temple, but none the less a plotter against British rule and an organiser of revolution. He has been interviewed for the Pall Mall Gazette. That is the key-note of the agitation : the boycott. Mr Knehnavaorma's arguments are based on this fact, or alleged foct, that the administrative madhine •would break down in India if, for one week, natives withheld aid from t.h" conqueror The Englieh official would starve m his own hou^e if the natn.e servant refueed to serve him, and the British Government would come to a. standstill if the native police bud the army declined to carry out Us ciders. " I give British rule in India \e n years — not more," continued) Mr Krifihnavarma. "At the end of that time, the Englishman must leave the country, bag and baggage — perhaps without the baggage." It may be so, and it will be so, if in India as here the boycott is left to eveiy malcontent's discretion. My confidence is-, however, that before Mr Krishnavarma's consummation is reached theie will b« wigs on the green, and heads as weli, Mr Krishnavarma's, I should hope, amongst them.

Schoolmasters' English Dear " Civts," — Even Homer ueds — sometimes,— and I write not to justify the wording of the re c olution which you so kir.dly, but quite undeservedly, designate " a literary effort," but to suggest that you, having just been denied sugar on treacle pudding, also would have been too upset to care anything for rule? of grammar! I do not wish \o infer for one moment that you had anything to do with th«

following sentences culled from a paragraph in another column of the same issue as that in which appears your gentle hint as to the need for much care in drafting resolutions when " a chiol's amang ye talcing notes": — 1. " There are a fair number of persons, particularly young men, out of employ- : ment." 2. " A number of country workers find their way into town and remain there." " A fair number are. " a number find," " a number remain." Methmks " something of ' formal grammar' had been useful here!" Of course we me£nt that the teachers— not the meeting — wish Dr Pickenll every success, and your paragraphist "means that the persons are ovrt of employment; that the workers find their way into town and remain there; but, dear " Civis," that, is not the point, is it? You and I— or should I say " thou and I " — are leally agreed that teachers and newspaper writers should jiever make mistakes, not even when they are in a hurry. — Yours sincerely, Dominus. ■ All this in justification or extenuation of the form " this meeting wish,'' to which the Educational Institute stands committed by the phrasing of one of its published resolutions. The supposed parallels from the Daily Times — " a j number of persons are," " a number of workers find " — axe no parallels. In these j phrases the collective noun must take a j plural verb, — there is no chnice about it. You cannot say " a number of workers is idle," " a number of persons finds "' — this or that. The Educational Institute itself would rise up in protest. Neither cao you say " this meeting wish," unless you are also prepared to say "this meeting are," and '" this meeting were." The grammar books, it is true, quoto Shakespeare for the locution " this company gaze " : And wherefore gaze this goodly company As if they saw some wondrous monument? But "company" is not "meeting"; and if it were, Shakespeare can carry off syntax errors that would sink an Educational Institute. My correspondent is safe only in his plea of "haste. lam ready to forgive and forget, stipulating, however, a. renunciation of his delusion that in the multitude of words there is wisdom. All that he had to say might have been, said in half the space conceded him above, and said to better effect. Dear " Civis," — I had the honour to be pretty closely associated with Mr G. M. Thomson in his recent campaign, during the course of which I was assured by no less than three eminent members of the legal fraternity that I was wasting my time, as Mr Thomson " bad not got Buckley's chance." Now I find on nmking inquiry thai none of my legal friends can throw any light on the origin of this phrase which they were so glib in giving vent to, and up to the present I can find no one who can. Can you help us? One friend suggests timt it comes from ft story of Mark Twain's to . the following effect: — An Irishman called Buckley, of medium if not diminutive stature, received a blow in the dark, and stamping round the room or shed crowded with men, shouted out, "Who struck Buckley? " putting up his fists, and making leady to demolish the man " who struck Buckley." Piesently a huge Scotchman upreared himself from the end of the shed and said, " I struck Buckley. For why?" "Oh," said the little Irishman, "did you? "Well, you did it nately. ' It seems possible that this, poor " Buckley's chance, ' was a very poor one indeed. Is there any batter explanation ? Will people who use these expressions lake the trouble to understand them before "slinging" them about? The Mark Twain story and the phrase in question have certainly one point in common ; they both contain the name Buckley. But it would take an AngloIsrael theologian to get an argument out of that. Mark Twain's Buckley explains " Buckley's chance " no better than other Buckleys that have existed in fact or fiction. For example, the Buckley who escaped from a convict ship at Port Phillip Heads and speut half a life time miming wild in woods with the Australian blacks. " Buckley's chance," in this case, was the nairow dunce of evading death by spear and w.iddy. He took it, and survived to gm t the fiist white t«ttleiv» 30 jeers Liter. Stxt, the Buckley, or Buck'law, who was bridegroom *to the Biide of Lammentioor. — against her will and to his awn undoing. This Buckley's chance of domestic happiness wav, from the beginning, obviously of the slenderest. Again, the Buckley, or Buccleiuh (we mustn't stand upon niceties), for whom name and fame and house and lands all turned upon the rare chance of his being able to save the life of a king. Kenneth Mac-Alpin, King of Scotland, had chased a buck into a glen, or cleuch, where the aiiimal stood at bay, putting him in mortal danger. But John of Galloway, the "bold Buci-ieueh " that to be,".'* I/in v the buck by the horns and tjoiiiu in,i him a turn of the wiist, l.iid him h<umle»s at the Ling's feet. Whence the name Buccleuch (buck pluu cieueh), and a *toiy of which you may believe no more than pleases you.

But let us so back a bit. The three Piojjhets of Tij.-jl v. ho prophesied false thing*, about the Thomson election were '• three eminent jnsmbeis ot the legal fraternity.'' Ah, now T\e have it! The Bucklev of their ''Buckley's chance," or no-chonce, would bo some luckless litigant, — a deserving citizen, maybe, such a* you or I, whom unmerciful disaster, following fa?t and following faster, chased into the arms of the lawyers — into the aims of three lawyers. That finished him. And now their synonym for hopelessness is "Buckley's chance." This interpretation will nowheie find leadier acceptance than ia legal circle*.. The be^t jokes at the pxpen«* of law and Lawyers are usually the jokes of lawyers themselves, aa you may learn at any bar dinner. Such as this, for example : The law decides questions of Mc\im and Tuum By kindly arranging to make the thing Suum.

And such a story as the following: — There were two solicitors in partnership, father and son. The son was left in charge of the business for the first time, and after six weeks' holiday the father letuirned. ' r WeH, my boy, howhave you been getting on since I have been away ? " " Oh, very well." " I atn glad to hear that. " " Yes," said the. son. "only think— we have at last succeeded in settling that oJd case, Smith v. Jones." "Good heavens! said the father, in the deepest dejection ; " we've lived on that for the last 10 years." Apropos of stories, the Mark Twain storf, given above appears to be an extract — with modifications, but "without acknowledgement — from the Slang Dictionaay : — * " Who struck Buckley? " «. common phrase xised to irritate. Irishmen. The story is that an Englishman having struck an. Irishman named Buckley, tine latter "made a great outcry, end one of his friends rushed) forth screaming, " Who struck Buckley?" "I did," said the Englishman, preparing for the apparently inevitable combat. "Then," said! the ferocious Hibernian, after ft careful investigation of the other's the_ws and sinews, '" then, sarve him right." But, as we have already eeen, this story, whatever its ownership, is nothing ad rein. | Maik Twain, being a humourist in his own right, may borrow at discretion-, giving account to no man. "I take my goots vere I fled them," .is a- -saying attributed to Handel; — with scant reason, for, in the first place, the' saying is Moliere's "je prends mon bien ou jo le t-rouve" ; aud, in Ithe next, Handel's morality has just sustained a . complete and- quite unnecessary vindication. The ; thefts alleged against him — a full account; I oi which, set forth with names and dates j may be seen in Grove's Dictionary — were [ ail along yiherem'tly incredible. A mil- ; libnaire, whatever his principles, doesn't practise petty larceny. There is nothing j woith his taking. That was Handel's case ; and it now turns out that his " pilfer in-gs " for " Israel " and the " Dettingen Te Deiim " were pilferings from his own earlier ' works, mostly tlremes taken from his forgotten Italian operas, and worked, over again. Rossini, accused of stealing a melody from, some obscure contemporary, aaiswered as a great artist should :| " Very well ; let him steal one of mine, and we- shall be quits." Handel, had he needed, might have taken the same tone, and nobody would have held it aigaimsf him. To Mark Twain must- be conceded a similar right. Let him borrow as - the Israelites " borrowed " from the Egyptians: " ' Steal- I'. foh ! a fico for the phraee ! 'Convey' the wise it call." \ There is no property in stories. Whoever comes across a good one may straitway treat it as his own, may give it a, new setting, new names, new time, place, cii cumstance, " new everything. Shakespeare's plays are written on this principle, Tennyson's Idylls, Passing Notes, and I know not what classic* beside. Fov my own part, I am with Moliere — je prends mon bien ou je le trouve. Here, for example, is a etory about a parrot, a profane and impertinent parrot. It is a story that belongs to nobody in particular, and I have met it before quit« otherwise arranged. At a. country house where a !a,rge pariy oi notables was assembled ths custom of family prayers had not yet gone out of use. Household and guests met for that purpose in the dining room. As ti© gentlemen filed in, the parrot, whone cage was near the door, eyed each entrant as if endeavouring to recognise him. As the most diminutive of the group passed! in, the parrot, evidently puzzled, said 1 . most distinctly : " And who- the devil are you ? " It w*s Lord John Russell. - This, though from a book of .memoirs just published, is not original. It is an ohl story improved. Piquancy i& gained' by conferring on the disreputable parrot/ membership in a serious family, and by assigning the part of victim to a political peiEonage of importance and dignity, though of few indies. Ciyis Die* Dominicus non esfc juridicua (th« ', Lord's Day is not a legal dayj was a plea of defence sci up by Mr Donnelly at the KaiaI poi Court on the 11th (saye the Press) in an action where his client was charged l with illegal rescue cf cattle seized for impounding, the animals having been stray- , iisg 1 on the public road. There was no right ', given, according to counsel's contention, to ! impound cattle or take any proceedings, except on the King's writ or a warrants of the court, in regard to the Sunday (the Lord's Day). The magistrate (Mr Day) pointed out that a person could be proceeded against for riding a bicycle on a, | footpath. Mr Donnelly replied that the impounding of cattle was a different proj ceeding, and asked that his point should b«reserved. The case, however, broke down by reason of the fact that the rescue was j held not to have been proved, and hence no legal dictum was gisen on the point laised. At a largely-attended general meeting of the Otago Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, held on Sunday, lCth inst., the following motions were unanimously adopted: — "That thid general meeting of the Otago Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway, Servants heartily congratulates the Hon. J. A. Millar on his acceptance of the portfolio of Raihvajs, and feels confident that under his wise and able administration the progressive policy of tho service as a commercial institution will be fully maintained, and its members, collectively and individually, faiily and justly dealt with." '"That this meeting heartily congiatulates the Hon. T. Mackenzie on hi-> accos-ion to : Ministerial rank, and fc-els fciirc that hii future career in the new po-ition to which [ personal worth has exalted him will bo such as will pro\o beneficial to the Dominion and honourable to himself."

Great Interest is being taken in yFaimate election bysubeoriberg of • \tru3tee \» the Walmate Hospital Be Jtd. % vhe eleolast year added considerably to the board'? revenue and J*" «« expected number of 6s votea tbia £ftnin£ 'will 9fiifr establish a record.

On the 7th inst. Nurse M'Ghie. of the Naseby Hospital, met with a nasty accident to her eye. While opening a bottle of peroxide of hydrogen the cork flew out and struck her on the eyeball. She had (saya the Mount Ida Chronicle) to go to Duriedin to consult au oculist,