PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2881, 2 June 1909, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.) The deplorable fanatic quoted (and repudiated) by the Rev. Dr Nisbet in his Garrison Hall speech on Empire Day had written him — " I know absolutely nothing about Empire Day, never was much taken up with flags, and view with grave misgiving all such Tory notions." Flag and Empire " Tory notions " — why, surely, ~ the patriotic minister of First Church must have been beguiled into a correspondence with some red-shirted -Socialist — Keir Hardie, Tom Mann, Victor Orayson. Not a bit of it ! - This was on old fellow-student, with three degrees to him name, high up in the Homeland, "an educated and cultured 'gentleman." So says Dr Nisbet, and all I can say in comment is — From such education and from such culture good Lord deliver us ! Give me for preference the unkempt ignorance of the gun-deck and the barrack-square. Better principles prevail in those rough places than in certain haunts of education and culture, principles more wholesome and more Christian. Flag and Empire mean for our soldiers and sailors the duty of suffering the loss of all things in order to keep a -house over the head of-ingrates like Dr JTisbet's correspondent. Not much of Tory in that. Flag and Empire mean self-sacrifice; the opponents of Flag and Empire mean — what do they, mean? Party, party, party ; — sacrifice the fleet, the army, and all things else to party. Call it Liberalism, call it what you like ; — to sum up its character and results you may reverse Macaulay's lines and write — Then each was for a party; Then none was for the State; Then the great man robbed the poor, And the poor man cursed the great. On the moot • point ■whether women should or should not be doctors, Dr Emily H. Siedeberjr^ and Dr Ferdinand .C. Batchelor do not agree. Perhaps it could hardly be expected that they should. Anyhow argument is useless. Things are as they are, and women will 6till be trained as doctors whether we like it or not. To say that women should not be doctors is as irrelevant as to say that women in New Zealand should not vote at elections. The subject on which Drs Batchelor and Siedeberg are at variance, then, is nothing; but another subject, a subject on ■which they agree, is everything ; and it is just at this pomt — when they fall upon each, other's necks — that I find myself thrown into violent dissent. Listen to Dr Siedeberg : "With Dr Batche'.or's remarks on marriage customs she is in hearty accord. She endorses everything he says on that point, but for that very reason, ehe adds, she would almost hesitate to spread a knowledge of physiology among women for feaT it would put an end to the marriage custom altogether — at least, among the thinking portion of the women. So marriage is a " custom." Being a custom, it may be varied indefinitely or dropped outright; and, it seems, would be dropped outright if women knew what these two doctors know about the vileness of men. I don't ask them what they know or think they know on that large subject; but I ask them whether they know Fielding's novels, and Hogarth's pictures, and the Letters of Horace Walpole; and whether they do not think that eighteenth-century immorality was worse than ours. Yet the eighteenth century was the progenitor of the. nineteenth, in which tlie population of the British Isles increased threefold, and the duration of life was lengthened by a third. The descendants of Fielding and Hogarth's Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen wrested Canada from the French, won Trafalgar and Waterloo, conquered India, colonised Australasia, and did other things, many and wonderful, to the honour of the flag and of the race from which they sprung. Which race, it is evident, was well worth preserving when lower in the scale of morals than it is now. Let us hope, then, that Dr "Siedeberg will, on reflection, allow us a reprieve. When it is said that intellectual activi-

ties are bad for women, particularly for young women, there should occur to us at least one great historic example to the contrary. Queen Victoria left behind her as the record of her life what the editors of her letters say is "the most extraordinary series of State documents in the world." The papers up to 1861, covering the first 23 years of her reign, make between five and six hundred bound volumes. The remaining years "will make several hundared more. They contain a general summary or conspectus of British and international affairs, the whole of which may be said to have passed through the brain of the Queen. Of this huge mass of documentary matter a large part consists of letters — political letters btate papers — written or dictated by hei--self. Now, the point to note is that the Queen accepted the intellectual strain of her tremendous vocation quite early in life — in her eighteenth year, in fact; that escape or intermission, there was none, not even for a day; yet that this victim of over-pressure married, bore, children not a few, and lived to a good old age. According to the doctrinaire notions of to-day she ought to have broken down hopelessly within the first half-dozen years. It is true that in her early time the young Queen leaned much on her Ministers, especially on heT- Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, who; in the Letters, sometimes seems to be ordering her about as if she were a schoolgirl. But ehe was capable of s-nubbing Lord Melbourne on due occasion as if Lord Melbourne were almost a lackey. For example — The Queen Hus been a good deal annoyed this evening at Normanby's telling her that John Russell was coming to town nexi Monday in order to change with him. Itord Melbourne" never told the Queen that this was definitely decided; .... considering all the Queen has said on the subject to Lord Melbourne, and considering the great confidence the Queen" has in Lord Melbourne, she thinks and feels he ought to have told her. that this was settled, and not let the Queen, lje the last person to hear what is settled and done in heT- own name; Lord Melbourne will excuse the Queen's being a little eager about this, but it has happened once before that she learned from other people what had been decided oh. "Buckingham Palace, 29th August, 1839" — her twentieth yeax, " and every inch a Queen ! * * j The many stories of Lord Melbourne still floating about relate, sad to • say, chiefly to his profanities in speech — his liking' for the big big D, and, I suppose, they illustrate the low moral tone of -his time. To i,him-- in -this particular all persons, and all' occasions seem to have been pretty much alike. Once, when presiding over . an. ■ „ ecclesiastical commission, he drew from Sydney ' Smith the remark that if they might consider •- everybody and everything damned once for all it would be possible to get on with the business. Sydney Smith doubtless felt that something was due to his cloth; but. the rebuke seems about on a level with the sin. Not even at the Queen's table were the proprieties always observed. Dining at Windsor, when the talk turned on Peel's conversion to Freetrade, Melbourne broke out with — "Ma'am, it's a damned dishonest act." Also, the Prince Consort records that when greater care began to be taken in appointments to the royal household, Lord Melbourne had declared that "that damned morality would undo us all." This seems to be merely a variant of the Bible text, "Be not righteous overmuch." Lord Melbourne was expected to dine at the palace almost every other day, and always on Sunday. Sometimes he failed, and would excuse himself : " ' Lord Melbourne is very well, but Sir James Clarke, a Scotchman and a physician, and therefore neither by country nor by profession very religious, detained him from church in order to go through the 'report upon the state of Buckingham Palace. This is not a very good excuse, but it is the true on«. How much of gcod there was in this od3 personality we may guess from, the Queen's distress when there came a change of Ministry and Lord Melbourne was lost to her. The. Queen thinks Lord Melbourne may possibly wish to know how she is this morning f the Queen is somewhat calmer ; she was in a wretched state till 9 o'clock last night, when she tried to occupy herself and to think -less gloomily of this clreadful change, and .she succeeded in calming herself till she went to bed at 12, a,nd she slept well; but, on waking this morning, all — all that had happened in one sbo-rt eventful day came most forcibly to her mind, and brought back her grief; the Queen, however, feels better now ; but s"he couldn't touch a morsel of food, lagt night, nor can she this morning. The Queen trusts Lord Melbourne slept well, and is well this morning; and that he' will come precisely at 11 o'clock. But the story that will best appeal to the modern politician has , nothing to do with • Melbourne's relations with the Queen. After the Cabinet dinner at" which the resolution (about the Corn Laws) was taken, he is said to have called from the top of the stairs to his departing colleagues: "Stop a bit! Is it to lower the price of bread, or isn't it? It doesn't much matter which, but we must all say the same thing. A rule the soundness of which is doubtless recognised at Cabinet councils in Wellington, but from what happens afterward we may infer that it is sometimes .forgotten. % Esperanto is a belated attempt to repeal the ancient curre of Babel. Say the Esperantists : "Let us cure the Confusion of Tongues by making one tongue more." By the world they are acoepted as amiable- visionaries who need waste nobody's time but their own, and who repay the printers' ink they cost by the amusement they offer. It was an amnsed crowd that filled the vast auditorium of the Queen's Hall, London, recently, to listen to an Esperanto concert given by way of reporting progress; — partly that,

but chiefly by way of advertisement, th« songs being intended, to prove that Esperanto "is not at all difficult either to understand or to pronounce." A versa from one of them will show us how this proof looks on paper. And dre&rns of delight shall on thee break, x And rainbow visions rise, And all my soul shall strive to wake - Sweet wonder in* thine eyes ; That is English; and this is the sam.4 thing in Esperanto-: D-a, iniro tiom vekos mi Ke, pro anim&elir' Cielvidajojn guos vi Per la mirinda dii\ The language of the Ojibbeway Indians may have looked much" the same. Yet to this complexion must "we come at lasr.' — Shakespeare and Milton, novel and newspaper, Passing" Notes and Church * Praise,— if Esperanto fulfils its mission. At the Queen's Hall gathering there wa» an' addiress in Esperanto, and the address was understood. So says the reporter;— but note his conditions and qualifications: Anybody on nodding terms with ' English, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek [!], with some practice in unseen translation [!!], and with, the English, of it all before him on the programme [!!!], could follow Mr Boiingbroko Mudie's Esperanto- address word for word. Give me the same liberal handicap — the English of it all before me in print, and! I would undertake to follow in Ojibbeway. - Double Butch should .haT« no terrors, nor Choctaw and Pawnee. But' Esperanto's true career lies^ I suspect, on the concert stage. . Indeed at most of the concerts I attend English song-singing is Esperanto already. This experience is general ; — apropos of which fact somebody quotes the music-hall rule and Corney Grain : — So long .as the tune has a right good ring. It , doesn't much matter -what words you sing. Civis.

The body of George Kempton, who wa« drowned at Waihola on the 24tb, was recovered about 5 p.m. on the 25th of May. An inquest was held .yesterday before Mr Robert Stewart, J.P., acting coroner, the jury returning a verdict to tho effect that deceased met his death -by accidental drowning owing to the swamping of a boat. It added the following rider: — "That the^ Bruce County Council be recommended to erect a notice on. the. jetty at Waihola warning strangers against the use of flat-bot-tomed boats on Lake Waihola during rough weather." The other two young men have now recovered. In the Supreme Court on May 25 a witness remarked that^ he had obtained drink at certain hotels in the city when he was under the influence of liquor. At some hotels, he repeated, he was supplied with drink, but at others he was. refused. Ha could name the hotels. "At wh"at hotek did you get drink?" queried- the solicitor. The. witness hesitated. "He is evidently thinking of the meeting of the Licensing Committee next month^" suggested the ' Crown Prosecutor. Being pressed for an answer, the witness said one of the hotels was in Princes street, but he could not remember its name. A' man with a dark beard was behind the counter. "Everyone was waiting- anxiously for the names of the hotels,- b r ut the witness's memory seemed to fail him, and- it was at this point that his Honor asked if it was material that these details should be given? It appeared it was not material, so that the man wit'i *hi black beai-d is the only ecrap of evidence the Licensing Committee has to go upon. The prompt measures taken to prevent the spread of the diphtheria epidemic at Kaitangata recently have evidently bad effect. It was reported to last week's meeting of the Hospital Board that the two patients who had been admitted to the new isolation ward at the Cottage^ Hospital there had been discharged in a condition well on towards recovery, and there were no signs of a further outbreak. Mr Wales (the board's architect) goes to KJaitangata next week to look into the questions of providing- the - hospital with an improved system of water supply and drainage. An inquest wa3 held at Mosgiel on May X before Mr H. H. Inglis -(deputy coroner) and a jury of six, on the body of George Price, who met. his death at Wilkie's flourmill on May 24-. Mr A. -Sinclair was present on behalf of the City Corporation. The evidence showed that one of the linesmen who were working on the electric wires had gone up a ladder to take the temperature of certain transformers which had been put in the mill, the deceased holding the ladder. When the work waa finished the other employees left the building, and the deceased was sitting in the mill until the time for the departure of his train arrived. The jury returned a verdict to % the effect that the deceased was electrocuted by comvng in contact with a live wire at a place w-here he had no business to be. The Rock and Pillar Consumptive Sanatorium, for some time since carried on. by Mrs M'Kmlay, to whom the Hospital Board paid a fixed weekly sum dn account of each patient accommodated by her, has been brought more directly under the board's control. By atrangement with Mr George Esther, who is the owner of the property, the board has agreed to supply, on requisition, from Mrs M'Kinlay (whe now becomes manageress), all the necessities of the institution, and pay the salaries of the doctor, nurses, etc., direct from its own funds. Bj this arrangement it is hoped that the sanatorium will be run under business.'- ; k§ more economical conditions.

Twelve pheasants were received by the The Biahop of Carlisle says a cause of flakes District Acclimatisation Society last intemperance » the underfeeding and bad week. Half of them were sent to Arrow- feeding of children. There was not enough j ,«>wn for distribution, and the society has milk and porridge taken nowadays, and ioo j 'decided to keep the other half in Queens- much, badly-brewed tea was drunk. All .•own un-til the spring. Mr C. D. Dag? has young people should be trained in hobbies, irndly promised to look after the b ; is, "What they wanted was more and better i Vhich are all young. amusements I