PASSING NOTES. (From Saturday's Daily Times.)

Otago Witness, Volume 06, Issue 2899, 6 October 1909, Page 5

PASSING NOTES. (From Saturday's Daily Times.)

' After circumnavigating the globe and doing it in 102 days by the calendar, — Including 26 days spent at Imperial headquarters in presenting his Dreadnought • (or rather ours), in borrowing a million of money, in consulting with other magnates of the Empire, and in hob-nobbing with the King : — Sir Joseph "Yard on lnndiug at Auckland and setting foot again in hk own dominions was clearly entitled to reVpec'tfui welcome. Official Auckland deemM it an occasion for tim- , brcl and pipe : for | Sea tlie conquering hero comes! : Sound the trumpets, beat the drums; for parades, p:*o<"essiot»s, and an illuminated address. Oflicial Auckland may in this have been badly advised ; but at the ioasfc Sir Joeeph was entitled to a civil How d'j'e do ? No Oppositioniet would have denied it him. I tpeak with confidence as I am an Oppositionist myself. But there exist in this country, as in most other countries, % wretched few who ; are for neither Government nor Opnosition, — political Ishmaciii^s, of whom in the end we chall have to spy thit as their hand is against every man, evnry man's hand must b« against them. Possibly Sir Joseph Ward, vot-e-hantins, hrs • kow-fx)wed to these same people in his ! time. I wouldn't say. Anyhow, at. | Auckland on Thursday they reminded ! him of their existence and gave him an ' inverted welcome after their manner. It. is a- pity, and New Zealand is ashamed , of them. Socialists the papers call them. , Anarchists rather. I should say. By whatever name called .they are a despic- ' able crew. j

At'th» annual moptine of that mppiorlons body the Presbyfenan Social Rervico Affociation, a charitable agency full of" eood works, one of the speakers tourh.-cl r>n 3. crrievpnr?. The Church was bein? stripped of one function after another. Even the parsons would b« tal"-">n awnv ;n; n fin>°. >•<» ~n>--posed. He did not think the Church should ever have allowed its poor and its little children to b3 taken away from it. Formerly the Church performed, to a great extent, the functions of the State. Now it seemed that the State was taking ovar the functions ot '.lie Church. This is an old stoiy, but there is nothing in it. There would be a j-ood deal in it if "the Church" i:i-\'»m, nothing more than Sunday congregations, synods, presbyteries, and parish vestries. I suggest the dropping of this notion of the Church as altogether too churchy. Something like it may have been right enough under the early Crrsars. But now the timfs are rltererl quit?, so that it is possible to {->ke in ir.:<kr the term " Church " the whole population. There is a sense, furelv. in whirh the whole population is Christian, even as all the nations of the West are coUactivcly Christendom. Let the Church and the St;>.te b.« conceived as not two diffeipnt tliinss. but as onr and ihp same tiling. Bij'ng in, then, the bloloav doctrine that fraction must he specialised. aVi there you rr~. — -rw.-v thinp falls into its place and ;i!l v licbt as right conJd be. The C b.x: <\"\U AM Hoard is the Church: f ; >o P,< -ic. ol«nt A\vio,-.i is flip Church : OM Ajo P. iimo^s are th. 1 Churr'i : flip llo<=;>i'. ! i-- tie Ch-irc-ls : Searliff V^irn i- Ihr Mum!-, md T) 1 . Trubv K>"' vn f.iin.n} ii'i;i;s''--i-of th 3 C-'o-,i>cl ; td'oj 1 ' '.^d ur.i'-"i -.i' "°s r.vo Ino Chuff ii: Hi-" p-ioiic nif>^~ is (H» Church: s(rnn:-e tl-oucli if «"r;'. (?i,i T'itv Cm r>ot-ation <'>nd tlip D""»n"C' TVnr,] arp the C'nunli: ftranscst of ri'l. thr Iv,i TTnu =•'.<-, of ■Pa:]i-.mtrt t-o siirrlv tho C""ir,\-h in Orpntl '"'onuiilt.'.p \ Tn th°-? \r;'pc l '"'hii.-rb imr r U th^re wo '""i 1 nishlv '"iooi" '""nris^iiirf : — &ra"Ar>(], TTiah up in thp "\ r lni<=trv ther» ore ni? or two in nr>t iic u'-ii- I'nt reerl a PD'c-ia! miv a r, r I^• nn'l or of h,in'' ! :'. i rf.nlvi'.nt flrn-MiT -nd Alcxandfr. "Huf vV; ? i, (^ <?.. rn-->- fon^i'p {ration fhnf his nof r --, nr.! - ouicn of whom tho same m>£.h' 1-e tpid?

Di«mL-s this Uieorv .of Oli^rr]] and State r« unsnimd. and yon entitle evp-iv poky little denomination t-o hinder- after charitable institutions that sh.ill be its v«r.v fivrn, and to 'get ih.°m if it Van. A^ul if it oaja't. but- -must look on" whilst

the State takes charge of derelict children, dispenses alms, provides hospitals for the sick in body or mind, the poky little denomination is entitled to cry out that its saored functions, are invaded, and that the world is swamping the Church. I submit that the broader view is the better. Let the Church fulfil its sacred functions by inspiring to good works the men that figure in what it. calls "the Staite." Ministers of religion, such is their benign simplicity, are quite easily imposed on. One of them mentioned at «a public meeting not long ago that he baptised a baby and bestowed on the mother at her request an eleemosynary half-crown, only to learn later that the sama baby had been baptised on the same terms- by several of his clerical brethren in succession. No doubt they were all a^ike disgusted. Not to them in such case would apply the maxim — Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of being cheated, as to cheat. People of charitable impulses expect to bs cheated ; but they don't pretend to like it. Their fancied compensation is that on the whole' they do good. They may bs assured that on tha whole they dc> harm. To allow oneself to be swindled with impunity is to" encourage swindling, merely that and nothing more.

"I have been glancing two or three of the appreciatioi:s of Tennyson appropriate to his centenary, and have baen struck by a curious tone of coldness towards him in almost all quarters." ! Thus Mr G. K. Cbsst-rton, in the i Illustrated London News. Now this is a very peculiar thing. For it is a case of coldness to quite brilliant md unquestionable merit. Whethar Tennyson vra^ a, great poet I shall not diEcuss. I understand that one has to wait about-, eight hundred years before discussing that. But- that v Tennyson is a poet is stbout as Eolid and' certain as that Roberts' is a billiardplayer. That Tennyson was an astonishingly good poet is as solid and certain ■as that .Rob^rls is an astonishingly gocd bi!l'"ard-player. If anyone M]s me that There- has fallen a splendid -tear From the passion-flower at the gate, » , or that . . <■ , Tears from the depth of some divine despair, j is not fine poetry, Icm quite prepared j to treat him as I would -on-e who said j that gra" -was not green, or that I was [ not corpulent. j Mr Chesterton's corpulence and Roberts the billiard-player come badly into the | argument, msthinks But humorou? batJios is a trick of this writer's trade/and his readers look for it. The personal d-stail— that be is a FalstafF,. a good portly man. i'faith, and a. corpulent — cr,ops up continually. To , bring in the burden of the - flesh ' allusively is to make light of it. Falstaff 'did the same before him. Passing this, however, Mid harking back to Teunyson. and, ths coldhe?s of the critics, T find. Mr Cliesl&rtcn's explanation curiously iuadgquai'e." Tennyson, he' says, taiks too much science, drawing-room e-ienf-e, end his science is bad. No -one , did more than Tennyson to popularise the doctrine of the survival of the fittest ; whereas we might with equal truth assert j the s-urviv.il of the fattest. This should i be news t-q '"Dinornis." And let me j register my own dissent. Not by any ; such paradoxical rea&on as Mr Chesterton ; assigns may the coldness of Tennyson's centenary critics be explained, if cold th-ey are Tennyson is "early ' Victorian," and there is a cant against that. His writing is- always correct, and there is a cant j against * " correctness." The Tennyson. \ poetry is not the " poetry of revolt," but. | of order, patriotism, the decencies of j domestic life, and — above all — of religious faith. These are sufficient reasons for damning it with faint praise. A modern po?t of the first rank who is as definitely religious in motive as Cowper or Dr Watts, not tc mention Dante and Milton, j may count with certainty on detraction, j The oetter his poetry, the wores his j offence.

■ Whether Tennyson's evolution doctrines be sound or unsound, he at any rate got them in early. It is Tennyson first. Darwin and Wallace (bracketed equal) sv good second. Says the Spectator. " Tennyson^ actually set down some of the main principles of the Darwinian hypothesis in advance of Darwin." A cot respondent of the same paper gives examples :—: — The solid earth whereon we tread In tracts of fluent heat bngen, ,*tkl r-p" r to <=erni""c - -r"-fl '■" firms, Tlip seeming pvey of cyclic 'torms, , Till at the k.»t arose Hie man; . . . Move upward, workrig out Vie beast, And !< v t the a),o and tiper die. The*» lino«. with others of 'iks tenor, weir- published, he points out, "nine \onvs l-pforp Darwin's epoch-making \jlunie. " Then there are airships. inpch.Miir birds of monstrous wing, that Hit acres tho Channei, and even in' lrmote Otaso overcome us like a summer < lo'id or midn'jjht, wraith, scarine; folk out of their five wits; — since airships been me a rea-litv there has been much, minting; of TYn/iyson's forecast in '• Locks kv TTaH." For I dipt in+n the future, far as human p-"o roirld Fpe S?w ths T-~i=io:i tf the -world, and all tjie \vov*ier ihp.t w^u'd h? ■ , ?an tV"> lir>Tvpn= fl!l v.jt'n comtiicrce, argoMf H r,' T.O r ic '■P.l'lS Pilot- (' lie '.'.:, )!p t"-Hi-'lit chopping ''o,t '\.'.'i c~ ;t ly V"!?=: > T e^nl 'h? !■• .- t >= h'l " itii -berting. and From fio nation o .' s>irv j'avio= giapphng in t'.<c ff.ntrai ! .'u.o. " Poetn," the maker or imstjinor: " vatps." the seer and prophet ; — ottr old s'-hool friends the ancifnt Unmans were npvf-r abl" quite to m?ka ud their minds b'tw^r-n ili'j-3 two words; UFacre chortoed t ibr^ from one, to the other,, Tfhe modem " poet " comprehends both.. t j -

Emepsrinc-from behind a : curt&fn where." sitting invisible, he had judged a QrajjdChoir Contest transacted- -on t'&& .stage, and had endured for a 1 at retell if four

and a-half v hours-^-Says" the "Daily Times reporting^the final spasm of the Dunedii Competitions — Mr Orchard presented him. self dripping with sweat and at the poini of exhaustion. We may well believe it, The hktqry^of competitions in mu«ic an<* drama v gpfes a long ! way back; bui nevei have there been competitions qinta lika these. The" ' shepherds -in Virgil who compete in antiphonal couplets would have thought It shame to say tho_ suns thing over and over. So also the Thespian who smeared his face with wini lees the better to contend in song for I the prize of a he-goat — Carmine gui tragico- vilem certavil ol» hircum. So again at the Athenian competitions, when dramatist strove with dramatist, the honours .falling now to j3sschylus, now to Sophocles, now to Euripides, — nothing was heard twice, we' may ba sure of that. But the doom of Mi Orchard, unhappy man, was to hear tha same thing sung by six full-voiced choira in. succession. Earlier in the day he had listened to five-and-twenty versions of " O rest in the ; Lord " (awarding first place to _ " the competitor who was least flat "), and half-a-score varieties of " I know that my Redeemer liveth." besides a dozen or two each of " Who n Sylvia?" and other classics. After all I this, and when the six choirs had done with him, we find him exuding misery at every pore and ready to drop. Small wonder. For a musician miking an experience of this nalure therp are manji things distressful ; but it is not the <_m,v= and failures that shatter himjmost ; it ;, not the musical murders at "whiih he i* condemned to assist; it is not the tumulr and the shouting. What kills 'is thdamnable iteration. . As a judge in mnsi> Mr Orchard doubtless knows his hr.\ nees. lie it ours to hope that his judicial proceedings will tend to edification, — his singular candour, in particular; also hi* summary executions :—": — " Off with hi* •head! So much for Buckingham." For poor Buckingham himself, alack, nnt much : but we may suppose him decapitated for the encouraging of the others

From a correspondent : An English paper states that from » small township on the Cornish coa c t a detachment of tbe newly-raised Territorials recently went into camp. Amongst the number there was . a very young subaltern, newly appointed., and a "cheerful private who, though not m the same rank in life, knew the officer perfectly well, and was in .the habit of seeing him daily. The first e\-ening the lieutenant returned to camp and passed ■ close ta a sentry, who took no uotic* of him. He called the man and asked. "Why did you not challenge me?" His fellow townsman replied with a beaming smile and, the suspicion o£ a cheery * wink, " Well, sir, it did seem a pit] for us to fall out the Very first evening' in oamp." My correspondent thinks that thus illustration of the relations existing between i officers and men in the territorials b&<» j be of interest to the now" scattered and sundered North Dunedin Rifles. The j relations existing? They wouldn't long I exist in that form. If the subaltern s*d | the sentry didn't fal' out the firet pven- • ing in - camp, they certainly would od ; the second; the same things happening. I Civis.

A Times reporter on the 29th approached Lieutenant-colpnel Smyth, O.C. Otago district, with a view to seeing if he was -prepared to say anything by way of reply to the- staterr.snts that were made at tha valedictory ' social' held on Friday last in connection with the disbanding of the North Dunedin Rifles. All that Colonel Smyth was prepared to say was as follows: — "Tha eminsntly sensible remarks of the last speaker, Mi? Harraway, who showed a good grasp-of hi 3 subject, were most refreshing after the ludicrous display of ignorance on the par.fc of the other speakers on the most elementary military matters, which only served to demonstrate the felly of people interfering in mattere about which they know nothing."-

I Heredity versus environment was touches upon by the Rev. E.. A. Axelssn at the meeting of the Presbyterian Social Servico Association on Sept. 28. The -j.raker say« •'t a3 his opinion, which he. '.irked with that of Dr Graham (of Ka{ * ; •(■,•" am 1 the late Dr^Barnardo, that no - 4 •-- wh .? the parentage or ancestry ni L"s — uin children would grow up in^» moial and useful citizens, provided they •.. ere remo\ ?o from undesirable, and placed in whobsjme environment whi|e young. The tendsr of : E. 11. Clark, of Palmer ston. of £5212 for the erection of build ■ings at the Palmersfon Sanatorium f oi Consumptives has been accepted \y ilu Hospital Board. At an Ambulance" Association enar"irta. t:on recantiy held in the neighbourhood of Dunadin it is said ths eKaminfi^ I^fi the beaten track an J asksd 'the candidates v. ho were ladies to de^n-ibf a simpii ■ niotlel home of five rooms. The result was a torrent of -exquisite lax^Liago, pula tiul oil* ii onni.-nt, and a few '_j:jw. Sonij of the- i.iiididatca arc said to have .sacr jresitcd auuo'na^ic a->h-removerh. Punu auto iiiatie cr-al-b i.ikers, and son c dirt?), 00l dv. c!! rigs. Rumour has it that one lady thought it umvi&s to b& too particu'nr, l.ecauso the nienfo'lk 'would get scared ; while another concluded that a modi»l born* ' without a husband was not >jr h h> :iig in. 'The g«m" of gem's came, l^o'.wev&y, ,'»opx the , lady t who frank)y avowed she wqu'.d' do anytluag fqr, a ,man. , .Who can^sa^, after th^so-, frank- stait-amentg, t;-at th.-» mind* of our womenrfiolk rim .only u^on^irierj' aud ge&-g&ws?_^|f-'ss suggestedUhat the 'cretrought to enibi-ac-e tliQir ' oiio'orhiriiti^ ~*' "