PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3331, 16 January 1918, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(Fxom Saturday's Daily Times.} President Wilson, albeit our greatest external asset- at this stage of the war, is in some small degree subject to discount. He is a man of facile phrases, and of the typewriter. Some of his phrases in the past he and w© alike are concerned to forget. "Too proud to fight" is one; " Peace without victory" is another. They had a resounding echo at the-time, but by common consent have now decent burial. In his latest utterance, acclaimed 1 on all hands as some things said may expect a similar future. A few days earlier Mr Lloyd George, in a speech described on both sides of the Atlantic as " momentous" and " historic,'.' spoke with the gravity and reserve befitting the representative of a people who during' three and la-half years of war (at six millions a day, average) have poured out their best blood on a hundred, stricken fields from Mesopotamia to tlhe North Sea, and are now prepared to accept the irreducible minimum —Germany made incapable of further mischief, restitution and reparation to the lands Germany has ravaged and robbed. But it is not an irreducible minimum that will content President Wilson. The mouthpiece of a mighty nation, unblooded as yet but eager for the fray, he demands the absolute maximum —• will reconstruct Europe from end to end, proposes " the culminating, final war for human liberty," in fact the veritable Armageddon. Lloyd George and he are the two lions ''on Afric's burning Elhore" ; —the one is heard to " give a grievous roar," and is answered by another grievous roar; And the first lion thought the last a bore. Not quite that, of course. But it is clear that after hearing the British roar President'Wilson —in the language of his country —resolved to "go one better." The hope of the world is that the two of them roaring in concert will strike terror to the heart of guilty Germany.

Headed " The New Freedom," a collection of President Wilson's speeches fill a little volume in "The Wayfarer's Library"—election speeches, tariff speeches war speeches. They are gjood reading, and help us to know what kind of a Presby-tenan-EJder-y President he is. You per-

ceive a feeling for humour, and a consciousness that the native supply is scant. The nearest he comes to original levity is in such a passage as this: If you are off in some distant part of the world and suppose that no one who lives within a mile of your home is anywhere around, there are times when you adjourn your ordinary standards. You say to yourself: "Well, I'll have a fling this time; nobody will know anything about it." If you were on the desert of Sahara, you would feel that you might permit yourself—well, say, some slight latitude in conduct, but if you saw one of your immediate neighbours coming the other way on a camel —you would behave yourself until he got out of sight. The most dangerous thing in the world is to get off where nobody knows you. I advise you to stay around among the neighbours, and then you may keep out of jail. That is the only way some of us can keep out of jail. President Lincoln's Western drolleries, irresistibly apit, are not in President Wilson's vein. But if he cannot invent he can borrow. You know the story of the Irishman who, while digging a hole, was asked, "Pat, what are you doing—digging a hole?" And he replied, "No, sir; I am digging the dirt, and leaving the hole." It was probably the-same Irishman who, seen digging around the wall of a house, was asked, "Pat, what are you doing?" And ho answered, " Faith, I am letting the dark out of the cellar." Now, that is exact'./ what wo want to do —let the dark out of the cellar. Trivial enough from the oracular head of a hundred-million nation. But it is quite in the character of President Wilson that he should' " joke wi' deeficulty." "There is-a proposal to standardise the dress of women," —writes an alarmed correSondent. "Is there any power on earth at could make all women dress alike? The police would have a busy y time. Sumptuary laws have always failed. And what is to become of the drapers?" Yes, indeed; —that no doubt is a poser. Eliminate feminine vanity, and wihat is to become of the drapers The same question must have been asked in England when — on the ground that " the commons of the realm,as well men as women, wear excessive and inordinate apparel to the great displeasure of God, the enriching of strange realms, and the destruction of this realm" —a statute was passed regulating the dres3 of persons of all ranks. But, as my correspondent has remarked, sumptuary laws may fail. The statute came to naught; vanity and the ministers of vanity survived. Personally, I see nothing against a voluntary standardising. Nature herself standardises. To each and of all of us she has given one and the same skin, and, if you go beneath,

j The Colonel's lady and Julia o'Grady Are sisters under their skins. The standard dress for both Judy and her betters might be made very taking—the high heel, the short skir#, tlhe triangular appeal beneath the chin and down the bosom, —all this could be as " chic" as you like. But these are the opinions of a mere man. It is a melancholy truth that women dresa for women, not for men. The mere man is clean out of it.

Whatever is . done or left undone in dress, tihare is an imminent certainty of standardising in food, —within the British Isles if nowhere else. The Food Controller announces that lie sees no escape from the necessity of compulsory rationing. The sooner the better. Leave people to themselves, and there is no defence i against gluttony and waste. Some get too much, some not enough, some nothing at j all. On this subject it is impossible to j reach tlhe consciences of the rich. Why I shouldn't they eat and drink at will ? ' they have the money to pay. Why shouldn't they fill the mouths of half a dozen useless servants? Or fatten and pamper their lap-dogs? Here is an illustrative item from an English paper;—there • are many such : I At the Portsmouth Police Court yes-

terday Mrs Jessie Black, wife of an Indian magistrate, was fined £5 for feeding her dog on rice and bread-and-inilk.

A compulsory standardising of women's dress that would ruin tlhe drapers is beyond hope,—or fear. But there is every chance tnat compulsory rationing in food would ruin the doctors. For millions of British people compulsory rationing would mean compulsory health.^'

Dear " Civis," —Hero is a book I picked up' at tho displenishing of tho First Church's first library, which I thought might be of use to you, and which is yours should you caro to accept it. Wishing you tho compliments of the season, —I am, yours faithfully, An Ex-member of the Staff of tho Otago Daily Times in 1861, who was present at the birth of tho first issue and delivery.

I am lucky in getting so graceful a New Year's card for 1918 from _a brother chip who was privileged to assist at the birth, first issue and delivery, of the Otago Daily Times in 1861, an obstetrical event doubtless treasured in his memory. The book he sends—" Brady's Varieties of Literature, Price Bs. - Bda. London, 1826," —canvas-backed witlh printed label, a binding familiar to our grandfathers, is clean and in good condition, though it probably came out with the Rev. Dr Burns in the first ship. Its " Varieties of Literature " are a" curious collection of snippets from other books on the subject of proverbs, their origin, and words, their derivation. Philology in 1826 had not advanced much beyond the stage at which, as Voltaire objected, " consonants countea for little and ivowels for nothing at all/' — •when '' ostler" might be derived from " oat-stealer," and "almanac" from "all men's acts." . Brady's etymologies are at the same level:—e.g., "Hurly-burly, from two neighbouring families, Hurleigh and Burleigh, who filled their part of tho kingdom with contest and confusion." "Hugger-mugger, to hug her and to mug her—that is to kiss her. The word means confusion ■ and disorder, since any female would be so affected, were any one so rude as violently to hug, and excessively to mug her." There is a good deal of quiet amusement to be got out of Brady.

Brady on the saying "An it please the pigs'' should interest my friend of the Tablet:

"An it please the pigs" is, with a small change, tho old Roman Catholio /ejaculation, "an it please the pix," which is the box in which the Host was

carried. —Gentleman's Magazine, p. 876,

1790. But " another account" to -which Brady rather inclines, and a confused account it is, goes back to St. Anthony, patron of swineherds (usually represented by painters with a pig in attendance), and to a mediieval " St. Anthony's school " in London,- the boys of which were nicknamed " St. Anthony's pigs." Even so, whence the phrase "An it please the pigs " ? The association of St. Anthony with the pig may be conceded. A French biographer, Villenave, speaks of "le qiiadrupede immonde qu'on lui a donne pour compagnon "; adding, "No saint is more popular than St. Anthony, et son singulier compagnon est devenu proverbial." English Dictionaries recognise " St. Anthony's pig," the one pig in each litter vowed to the saint, and for that reason named after him. " Which is Anthony?" "The littlest pig, your honour. The little pig is always Anthony." But when an Irish peasant says he is going to do this or that "an it plaze the pigs " he is thinking neither of the pix (if he ever heard of it), nor of St. Anthony and his legendary lore; he is thinking (if he thinks at all) of "the jintleman that pays the rint."

A discussion on Bible criticism—revolving Abraham and Moses into nouns of multitude, " clan names," and King David with his ruddy countenance into a sun myth—was begun in the Daily Times this week but incontinently dropped, thanks, presumably, to war pressure. It is not for me to revive it; but I may be permitted a regret that we have no popular text-book on the Credulity of Unbelief. Nobody believes bo wildly as the critics who would have us believe next to nothing at all. I kiww a Dunedin citizen (no longer with us), a professional man, whoso name, if I mentioned it, would- be recognised by every reader of this note, who honestly and sincerely believed that the world began in the Middle- Ages, some time before the alleged reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that " ancient history," including Greek and Roman literature, was " a forgery of tlhe Benedictines!" Fact! Yet this incredibly credulous sceptic walked the streets like other people; moreover 'had as keen a scent for a bargain in the share market as any jobber on the .Stock Exchange. There" was a book, he said that proved his amazing heresy to be true. I don't doubt it. There are books that " prove" the British people to hi the lost Ten Tribes.

A millennium or two hence archeologists of the German type may deal with the " ancient remains," fragmentary ami im-

perfect, of our own land and time Afte» thisi fashion :

. Of these islands the traditional name "ISew Zealand" is possibly New See Land or New Seen Land, a reference to their (then) recent discovery; but preferably Newsy Land (" news," intelligence, particularly., distributed bv paper sheets), _ which would be an allusion to the curiosity of its inhabitants and their desire to be always hearing something new. In such quotations from the news sheets of Newsy Land as have survived in tho records of later ages there i 3 mention of a "King Dick," and alao of a " King Country," or sometimes "God's Own Country," over which this "King Dick" of the early time is supposed to have reigned. " King Dick," or "Dock'" or "Duck" (a term of endearment) may be also read "King Tick," or " Tikky," the latter apparently an aboriginal charm or amulet peculiar to Newsy Land. " Tick" on the other hand means " debt" or "loan," and the name of "King Tick"' would represent a belief that the financial affairs of " God's Own Country" in his time were, sustained by borrowed money. " King Tick" also appears as " Seddon" or "Said On," an allusion to lengthy utterances; when other speakers ceased " King Tick" said on. Or the suggestion may be tho exact opposite—an imperious curtness. Traces have recovered of a rude painting of "King Tick" in a striped garment, skin tight, with one hand extending a large hoop, in the other Waving a whip. He is addressing a lion, supposed to symbolise the now extinct British Emr pire, then at its height. Underneath are the words: "What I have Seddon I have Seddon; —Jump!"—a dialectio form of " What I have said I have said" and a strong affirmation. This whole myth cycle is interesting as showing in rudimentary form political ideas with which we are now familiar. Bui of course the. scholarship of relegates " King Tick" and " Seddon,". or " Said On," to the realm of fable.

Which things are «n allegory. ,„ . " Civis.