PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3031, 17 April 1912, Page 11

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Duly Timas.)

That the Ohapman-Alexande-r mission should be short of money is a surprise. Worse, it is a shock; and the four local ministers who disclose the fact in a curiously worded letter to the Daily Times are not far from thinking it a scandal. They expect a deficit of £l5O, and "feel that the'good name of this city for generosity is at stake." I suggest that their feelings are in the wrong place. If any good name is at stake, it is not the good name of the city. What about the Brydone Hall crowd? Night after night the mission booms along with an attendance of thousands. According to the newspaper census a normal muster round the Chap-man-Alexander platform would be 3500. Can it be that these people do not value their privileges at the price of a picture entertainment? Thirty-five hundred shillings are £175 by my arithmetic. Unless the four local ministers are exceptionally bad at figures they must bring it out in the same way. Probably they have already done so, for they end their letter with the frank confession: "We are confident that a knowledge of the facts is all that the citizens need." Precisely. And the facts are, first, prospective deficit, £150; next, thirty-five hundred mission beneficiaries at a shilling a head, £175; which is £25 to the good. To think of this pounds-shillings-and-pence intrusion as a bathos is natural but wrong. Yet we might have been warned of it earlier. There would have been kindness in admonishing us from the outset that the spiritual dynamics of a Chapman-Alexander mission couldn't be separated from its mechanism and its economics. As enumerated in the Outlook, the mission party tots up to a round dozen; —the preaching evangelist, the singing evangelist, a secretary for each, a solo singer, a pianist, and six "aftermeeting" workers, five of them ladies. These good people do not live on air, nor are they wafted about on angelwings. A visiting dramatic troupe comes avowedly for money, and gets it. Mr H. B. Irving, and Miss Irving who followed him, are said to have carried off between them £SOOO of Dunedin money, and nobody* hurt. The Chapman-Alexander party comes on the "free Gospel" principle, and at the end we are told that for want of £l5O the good name of the city is at stake. Not that the missioners themselves are asking for money. Far from it; —this and other ChapmanAlexander missions, say the four local ministers, "arc run at a considerable loss to the two principals" : a commercial way of putting it which invites the commercial comment —" Bad bucinet-s." Running missions at a loss is creditable to the public spirit of the losers, and they are lucky in being able to stand it; but it is bad business all the same. Hardly fair to us, moreover. Tell us straight out what a thing is to cost, and if we take it we will pay for it. My this mission party, and of its two principals, in particular, is that they are above mercenary considerations. So thinks all Dunedin. But on matters financial, as darkly illuminated by our four local ministers, Dunedin will think that among memorials of the mission it might not be amiss to include a balance 6heet. Pledge-breaking, no longer repudiated as a crime or extenuated as a pardonable weakness, is now preached as a virtue. Among labour politicians the progression has been pretty nearly as in Pope's quatrain : Vice is a monster of so hideous mien, As, to bo hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. Pledges bind nobody. Use them to get what you want : and then, when you have got it, "To Gehenna with pledges!" — said a Socialist on the stump the other day ; except that his word for " Gehenna " was better known and shorter. From the 'Wellington correspondent of the Daily Times comes this: Mr P. 11. Hickey, of the Federation of Labour, and another Socialist speaker, met a heckler at an open-air mooting in Ghuznee street loet evening. The ititerjector rallied Mr Hickey on breaking an agreement with the era-

ployers. Mr Hickey said he would rerepudiate ten thousand agreements if it would help the workers. After rebuking Mr Hickev for his point of view the questioner said ," And yet you call upon God—." Mr Hiokey quickly replied, " I do not believe such a person exists."

Air mickey's ethics are explained by his theology. 'Pledge-breakers may take no--tice to what school of thinking they belong. In that earlier Socialist movement called the French Revolution there were Hickeys galore. Said one of them, discussing National Education, " I am free to avow, M. le President, that I for my part am an 'Atheist;" —thinking the ■world might like to know that, remarks Garlyle. At a later stage the French Hickeys reached somehow the opinion that if the'Creator did not exist it was necessary to invent him; accordingly they "decreed" his existence. Yes, "decreed " was the word. Thenceforth the Supreme Being, " Etre Supreme," had a piace amongst the Articles of the Constitution, Republic One and Indivisible. What became of these French Hickeys in the 'end? The guillotine got most of them ; and those that the guillotine didn't get were dispersed into space by Napoleon's " whiff of grape-shot."

Dear " Cms," —Tour interesting stories about Badajos and Ciudad Rodrigo in last week's issue remind me of one told of Lord Clyde. On his return from the Crimea he was appointed Inspector of the itcme District. One day as he cam© through the gate of Aldershot Camp an old man standing by straightened himself up, and gave the military salute. Sir Colin —he was Sir Colin Campbell then—returned it and looked at him; the old man said, " You will not know me, Sir Colin." The General looked keenly at him again, and said, "You were so-and-so of my company," and gave bis regimental number. " The last time I saw you we wore lying together wounded in the great breach of San Sebastian." Ho then put his hand in his pocket to bring out some money, but the old man said, '• It is not that I want, sir; but I have a son in the Inniskillings, and you will be inspecting the depot at Chatham; I would like if you would call him to the front and tell him you know his father."

Not easy is it to-day to picture the men of those old wars that gave us our British inheritance. We say of them piously Their swords are rust, Their bones are dust, Their souls are with the saints wo trust, yet dismiss their memory lightly. Professor Oman, our latest authority on the Peninsular War, says in a preface to his reprint of Grattan's " Adventures with the Connaught Rangers,"—" Nowhere else have I seen the psychology of the stormers of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos dealt with in such a convincing fashion." This encourages me to quote, and my readers (I hope) to read. Grattan was a subaltern in the 88th, Connaught Rangers, part of the force besieging Ciudad Rodrigo. It was now 5 o'clock in the aftorr.oon, and darkness was approaching fast, yet no order had arrived intimating- that we were to take a part in the contest about to be decided. We were in this state of suspense when our attention was attracted by the sound of music; wo all stood up and pressed forward to a ridge a little in our front. It wo dd be impossible to convey an adequate idea of our feelings when we beheld the 43rd Regiment preceded by their band going to storm tho left breach. They were in the highest spirits, but without tho slightest appearance of levity in their demeanour — on the contrary, there was a cost of determined severity thrown over their countenaneos that expressed in legible characters that they knew tho sort of service they were about to perform, and had made up their minds to the issue. They had no knapsacks —their shirt collars were open—their firelocks were slung over their shoulders, and there was an indescribable sometiiin'G about them that impressed the lookerson witto admiration and awe. In passing us, each officer and njan - stepped out of the ranks for a moment as he recognised a friend, to press his hand—many for the last time; yet, notwithstanding this animated scene, there was no shouting or huzzaing, no boisterous bravadoihg, no unbecoming language; in short, every one seemed to be impressed with the seriousness of the aifair entrusted to his charge, and any intorchange of words was to this effect: " Well, lads, mind what you're alxmt to-night"; or, " We'll meet in the town bv and by"; and other little familiar phrases, all expressive of confidence. The regiment at last passed us. and we stood gazing after it as long as the rear platoon continued in sight; the music grew fainter every moment, until it died away altogether; they had no drums, and there was a melting sweetness in the sound that touched the heart. The first syllable uttered efter this scene was. " And are we to be left behind?" The interrogatory was scarcely put when the word. " Stand to your arms!*' answered it. The order was promptly obeyed, and a breathless silence prevailed when our commanding officer in a few words announced that Wellington had directed our division to carry the grand breach. The soldiers listened with silent earnestness, and immediately began to disencumber themselves of their knapsacks, which were placed in order by companies %nd a guard set over them. Each man then began to arrange himself for the combat as his fancy or the moment would admit of—some by lowering their cartridge boxes, others by turning theirs to uie front that, they might the more conveniently make use of thorn; others unclasping their stocks or opening their shirt-collars, and others oiling their bayonets. It was by this time half-past 6 o'clock. tho evening was piercingly cold, and tho frost was crisp on the grass. . . We stood '•uietly to our arms, and told our companies off by files, sections, and subdivisions; the sergeants called over the rolls —not a man was absent. And so the story runs on, telling of the furious struggle by which Ciudad was

wrested from the French at a cost to the | British of 1300 men. I{ in contrast with this we read the proceedings at an j " anti-military " demonstration at Auckland this week, we are left to blush for our country. i More Prohibition statistics. Mr G. B. Nicholls, labouring in his vocation as Prohibitionist Secretary, has interrogated the rifle champion of New Zealand on his personal habits. I took the liberty of writing to Mr Loveday to ask if he were a total abstainer, and he courteously replied, " I drink nothing stronger than hot water, and don't mind your making use of the fact." It is evident that the absence of alcoholic liquor 13 desirable for accurate shooting. Also the absence of tea, since the courteous Mr Loveday drinks nothing stronger than hot water. Indeed it has long been recognised that Prohibition logic is as fatal to the tea habit as to the whisky j habit. Tea-drinking induces dyspepsia; dyspepsia is the fertile parent of crime. In every jail and lunatic asylum throughout the land may be found the victims of the treacherous teapot and the baleful billy. .j Unfortunately you are never safe with ' this " post hoc ergo propter " argument. Let me invite Mr Nicholls to continue his researches, taking next the case of Mr E. T. Hooley. the eminent financier, now in jail for fraudulent company promoting; which case, by a lucky chance, he will find described in the selfsame number of the Daily Times that contains his letter glorifying Mr Loveday. What manner of ' man was Hooley ? Read : Of a musical turn of mind, he became a useful member of the Long Eaton Baptist Chapel, at which he played the harmonium. For these servioes, and, doubtless, as much for a spotless reputation as a non-drinker, non-smoker, and non-swearer, he was presented by the congregation with a handsome clock. Loveday drinks hot water and wins a rifle championship; Hooley practises an equal rigour and gets imprisonment with hard labour. Post hoc ergo propter. There is nothing like logic. And now, to show that there is no ill will, let me present Mr Nicholls with the imbecile suggestion of a correspondent for amending a classic epitaph to suit the Prohibition millen- j nium. Transferred unto the Halls of Sion Here lies the landlord of "The Lion"; Resigned unto the Heavenly Will, His son keeps on the business still! For " The Lion " substitute " The Shades," a popular name for a quiet bar; and, by poetic license stretching a point, pronounce " Shades " as a. word of two syllables'. Then we may have : Transferred unto the Halls of Hades, Here lies the landlord of "The Shades." Resigned unto the people's will, His son now runs a private still. Which is precisely what he would be likely to do, though not necessarily adver- j tising the fact on a tombstone. j Civis.