PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3330, 9 January 1918, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.) Not easily does one resist the- conviction that the year 1918 comes in big with fate. It is for charlatans to prophesy; it is for the weakening Hun to bluff; it is for the maladroit pacifist to puzzle—if he could—the stroke of destiny, enormous, certain, slow, and cry Peace, peace, when there is no peace. With none of these need we have part or lot. But there is a reasonable presumption that the pace we are going cannot bo kept up much longer, and that the things concerning us in this war are beginning to have an end. There is, however, one fact on our side of the controversy that has no parallel on the other. _ Help is coming to us, the help of the_ mighty. The resources of the barbarian Hun, be they what they may, are fixed and determined. Unless from beneath, no accession of strength is possible; there will certainly be none from above. But on our side comes in with resources unimpaired and with the zeal of a convert the one great nation hitherto standing apart. It is incredible, surely, that in face of this encouragement our heart should fail us. Only thus could we lose the war. There comes a time in every war when the strain is heavier every day, is almost intolerable, and when a little extra effort will suffice to turn the scale. _ That time _is coming- now; and in this war, as in all others, victory will incline to that side which can best preserve the cohesion, the courage, the endurance of the nation. These are tho worde of Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial Staff. They offer us a "Thought for the Day"—and for every day till the tyranny of this dark time be overpast.

The Pope of Rome is not infallible in the politics of this world; —so we have learned (with relief, perhaps) from one of his apologists in the Daily Times. By the Huns in North Italy—by his own spiritual children if they were Austrian Huns that dropped bombs on the churches of Padua —his Holiness is being helped to sound views of the war. Three months ago he was proposing peace on the basis of " complete reciprocal condonation." Anent which proposal Blackwood's for September makes a few remarks of this

tenor: " The suggestion is monstrous. We ask the Germans to condone nothing we have done;. we refuse to condone the thousand brutalities of which they are guilty. We have not made war in the spirit of the burglar and the murderer. We have not butchered women, and robbed houses, and burnt churches. And before the Pope again attempts to restore peace to the world, he must find a formula more acceptable to the Allies of the Entente than 'complete reciprocal condonation.'" From beginning' to end the Papal Note supports unblushingly the oause of the Central Powers. From the outset tho Pope has been ill-advised. Ho saw Belgium martyred, and ho refrained from protest. He stood by without a word when the heroic Cardinal Mercier was insulted and injured by tho Huns. Ho has witnessed the shameful enslavement of thousands of Frenchmen and Belgians, and has found no word to say in reprobation. And now, when Germany and Austria are feeling the strain of war, ho talks o? " useless massacre," and thinks it time that we took the' hands of our enemies in friendship.

That was three months ago. Since' then the Huns have begun dropping bombs on Italian churches, and the Pope protests. It is conceivable—and the world is sad to' know it—that the unspeakable barbarians may yet drop bombs on St. Mark's at Venice and even on St. Peter's at Rome. Which done, perhaps the Pope will again propose a general making up on the basis of " complete reciprocal' condonation."

Save in one point—the "six o'clock closing of hotel bars—our New Zealand war economies have not gone beyond the theoretical. We eat as much as ever, and dress as much as ever, and bet as much as ever, and idle a 3 much as ever—no holiday pretext omitted. It is melancholy in this office to hear the P.D., P.N.D. (Printer's Devil, Passing Note Department) suffering a.recovery after New Year and bemoaning himself in prose and verse, chiefly verse, a form of self-abandonment to which, after much sympathetic study of " Pedlar's Pack," he is becoming addicted. This week it is broken utterances, line endings apparently, as in the French game of "bouts-rimes." At last he has seen nineteen-eighteen (he mutters), and a New Year's week for the fat and sleek, who nothing lack for belly or back; nor deny themselves, for they haven't the knack. No hunger and cold as the war grows old, no shortage, no rations, no fit of the blues, no food control, no standing in queues ; of all this nothing, but here instead (alas, he confesses with aching head) just idleness and fullness of bread!—Thus the' repentant P.D., till I shut him down that I may give closer attention to the Rt. Hon. Sir J. G. Ward (who thinks in borrowed millions), and may the better study Sir Joseph s New Year's message "on the duty of greater self-denial."

Our American allies are aa yet far away from food troubles, one would suppose; nevertheless they are preparing (with Sir Joseph) to exercise greater self-denial. Patriotic doctors are calling attention to "neglected wild foods." Wo wasteful Americans are burning in rubbish-heaps every year more food"power than wo aro putting in our mouths. Tons upon tons of dandelion greens and old-fashioned lamb's-quarters and dock —all good substitutes for cabbage and spinach—are going to waste every year right around our very doors. Measured by the prico of spinach, tho available crops of the three wild vegetables I have named would amount to millions, yes, billions, of dollars in value each year.

"Lamb's-quarters'.' may be a weed purely American; but dandelion and dock are British, and —sad to think—must be included under Mr Bracken's category of the "Misunderstood." _ Dandelion and dock are neglected equivalents of cabbage and spinach. Then there is the much maligned Scotch thistle.

Common thistles, when of a young

and tender growth, Dr. Rusby says, are delicious. cooked like asparagus, and are very nutritious. Indeed, so productive of muscle and flesh tissue are they that tho donkeys of the South-west are so fond of thorn that they will fight with the prickly spears of the older plants 'until they can roll this coveted morsol under their tongues.

Another proof that the donkey is a more intellectual animal than has been commonly supposed. Between the dock and the thistle we need never starve in New Zealand.

Next in demerit to the conscientious objector —whether one degree worse or one degree better matters little—is the malingerer, the man who pretends himself unfit for duty when he is not. If by miracle the pros had beaten the antis in the Australian referendum, there would have been room for an Australian edition of " Malingering and Feigned Sickness," by Sir John Collie, M.D. To medical officers examining a recalcitrant and guileful anti the book would come handy. Even to a layman its examples are interesting. Here is one of pretended deafness :

When asked which ear was affected,

the man said tho left. He was told to cover his right ear, and in a low tone of voice the order was given, " About turn." Ho looked fixedly and did not move. In an equally low tone I said slowly, with some acerbity: "Do what you are told," when ho slowly and reluctantly turned round.

Forthwith reported fit for duty. It is not easy to see why a malingerer should pile up risks by adding dumbness to deafness; except that he is always as much fool as rogue. A deaf mute, in hospital for observation, was neatly trapped. Openly the . doctor prescribed extra nourishment, together with a free allowance of beer. Privately he arranged that the orderly should consume these extras himself and give the patient plain milk. .

Every day, in the presence of the patient, the orderly wa3 asked whether each and every article of diet had been provided, and he asseverated with some emphasis that they had and that the patient had enjoyed them. For some days the soldier stood it manfully. But there was a limit to his enduranoe —he was doubtless convinced that tho comforts intended for him were being annexed by tho orderly —and at last he could stand it no longer, so burst out with: "He's a liar, sir; I've had nothing but milk for a week."

For obstinate cases there was a cure-all mixture (Mistura Diabolica) that worked wonders.

One doso cured a soldier of " deafness, pains in his back and side, pneumonia of eight weeks' standing, inability to feel his feot, and difficulty in standing." The sufferer lay a helpless wreck for hours before he had a dose, after which all he wanted was water to drink and permission to join his regiment as quickly as possible.

Moral: Be real. In or out of the army there are few shams that finally escape detection.

Dear " Civis,"-—Will you kindly inform a curious Englishman why the Dunedin youth "do poojah" to some unknown Chinese joss by letting off crackers every New Year's Eve? It is certainly not a Scotch custom, much less an English one, and there is no trace of it m ancient Christian antiquities. Is it an attempt to propitiate tho spirit of democracy; or is it just pure cussedness? Some day, no doubt, it will acquire a sacred character, and have accolytes in flame-coloured *3ha&übles who wall do Catherine wheels in honour of tho great god Demos or Wang—but imagination takes one too far.

Whether the deity be Chinese or British, Wang or Demos, tire police, I believe, have instructions to harry and hustle his votaries. But what policemen is equal to catching a small boy? Mischief and noise are the small boy's idea of celebrating a public anniversary,—especially noise. The men who let off crackers and explode bombs in honour of Christmas and New Year are simply children of a larger growth.

To a correspondent (cook on a station ho names) I am indebted for a- bouquet of verses, sad and sorrowing, on " What Might Have Been." This is the last: •

I crave not much, but just that you will bo my friend. Brave, staunch, and true, through good report and ill, Whilo life shall last: and when my sun has set And I havo gone behind yon western hill, What is to be will compensate " What might havo been." For the others I have no space. In compensation I permit the writer to pass a kindly opinion on " Marsyas" of the " Pedlar's Pack."

I am truly ploosed with the poetry over "Marsyas." On'o or two pieces lately I thought beautiful. Others somo time ago seemed top abstruse and for mo impossible. Perhaps I haven t tho knowloclge to < appreciate; so please don't anathematise me for my bad

taste. Thus my correspondent. For myself, I havo never understood the signature

Marsyas.' The only person of thab name known to the Muses waa a flut*. player who challenged Apollo to a musical competition. For his presumption Apollo; flayed him alive and nailed up his skin. Civis.