PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3352, 12 June 1918, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Time*.) As there was never a war of the bigness of this war, so also was there never a war as public. lae principal scene and seat of it is the "Cockpit of Europe," the most public place of all the world. And all the world has perforce looked on. For each of us a broadsheet of war news begins the day, another ends it; —there is no escape. Three years and more—it might have been three centuries! —have we gazed on this whirling chaos, the sum of ail the tragedies of earth and hell, till the power of vision itself grows doubtful. You may stare at the screen of a picture show till the nerve, fatigued, fails of its use; you see nothing distinctly, in the end nothing at all. That way comes hypnotism, artificial sleep. There are people among us who, in mercy of their self-respect, should take this as the theory of their own condition; I present it to them gratis. They are the "business as usual" people, the people whose "usual" is tempering business with pleasure—the bridge party, the play, the racecourse. These people know that there is a war as they know that there are bogs in Ireland and blizzards at the South Pole. It is knowledge that in no smallest particular is a spring of action, imposing duties, exacting sacrifices. A magazine writer sketches the vicissitudes of an Admiralty transport outward bound, navigating the danger zone without lights, dodging submarines and raiders, till at last her captain, way-worn and weary, brings his ship to her port—somewhere in this part of the world—with a draft of returning soldiers. Captain Dashwood shifted into mufti and strolled up the gay, bustling streets. He reported his arrival to his owners, and fixed up certain business with the military authorities in connection with hin m?xt reinforcement of troops and food cargo for England. He then wended his way to the General Post Office to telegraph some comforting words to his wife. On going up the steps ha ran into a sportingly-attircd oban who sr-pm"d to be in a great hurry. "Hollo, captain!" he said breathlessly —"hack again?" "Tee." said the captain, simply. He kn*w the fellow but casually. "You're looking well I" remarked the

person with the field-glasses slung over his shoulder. ''Yes. I'm feeling very well, thank you." was the curt reply. " 'Scuso me, but I'm in an 'ell of a rush, old man, ... off to the races, . . . see you again I" he flung out as he leapt down the steps. He jumped into a taxi, and waved back out of the window; "Ta, ta I" he shouted. Captain Dashwood gazed glumly at the taxi as it disappeared round the comer. "It's hard to believe," he mused, "that there are still some ocoplo in the world who don't yet now that there's a war on!" De te fabula narratur. The port of arrival might be any port in New Zealand.

Among the Dunedin womenkind who 6treamed out to Wingatui and the races was one who on the course lost a bangle of sorts and for recovering it resorted to advertisement, adding, by way of appeal to the finder, "husband on active service." I reject the latter statement. To believe it would be to mean that she had said to herself: "My husband is fighting Germans, and in jeopardy every hour. Therefore will I take a joy-ride. At this very time, it may be, my husband is having his throat cut, or his limbs shattered, or his head blown off. Let me put on my gewgaws and away to the races!" There is always something to learn about human nature, its heights and its depths. The Otago Women's Patriotic Association need money for their work, -which work is in brief the bettering and brightening of life for New Zealand lads on the battle-front. Wise by experience, they know that to get this money or any part of it from the people who put £50,815 10s through the Wingatui totalisator they must use the totalisator appeal —"Try your luck !" And so they devise a huge lottery, a £SOO prize at top, other prizes conformable, shilling tickets. Humanity, don't mention it! —Patriotism, be hanged ! —Try your luck ! The shallow-hearted egotists who can be reached by thi3 appeal, but by no other, imagine they think that there is a war. The question is not of what they imagine they think, but of what they feel. What they feel is that there is no war at no battle-front anywhere, nor any suffering soldier with a claim on their help. Call it hallucination, call > it hypnotism, call it what you will; its nature, if not its name, is—brutal selfishness.

One form of non-combatant war weariness compatible with resolute purpose and unshaken hope—l am not sure of more than one—is weariness of detail. At this stage main events suffice us. Goes the battle well or ill? Are the Germans still advancing?—or are they 'held? .jThis week it is a main event yielding comfort that Foch's invisible reserves begin to materialise. Deadly doubts were creeping in,—the counterstroke by the reserves; the when, the where, the how of it; would it be in time? In what quarter had General Foch bestowed his reserves? Did they really exist? On these points we shall be easier. Here also are some remarks by the Pall Mall Gazette military critic which are apt for the hour : In Napoleon's days, when the front of a great battle did not exceed two or three miles, it was hard enough to divine the psychological moment an bom or two before it supervened; but in these presents, when the front of battle extends over 500 miles, and when on«> division, with all it 3 accessory services, requires over a hundred trains to move it and takos two and a-half days to entrain and two days to detrain at a single platform, it is necessary to foresee events by a week or more. Thus the delivery of the counter-attack at the psychological momieut has become incomparably greater. Always have tho essentials of an army—guns, munitior.3, and the like—been also its impedimenta—things that hinder movement. Since Naooleon's time army accessories have increased ; means of transport have also increased, —we have railways and motor traction. And yet, as it would

seem, the impedimenta have become vastly more impedimental; —tho balance is against us.

To talk of a pro-German plot in Ireland, to quote Mr Lloyd George when testifying to tho existence of "a conspiracy for a great Irish rising" in complicity with Germany, to believe him when he tells us that he has " perused the evidence," —to do theso things is t-6 offer a series of "studied insults" to the Irish in New Zealand, says J. Robinson, South Dunedin (Daily Times, Tuesday). In the view of the same J. Robinson, Sinn Fein and Irish plots are taboo; —merely to mention them is to insult the local Irish. Whioh is clean ridiculous. Of common interest, Sinn Fein and Irish plots are for montion and comment everywhere. But, says J. Robinson:

The Irish people of this country are doing their duty as citizens and Britishers. There is hardly a man, woman, or child who is not represented somewhere in France. The Irish fathers and mothers, as well as those of England, Scotland, and Wales, are each day making tho same sacrifices and are sharing the same grief. Have I not said it myself? I doubt whether anybody has oaid it with greater emphasis or truer sympathy. But what has this to do with Skin Fein plotting on the other side of the world ? Here let me mako room for a correspondent. I suppress a name or two, —otherwise admit his letter as it stands, and with pleasure.

Dear " Civis," —The following extract from a letter just received from a friend of mine at ——, Mr , might be of some interest to you in assisting to "point a moral": " I suppose that you would notice that our neighbour, (an Irish Catholic), lost his oldest son at tho war. I had the job of breaking the news to him, and it was not a nice job. I think that the Irishmen who are bearing the brunt are in a more difficult position than any other, and, if for no other reason, that the Howard Elliotts and the white-feather-distributing snakes need discouraging and stamping out. I was pleased, to see the dressing down Elliott got in the Times." I invite J. Robinson to believe that there are men, even Irishman, whose understanding of the Daily Times and Passing Notes differs widely from that of J. Robinson.

Blackwood's Magazine for February has an article of length on "Tho Irish Rebellion of ' Forty-eight.' " -It is good reading and timely, an instructive page in the never-ending still-beginning tragicomedy of Irish politics. But to quote it in New Zealand is a perilous thing;—l shall seem to be offering a "studied insult" to tho local Irish. Neck or nothing, however; —let me at any rate note two points. William Smith O'Brien, who ran the "Forty-eight" rebellion and brought it to inglorious consummation in the Battle of Widow M'Cormack's Cab-bage-garden, was a man of birth and breeding, in direct descent from Brian Boru, a university man, member for an Irish constituency, and with a quite Gladstonian turn of public speech. Revolution, an organised Ireland, pikes and muskets, summed up his ideal, —plu3 the corrupting of the Irish police. One wouldn't have expected it of him. They were all Irishmen, he Eaid, and he could not believe that " ten thousand Irishmen clad in their native green would he found the enemies of Irishmen." Sad to say, it was the Irish police, true to their salt, and not the red coats, that shattered ana scattered his rebel army in the ruinous Battle of the Cabbage-garden. There are Irishmen and Irishmen, always were and always will be. Another point :—One of O'Brien's most perfervid backers, a root and branch rebel, was Charles Gavan Duffy of the Nation newspaper. Arrested, convicted, sentenced like his leader to transportation, Charles Gavan Duffy came to political greatness in Victoria, and received the honour of knighthood from the Queen. Times and oft, no doubt, did Sir Charles recall the escapades of his salad days, more in laughter* than in tears. " Forty-eight"—that is seventy years ago. During all that space might Ireland, had the Irish so chosen, been as independent as Scotland, as " cocky" as little Wales, as happy and contented as either. American severity against all and sundry who hinder the war may yield us a lesson. Says Mr Roosevelt: "Whoever in the United States gives public expression to sympathy for the Germans must be arrested and. either shot, hanged, or imprisoned for the rest of his days." Mr Roosevelt is a man of extremes. But the judicial courts are not far behind him. Burlington (Vermont). The Rev. Clarence W. Ladren, & pacifist Baptist minister, has been sentenced to fifteen years in the Federal Prison. He opposed the Draft Order, and refused to use the church for patriotic meetings. If the sentence on Chappie—ll months' imprisonment—was "savagery," as we have been told, what is this? It is the stern deed of a democratic people at war

with tyranny abroad and resolved to stand no nonsense at home. John Brown'« body lies sleeping in the ground, but hig soul goes marching on; and this is his soul. Put in another way, America like Britain, like New Zealand, is in mortal struggle with a cut-throat. Seditionmongers of any brand that would tangle her feet and tie her hands must simply be suppressed the shortest way. Natural science is not the specialty of «■ this column, but it can be supplied—at the reader's risk. I am always ready to oblige a correspondent. Dear "Civis," —Would you kindly answer this question for mo? Does the moon shining on the face of a sleeping person affect that person's brain and cause him to become " moonstruck" ? I have heard that this is true, but am inclined to think that it is. only a superstitious fancy. For the superstitions that have gathered about the moon, the moon herself is to blame. From the beginning of things the. puzzle of her exits and her entrances, her forms and phases—the crescent moon, the gibbous moon, the old moon in the new moon's arms, the rising moon visibly bigger than the moon overhead—must have bewildered the simple-minded. It is a monthly parade of inconsistencies, and it has encouraged the poets, from Dante to Byron, to write all .manner of nonsense about her. Listen to this pair of lovers: Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, That tips with silver all these fruittree- topsJuliet: O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. In common belief, to sleep In moonlight is to get your face twisted; to hang up fish, in moonlight is to have the fish spoiled. Madness in the mad went up and downgrew more or less, with the waxing ana the waning of the moon. Milton talks of " moping melancholy and moonstruck madness." "Lunatic," from "luna," the moon, has established itself, and persists, spite of better knowledge. And spite of better knowledge, here is a Dunedin man asking whether madness comes by way of the moon. As they sav in Parliament, the answer is in the negaT-ive, Moonlight is sunlight at 6econd hand, —weaker, but otherwise none the worse. To put it another way—■ The moon's an arrant thief, And her palo fire she snatches from the sun. Moreover —and this is proof positive—the lunatic at large we see moving about here —pacifists, anti-conscription cranks and the like —are clearly independent of the phases of the moon. Another science query:Dear " Civis," —Is there any accepted explanation of the sound given forth by a sea-shell when held to the ear? The kidnev-shaped tortoiscshell common as a mantelpiece ornament gives the sound with startling distinctness. I don't know about other shells. Much romance has been wasted on thf murmur of the shell: e.g. — Pleased it remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. The couplet is Walter Savage Landor'g, or by that eccentric genius is quoted with approval,—l wouldn't swear which. Anyhow, noetry is not science, though often something a good deal better. Descending to cold reality, the sound heard when a shell is clapped to the ear is the circulation of the blood. The shell is a resonator, simply that. You would get the same effect from a tea-cup. Cms.