PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2934, 8 June 1910, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

It is said of Mr Eoosev.elt by his friends that he presents an interesting combination of St. Paul and St. Vitus. Moral earnestness and galvanic activities —that is how they sum him up. He preaches like an apostle, and he is totally unable to sit still. St._ Paul and St. Vitus-! A bantering criticism addressed to him by Mr Speaker' Reed is less obvious :—" Theodore, if there is one thing more than another for which I admire you, it is for your original discovery of the Ten Commandments." Banter him as they may, and laugh at him to the top of their bent, all Americans are proud of Just now "out o.f politics," he remains nevertheless the greatest political force in America. When he talks on • British affairs, as of late he has been moved to do, nobody asking him, we are to remember, first, that he has been the ruler of an 80-million Republic and may be again; consequently speaks out of a unique experience, and knows what belongs to government, good and bad. The next thing to remember, and the chiefest, is that" he has no motive to flatter us. These things borne in mind, it should stir the blood in every British citizen's heart and make his pulses fly to hear Mr Roosevelt's estimate of our position and work in Egypt, what we have done for Egypt, and what we must remain in Egypt yet to do. To the Daily News and its following of neurotic sentimentalists, as well as to the. Labour leaders who cannot see beyond the end of their own noses, the Roosevelt doctrine is gall and wormwood. But it is only by living up to the Roosevelt doctrine that Britain may hope to save—in spite of themselves—the Labour leaders from the German drill-sergeant, and the Daily News editor from acquaintance with the inside of a German fortress. As for our relation to the Cairo rabble calling itself the Egyptian Nationalist party, Kipling has the word in season : Take up the White Man's burden— And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard— The cry of hosts ye humour . (Ah, slowly!) toward the light: " Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Bg3-ptian night?" In Egypt as in India —Let the heathen rage, and let the people imagine a vain thing. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true. Having copied into this column from the Saturday Review a grave indictment against Sir Eldon Gorst as administrator of our affairs in Egypt, I am bound to add that in the following issue of that journal (April 23) appearance was made for the defendant. A Mr Mark Sykes, writing to the editor, entered a general denial. Sir Eldon Gorst had not flouted the religion of his countrymen, nor professed himself an atheist, nor proclaimed at a banquet the approaching downfall of the British Empire, nor dealt out discourtesies to the Duke of Connaught, nor winked at the escape of assassins. What weight may attach to the signature "Mark Sykes" I know not; but the Saturday Review stands to its guns. Says the editor :—" If we have been misinformed as to any minor details, such as the precise dress in which the British Agent-General received the Duke of Connaught, or his mode of travelling, we regret it. B'ut our correspondent only indulges in a number of vigorous negatives which really prove nothing." The contention of our article was that Sir Eldon Gorst has for <a long time past been pursuing a course, personal and public, injurious to British influence in Egypt, and that it would be to the interest of the Empire that he should cease to hold his present position. To that we adhere. If our correspondent imagines that our view is based on information gained from, one source or at cne time only, he is mistaken. I notice corroborative signs in other newspapers, —in the Pall Mall Gazette, for example, where a correspondent writes —" It is high time that we in England realised that all is not well in Egypt, and that the magnificent heritage bequeathed by Lord- Cromer to his successor has been, and is being, sauan-

dered." But we shall hear more. Imputations of bad faith and bad conduct made by a journal of the first rank against an Imperial official of the first rank can hardly pass without consequence.

What is a creche ? Nothing English, or we should have -an English word for it. In France, where Foundling Hospitals are in vogue, "creche" (literally crib, manger, hence cradle) is the name given to institutions for minding the babies of charwomen whilst the charwomen are doing their charing. It is an institution of the French slums, imitated in slummy London; and in the papers just now there is a oretty story of a visit paid to Mr Pett Ridge's creche at Hoxton by Madame Re jane, French actress from Covent Garden; —how she tried to make friends with the inmates of the cots, " all under the age of one year"; how she fondled in particular a howling mite known as the " Spring Chicken"; and how -(best of all) she left behind her a bank note wherewith to pay the expense of the institution for one day. It is proposed, I observe, to establish a creche in Dunedin—several creches; since it is obvious that a washerwoman at South Dunedin or North-JEast Valley who in. the morning had to deposit her baby somewhere in the Octagon—at the Town Hall, say—and to reclaim it in the evening would find ber washing moments and her washing energies seriously encroached an. Accordingly the propounder's idea is.a creche "in each of the different parts of the city." Which programme, as one sees at a glance, opens up an attractive vista of nurses, managers, inspectors, visjting committees, subscription gatherers, public meetings, and annual reports, with other delights.

Here let me interpose an item of ancient history. Some five-and-twenty .years ago, when Dunedin had fewer Much Ado About Nothing societies than it has to-day, and there were times at which ladies of leisure, not knowing what to do with themselves, felt bored to extinction, cropped up in a happy moment this same idea of a creche. It was an idea that came welcome and " caught on." Till, in an unhappy moment, some prosaic person took to calculating. It was found that the Dunedin charwomen who had babies, or might reasonably be expected to have babies, were capable of supplying the creche with one "minder " (baby to mind per week, —one - and a fraction, to be exact). .That was how the estimated average panned, out. It was a sore blow and heavy discouragement. For consolation, possibly in revenge, the quack Dhilanthrqpists of the period settled down upon founding a " Servants' Home," —it stands in Howe Street at this hour to witness if I lie; —which " Servants' Home " the " servants " with one consent refused to inhabit, repudiating the suggestion with scorn. But the self-elected Saviour of Society doesn't expect gratitude. What he expects is a satirical Passing. Note. It remains, however, that after well nigh three decades we come back to the creche. From the point of view of mere economics (which is a -base point of view) I suggest an alternative—a society and a fund (with committee and officials all complete) for paying charwomen to stop at home and mind their own babies. We should save money by it. The Dunedin meeting which this week evolved, or resurrected the creche is responsible also for a proposed novelty in legislation. Said the chairman: If, after the lapse of a certain time from an offence, and during that time the individual has been living a blameless life, some person were to rake up his past, then tihat person should be criminally liable. Hear, hear! The grammar is bad, but the sentiment makes amends. There are •citizens of standing, justices of the peace and what not, who in their earlier days robbed orchards and kissed the wronggirl behind the door. Are these prehistoric crimes to be disinterred? Is the dread of it to be for ever hanging over the man's head, a sword of Damocles? A friend of mine was once junior stamplicker in a bank. Entering the premises one morning at the back, he passed through an apartment in which a woman, whom he took for the laundress, was kneeling at a basket of linen. Stooping, he lifted her skirt by the hem and turned it neatly over her head. Then he passed on. It was no laundress; it was the mistress of: the house, the manager's wife. To-day, when my friend is a kirk elder, vir pietate gravis, would it be right to bring up this enormity against him in kirk session? There was a similar case in the report of the Police Commission. A man who had thieved or burbled in New South Wales came over to New Zealand and entered the police force. What better thing could a repentant thief do than help to catch thieves still unrepentant? But the police authorities—having by chance of photograph or finger-prints identified the New Zealand policeman with the New South Wales burglar—took a different view. To adopt the words of the chairman above referred to. they " brutally confronted the man with his past record, causing; him unutterable confusion and dismay." Then they dismissed him. Later, the Commissioner of Police, Mr Dinnie, was himself dismissed, it is true, but for other causes: I am trying to school myself to the belief that "Mr Dinnie. for persecuting this poor penitent, should have been held " criminallv liable " and incarcerated in one of his own prisons.

Since Virgil glorified them in his Georgics—not to go hack to Theocritus and Hesiod—the of the farm have enjoyed a prescriptive right on state occasions to be treated poetically. In Dunedin. at this tail end of the week, we are just emerging from a state occasion. The Opening of an Agricultural Show is no day for calling a spade a spade. It is a day for calling a spade an agricultural implement. This vie'.;- Dmrnendinor ii*e\i

to Mr Mackenzie, the Honourable Tanfc Minister of Agriculture, his talk was not of bullocks, or in part only. His talk was of Nero who fiddled and of Roma that burned—good old tags ; of Michael Angelo and Dante; also of " Micheavilli " —as the linotype has it, a deplorable lapse. Inexplicable a 6 well, since at any gathering of Otago farmers there are always more Macs than Micks. The linotype must have been sampling Irish' whisky instead of Scotch. " Machiavelli "- would be Mr Mackenzie's word, and doubt* less he got it off proudly. There is aJso an air of distinction in his reference t-C sayings of the French President. Some time ago the President of the French Republic, in an address, referring to the freeholders gathered before him, said that each man was a muskefe for the defence of the State, and that . he regarded tlhem as the ballast of th* ship which carried the success of the nation. Something wrong here. A cultivated Frenchman doesn't mix his metaphors. The national instinct for logic and cleat! thinking prevents it. No French Presi-i dent ever told an audience that hei regarded each one of them as a musket and the lot of them collectively as ballast, —be assured of that. I suspect whisky] again ; Scotch this time. Later, and in another connexion, ex> plaining things done or not done iij respect of an experimental farm, Mr Mac-: kenzie said—" they have been whipping the cat ever since I got into office."What is the foundation of this saying' "whipping the cat"? I ask for infor-: mation, strictly and- simply. When doe* anyone whip a cat? And what is th» cat's behaviour while being whipped? This locution, "whipping the cat," may, be bracketed for want of intelligibility, with another, also Scotch —" pulling the leg." To hoax a man with a lying story is to "pull his leg." Literally and iru fact, when does aebody pull aebody's leg? And supposing aebody did pull aebody's leg. in-what would that peculiar-process of traction correspond to a hoax? Comparisons incanable of explanation are not for use. What sense is there in talking of " Buckley's chance," as the Premierhas been doing this week, when nobodvi knows who Buckley was, or what his chance? A proverb, being the wisdom of many and the wit of one, always tells its story plain. You see its basis in' nature and in fact. But " whipping the } cat," "pulling the leg," and' "Buckley's chance" are mere nonsense phrases, to. be dropned by all and sundry who would 1 speak with intelligence. Civis.