PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2924, 30 March 1910, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Time 3.) Good Friday and Easter Sunday in lands still Christian are days of religious observance and obligation. In New Zealand they are days of picnics and junketing, of cheap excursions by train and steamer, of football contests and yachting races, of concerts, theatre matinees, and music hall "•" grand rational entertainments." If some of these delights are limited to Good Friday, it is not because Easter Sunday is Easter, but because it is Sunday, and there still haunts the public mind a notion that Sunday retains the awful prerogatives of the Puritan Sabbath. Our fathers, curiously enough, would have done any or all of these things on Sunday, —but first they would have gone to mass. On Good Friday they would have done none of them. In duo time the mass departed ; but not Sunday sports on the village green. That slobbering Solomon, James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland, whom his neighbour Henry IV of France accounted. " the wisest fool in Europe," gave Sunday sports a new lease. By royal Declaration he sanctioned for Sunday use after church hours a programme of what in Otago Ave should/' call Caledonian Games ; and he stipulated that only people who had been to church should take part in them. His son and successor, Charles I, had this sapient Declaration read in churches.; Bur the Puritans, who by this time were about to arrive, had it burned by the common hangman. The Puritanns stiil shape in large degree our thinking abotit Sunday. As to Good Friday, and what befits so solemn an anniversary, it is a matter, of taste aind good feeling. You cannot argue about taste and good feeling. If you have it, you have it. If you have it not, there is no more to be said.

Nobody accepts Mr G. K. Chesterton as an authority in theology, and ethics; none the less, however, does he continue to pronounce on the same. And often to good effect. Some remarks of his on the moral value of frivolity may help -iia to think ourselves still a Christian people notwithstanding the frivolous -tarn we give to Good Friday. A characteristic of the great saints, he says, is their power of levity.

Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say. that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking oneself gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than 4 good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap, ft is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. Satan fell by the.force of gravity. We are not to hear in this the tone of a mocker. In the same pages he records of himself an evangelical oonversion.- " I**was a pagan at the age of twelve," he say 3 (a healthy boy not uncommonly is) —" and a complete agnostic at the age of.sixteen. All that I had hitherto heard of Christian theology had alienated me from it." It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodoxy. They sowed in my mind my first wil3 doubts of doubt. Our grandmothers were quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the free-thinkers ■unsettled the ■ mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. The rationalist made me question whether reason was of any use whatever; and when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for the first time) whether evolution had ever occurred at all. As I laid down the last of Colonel Inger- ' soli's lectures the dreadful • thought! broke cross my mind, " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'"' I was in a desperate way. This and what follows might not satisfy Dr Torrey and Dv Chapman. For _my_ own parti think it sincere and illumina- : tive. The reason Haeckel, Ingersoll, and. Go. do not produce the same wholesome effect on our local " Progressives " must be that our local '.' Progressives" lack logic.

Here let me add in a. word that Mr Chesterton, in handling critically his

brother chip Mr H. G. Wells, has not sr> far as is known applied to him the epithet " deceased," though I appear to be affirming as much in last week's Notes. It is joy to me to notice that Mr Gr. K. Chesterton, after the exchange of many inverted compliments between himself and Mr BE. G. Wells,' fiyes c-n the' other the epithet "deceased," or says at least that Wella raises the ruinous banner of. evila that belong only to a decadent age. Which verdict, observe', was earlier than " Ann Veronica." gibbetted by the Spectator as a " poisonous book."

It was not " deceased" that I wrote but " decadent." This is a newspaper printing office of good intentions and fair intelligence ; yet see how strange a thing may befall us any night in the storm and stress of the wee short hour' ayont the twaP. What reads " decadent " in copy and proof, when you open your morning paper reads " deceased," Mr Chesterton, of course, is a writer who may say anything. As Voltaire remarked (unreasonably) of the prophet Habakkuk, he is " capable du tout." When he says anything more incomprehensible than usual, his readers humble themselves to reproach their own intelligence and pray for light. But he has . not said, I repeat with emphasis, that Mr Wells when writing "Ann Veronica" -was already "deceased."

The refusal of the Asquith Government to collect the income tax (except from their own salaried 'officers) means something more than what the Americans call " cussedness." It means a plot and a plan. There exists a financial chaos which is to be nourished and cherished for the discrediting of the Lords, —that first. It is of their making, says the Government; theirs be the blame. I should have thought that the situation since the, election was of the country's ma-king; it is the country, not the House of Lords, that has denied to the Asquith Government a valid majority.- However, let that pass. The main purpose for which the financial chaos is being kept chaotic is that it may be handed over unimpaired to the other side. The Government idea is to put Mr Balfour in office along with the chaos; and then, by 'the help of the malcontent Irish and Labour vote, to refuse Supply.- This is the.plot and this the plan, say the tables. Now refusing Sunnly is a hit below the belt, —a foul blow unworthy of either side. Hitherto it has been the'honourable tradition of both Whig and Tory, Conserva-. tive and Liberal, that the KingV Government must be carried on. Accordingly the present Opposition has offered to assist in obtaining Supply. To refuse Supply is to bring the King's Government to confusion, to paralyse all things in deadlock. I don't seem to recognise here Mr Asquith, Mr Haldane, Sir Edward Grey. This ; s the larrikin ele : ' ment in the Ministry. We need 'name no names, but a larrikin element there is. And here you have it.

Election stories worth repeating have already been repeated, most of them. Hei-e and there a stray one, new or. old, still comes to the net, sometimes a timely reminiscence of elections dead and gone. Thus;-apropos?, of -canvassing, there- is a story of Charles Fox,—that j n oneof his many election campaigns he called at the shop of a rabid opponent. ''Vote for you V said the inan,. picking up, a piece of rope. ■•'' I'd .sooner Miangi i-you with this rope!" "Very interesting," remarked Fox /blandly, examining "the cord. " A family relic,. I . presume." Apropos of the demand for Home Rule, some one quotes the saying of a distinguished Irishman and Roman Catholic. Judge Morris, who was an ornament of the Irish bench :—" British i-ule in Ireland has been the attempt of an honest stupid people to govern a quick-witted dishonest people." Lord Morri6 could be of a singular candour when talking either to or of his own countrymen. In an Irish case tried before him the jury had been --complimented by counsel on both sides as "sagacious," " fareeeing," " enlightened," and so forth. "Gentlemen." said he, "ye may be the most intelligent, enlightened, and sagacious body of jui'ymen in all Ireland; but all I can say is, gentlemen, ye don't look it."

My other election stories are not. so much humourous as curious or scandalous. In the NorTli Paddine;ton contest his Honor Judge Rentoul, speaking at a meeting on behalf of the Unionist candidate, delivered himself as follows : I hope to see you all again—somewhere —(laughter)—and I want to give you a word of earnest advice. When you are in the dock at the Old Baileydaughter)—don't pretend to know raei, hut pass uo & note bearing the wowifej "North Paddington," and I will do the best I can for you. —(Loud laughter and cheers.) Imagine one of our New Zealand Judge* committing himself after this fashion. When Sir Robert . Stout, speaking at. a dinner at one of the Inns of Court, told the assembled bench and bar that they might learn something from their professional brethren at the Antipodes, we admired his courage whilst questioning his taste. But, really, it looks as though Sit Robert were right. Next is an", election incident that will repay study.' Father Adderlev appears to be a. Church .of England vicar, a Socialist, and ~ the brother of a peer .'. , . : ...'._.,..". Among much comic relief furnished by the general election is the fact that Father Adderley, the well-known Socialist vioar of Saltley, feels compelled to "add -to his advertisement for. a curate , the ■ qualification "Tory preferred." Ip. jus- . •tifLcation he explains:—"For five years I have been the object of abuse by the Tories of Saltley because I have consistently supported Labour representation. Personally, I find no difficulty in acoepting the spiritual ministrations of my political opponents. Many of mv congregation are not built that way, on<l I thought it good to provide tbem I a Tory, as I have three Independenv

Labour Party curates." Father Adderley adds: "My curates are insulted if they dare to ask the employers for help for our poor mission districts; and, as all the world knows, my own, brother (Lord Norton) has withdrawn : his subscriptions," •■. ' ' .] " It, :

Finally, here is a touching specimen of devotional poetry from a Nonconformisl chapel:

Take my vote, and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. \ Take my hand, and let it trace Crosses in the proper place. Apparently the British ballot paper denies you the moral satisfaction of scoring out the man you don't want; you must nut a cross against the man you do want. The same peddling reform is invading New Zealand. It will be a bad day for the Prohibitionists when thev can no longer exhort each other in" chorus—- " Strike out the top line !" In the case above, notwithstanding the divinely guided " crosses in the proper place," the chapel favourite, sad. to say, came in after the winner.

Anent these "science problems " into which I incautiously dropped a fortnight back., space fails me to do justice to the correspondents now on the job. The "missile" incident is closed;—see the letter of " Roslyn" last week. "Glen Road Mornington " may be permitted to repeat one of his questions. Your " Oracle" misunderstood my second question, probably owing to my poor way of putting it. Will you permit me to, try again? If a vessel has 100 ft of water under her keel, does she float better than she would with only 2ft of water under her keel, all other things being eqiial?

And to him " Baker Street Caversham '■ may be permitted to make reply.

A body floating in water displaces exactly its own weight of water. The only thing which can cause alteration in volume of water displaced is an alteration iii density of the water. The pressure on the surface of both deep - and shallow water is the same (atmospheric pressure), and thus the density is the same. Thus the body floats equally well in deep and shallow water, so long as there is sufficient water for it to float at all.

All the same, sailors, believe that a ship in motion loses speed if she " smells the ground,"—that is, if her keel is within a few inches of the bottom.

• There remains one other "probjem,"— the change of "weight in bodies as they ara .moved towards or from the equator. Here is a correspondent who makes th» acute remark""that' the weights in tho opposite .scale, falling under the same ia.w, % would gain or lose equally with the body weighed. But lie himself supplies tha answer.

' To :, "Cms": Dear Sir,—Re t::e weight of gold (or other commodities) its different parts of the world. Without ,'wishing to "carp," or even raise .a discussion, I would like to remark that if the said gold were weighed by the usual scale and dead or counte. weights, they would increase or. decrease in weight wherever the gold did, and consequently it would weigh the same everywhere. If, however, spring balances were used, (and'they well might, be. in:those .but-ofi.' the-way places), I believe, th,e case,.,itiigat be as you ,_ remark, Rnc^'- ; >i!ieie 'would . ■be a."' shortage oh coming nearer '.. theequator. Could yen get; .'sdrrie professor , (or: shall "We say the usual auier pen) to ~ <give-' a final pronouncement -on - this?— ejH,/.iM. D. /- ' -•" /'"-,., A professor, or an 'abler pen, he wants! This- is cool, to be*--'sure* ; .'Havel I not explained that for dark questions .of tht* calibre we. have""a-, professor on thepremises, the P.Dl—letters'which stand equally for "Printer's Devil" and "Problem Department." Moses and Son kept a. poet ; why may not Passing Notes keep a professor? However, to take, away, occasion of stumbling, I quote a. sentenca or two from a text book by Professor I Adams, with a number of engineering distinctions after his name. , ~• A body carried from the equator to a. pole remains unchanged as to mass, but gains h. per cent, 'as to weight. A body weighs at sea level one two-hundred-and-, ' .ninety-fifth less at the equator than in. - London; due partly to centrifugal force, and partly to difference in,distance from, centre of gravity of the.earth —i.e., ita centre. A body .weighing 2001 bat the equator weighs 2011 bat the poles; half of the increase is due to shorter TBdiua. and remainder to absence; of centrifugal force. '■ " .-" . If .further satisfaction is; wanted, applj Public Library. Dear " Civfs," —Here is your chanc* (if you are free to accept) fo en.joy the coining holidays:— . .■ Young lady, fond motoring and driving, wants -gentleman companion Easter holidays—Select, Times Office. You need not necessarily.-' disclose your i hidden identity either, and it might be an honour for the young, lady to have. entertained the Civis ; It is not clear who pays the piper.'' ■. .. ~ , £ It is the young lady that will pay tK« piper, since it is she that flings the tend* kerchief. To put it another, way, th* piper will claim, bis fee from whoeyw calls the tune. It is a (.fee that. .-will not be discharged in the motor expenses-. The piper himself will present his bill' in due course, and may be trusted to collect., it with due rigour. , The sugg*s« tion that 1 should offer< myself up \aM /:i 9t | companion to this giddy motor-tnaadi—* i with a. view probably to giving heir good [ M vice—has • merit. -But" I - hasten' to 1 decline. My reputation wouldn't stand ? the &train. "* ■ Cnns. ;