PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3099, 6 August 1913, Page 11

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Duly I’iuui.i

To the Mahometan mind the recovery of Adrianople presente itself as an evident miracle —the- finger of Allah. There are miracles in the Koran, but none to beat this; not even the journey of the Prophet to heaven on the beast Ai Borak, a journey of five hundred days, yet accomplished with such celerity that a jug of water he overturned when leaving had not completely emptied itself when he came back. Or that other journey—namely, from Mecca to Jerusalem, on a camel, which covered the distance in four bounds. Arc not Al Borak, and the camel, together with Balaam’s ass and Solomon’s ant that rebuked the sluggard, in Paradise to this day? Matters of faith these, and a joy to believe; but the prodigy of Adrianople is literally a thing of sight. 4 A great fortress lost by aiege and storm three months ago is got again for the mere trouble of walking in and taking possession, no shot fired, no blow struck. All Islam acclaims the miracle, and the Constantinople mosques are crammed with true believers giving thanks, —raollahs chanting their “Non nobis, Domine,” “Not tmto us, O Lord, the praise,” and dervishes howling it. Certainly, the praise is not theirs, r It is to their friends the enemy that they owe Adrianople recovered ; to the Bulgarians in chief, but also to the Greeks and the Servians, and even to the protesting “Powers,” once again proved powerless for any deterrent more effective than paralytic posturing and grimacing. To these, and to Shaitan, who inspired them, the Turkish thanks are really due. Shaitan, or Satan, which you will, has had more to say in these matters than Sir Edward Grey or any Chancellor in Europe. Either of the two frontier Powers —Austria and Russia —could sweep the Balkan countries as with a besom, ousting the Turk -and imposing peace; but as neither is allowed to do it, the jealousy of the other Powers forbidding, things go on as before to the devil’s entire content, and the beaten Turk takes courage to renew the war by land and sea. Apropos, we may now expect to hear again of the cruiser Hamidieh, whose midnight flit-tings in and out of Malta and Port Said, Greek destroyers dogging her in vain, were much to the credit of the Turkish navy. It was not always thus. According to Mr Lukach’s “ Fringe of the 1-last,” a book reviewed in recent English papers, manoeuvring in narrow waters used to be risky because the order “ Go astern ” might be answered by a shout from the engine room, “ Makina quizdi!” meaning that the engines were excited and angry, and would not agree to stop. Then there are these two stories : An Ottoman man-of-war was once ordered at very short notice to demonstrate against certain insurgents. “Start in half an hour,” said someone at the Ministry of Marine to the Commander. “ Pardon, Excellency, wo cannot.” “Fellow, why not?” “ Excellency, there is no rudder.” “ Imbecile, start at once; the rudder shall bo sent on by post.” An admiral newly appointed to the command of ilia Algean squadron installed himself on the new flagship in the Admiral’s quarters, which opened on to the stcrnwalk. “ The next morning ho awoke and said, “ Full speed ahead, by Allah.” So presently the propeller began to revolve, and as it had not moved since the 'ship was sold to the Turks, at more than cost price, by a Power which had no use for her, it made a fearful din. “ Allah,” cried the Admiral, “ what in the name of the Prophet is this uproar?” “The propeller. Excellency.” “ Stop it, then.” “ But the shin will stop. Excellency.” “Then take the thing off,” bellowed the Admiral, “and put it n the other end.” The smallpox epidemic seems slow to come south —thanks be! if I am allowed to say so. Mentioned in this column last week was a correspondent of tne Daily Times who would deny that immunity from smallpox is matter for thanks at all. He is still at it, denying and protesting. Smallpox, he affirms, is a cure for consumption and typhoid. So is prussic acid. There are remedies that I could name, simpler than smallpox and less expensive, any one of which would he a cure for all

the ills that flesh is heir to. The “ purifying influence ” of smallpox has no appeal for me; nor the swift and happy death it offers in alternative. “ Would ‘ Civis ’ prefer to die of smallpox, a disease which carries off its victims in the course of a few days, or, prior to his death taking place, to be racked day and night by a cough for a couple of years?’’ I prefer neither. No anti-vaccinator shall shut me up to any such dilemma; on the contrary, he will help me to laugh and grow fat. It is exhilarating to read that vaccination accounts for the numerous British surrenders in South Africa, partly because the precedent is of evil omen for Germany in the next war. In Germany vaccination is compulsory, and every conscript brought to the colours is revacclnated to start with. Moreover, as the evil of vaccination involves even the brute creatures, cows and horses losing their teeth and needing the services of a dentist, there is a poor outlook for the German cavalry. Which consideration again I find promotive of health and happiness, from a patriotic point of view. Vaccination may be the bane and smallpox the boon, but there seems no denying that the one is a bar lo the other. “In (Germany, since revaccination has been enforced, smallpox has been almost unknown. The few individuals who contract it are for the most part foreigners who have not been rcvaccinated. ” This is the testimony of the Lecturer on Infectious Diseases to the University of Edinburgh, Dr Ker, who is also Medical Superintendent of the City Hospital, Edinburgh, where—unfortunately. as I should say—smallpox is too ••well known. He adds this remark : My own experience of nurses is that a certain proportion will take the infectious disease that they are nursing. Each year secs some of our nurses down with diphtheria, scarlatina, measles, or enteric fever. When typhus appears, one or two nurses invariably take it. Smallpox alone is an absolutely safe disease to nurse. No heroism is required, repulsive as the work is. The revaccinated Tmrse is perfectly protected. “The only Edinburgh City Hospital nurse who contracted small)>ox in the Last c 0 years was also the only nurse who refused revaccination.” That leaves the matter quite olca-T. Whoever would make a bid for the purifying and regenerating influences of smallpox, let him renounce the devil and all his works, in other words defy and defeat the vaccinator.

“ Forty years on,” the school song, may not have been sung 40 years back; i don’t remember. Sung in the schools of to-day it suggests to the singers a dim perspective illimitable as eternity. There never was or could be a schoolboy imagination equal to feeling and picturing 40 years on. Yet we have the Otago High School celebrating its jubilee with old boys to the fore whose thoughts range easily through 50 years back to its babyhood, and still extant here and there a grey-haired sire who knew the High School before it was born and assisted to bring it into being. Time flies indeed; the moral is trite. But surely it was onlyyesterday that Mr J. G. S. Grant, “First Rector of the High School,” as he never ceased to proclaim himself, was haunting Bullen’s corner to buttonhole the wayfarer and sell him a libellous pamphlet. What Socrates was to the Athenians B.C.—a challenge and an irritant, that same was Mr J. G. S. Grant to the citizens of this newer Athens in the South ; and methinks 1 gee him yet. The Rev. Frank Simmons, 100, and his innocent discovery of “ the narrowest, driest, least humane of all religions”; —the echoes of that fateful controversy and the beatings of a’ ghostly drum ecclesiastic still reach mine ears. The High School was really a High School in those days, with nothing higher, the University itself in the womb of the future. Men knew they were getting a good thing for their boys, and they were willing to pay for it Whereas now? Well, the good thing is there still, but there isn’t the same direct paying for it. The school has been democratised and socialised beyond recognition. The pride of its Old Boys is pride in its past. And. by the way, where arc the Old Girls? Married to" the Old Boys for the most part, kt ns hope All the same their jubilee as much deserves jubilating as the other. Historically, as I have always understood, the Otago Boys and Girls’ High Schools were a twin birth. Reofton. 26th July, 1913. Dear “ Civis,” —No doubt you are aware that at our by-election—just washed up—we had the choice of three candidates—one “ Reform,” one Liberal (?), and one “Social Democrat.” —and that on the first ballot “Reform” came out on top. The supporters of Liberal-em then decided to vote for the Social Democrat, notwithstanding the fact that the latter told them at every meeting between the first and second ballot that ho despised them and held thorn in the utmost contempt, and would a thousand times prefer to be beaten rather than elected on their votes. This is interesting. Evidently the Socialist showed himself a proper stick-at-nothing Jacobin —“Pcrisse I’univers plutot qu’un Principe !” or “ The whole hog or none ! But by what name are our renegade “Liberals” to be known in the future? asks my correspondent. By what name? — they are not worth the trouble of inventing’ one. The rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and by any other name the skunk would smell as skunky. Leave them to slink back, as they will whenever the Jacobin of their choice finds time to give them a taste of hie quality. If it is a question of names, the only Liberals in the House or the country are the party of Mr Massey. We have been entertained of late by .Sir Joseph Ward posing in the English limelight as “the giver of a Dreadnought.” The final word said of him and to him in England—for which see Friday’s Daily Times —was that “he gave the Dreadnought on his own, and consulted Parliament afterwards.” Call this patriotism, if you will—the hidebound Tory may be patriotic—but you cannot call it democratic Liberalism.

George street, Dunedin, July .28, 1913. Dear “ Givis,” —Apropos to your Note in the Daily Times of last on tho use of the aspirate in “ humble,” tho attached clipping will interest and probably surprise you. The clipping was taken from a column in a recent issue of tho Sydney Morning Herald, contributed by Sir Henry Lucy (“Toby” of Punch). Thanks for the clipping, and for corroboration from so high a quarter. But why should I feel surprised ? It is no surprise that in these matters Sir Henry Lucy knows what’s what. Here is what he says : In dinner-table talk the other night an eminent authority made the, to me, surprising statement that the use of the aspirate is a custom which in this country docs not go further back than a hundred years. It was not, ho averred, universal even with the cultured class in the early Victorian era. Charles Dickens had something to do with enforcing tho habit. In the middle of last century, according to our mentor, the pronunciation ’umble was almost as commonly used by educated people as was tho prefix of the “h.” Uriah Heop, going about his mean and vicious courses protesting that ho was very “ ’umble,” made readers of “ David Coppiorfield ” more careful of their “ h’s,” and the habit, centring on the particular word, extended to others. Of course, there is no use of tho aspirate in the French language, though with tho pure Parisian one catches a faint aspiration when he refers to I’honneur. and one or two other words commencing with the letter “ h.” The most insistent devotees of the aspirate in this country arc Ulster men. They will search out an “ h ” in tho middle of a word and lot you have it with a bang. When Bible English, which is seventeenth century English, puts “an” before such words as “heart” and “house” and “ humble,” now aspirated, it witnesses to a silent h. Even to-day there are points upon which usage doesn’t quite know its own mind. Not every intelligent speaker has courage to drop the h when its syllable loses accent —to say “ a history ” but “ an historical work,” “a harmony” but “an harmonious meeting.” The pronouns “he,” “him,” “his,’’ “her,” and the rest, unemphatic, carry no aspirate ; nor is there any such place on the planet as “ a hotel.” Yet sometimes, alas, from painful persons of fastidious propriety we hear it otherwise. Tho h which Ulstermen with men from north of Tweed assert in “what,” “when," “where,” “whither,” is proper and essential “ Wat,” “ wen,’’ “were,” “wither” as substitutes are the direst Cockney. Givis.