PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3443, 9 March 1920, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

Saturday'3 Daily Times.) The public man deserves our best thanks, even -when he seems to be doing everything -wrong. Unhappy is his life. He must have a skin of poilite, a front of brass, and a face of marble. He must school himself to take the bitter with the sweet, the hard knocks with the kudos, the shame with the glory. And he must accept both with the equanimity of a duck in a rain shower. A handbook for the use of the public man is a sorely felt want. The only one known is the Bible, and this is jegarded as somewhat out of date for the purpose. A modern, slap-up-to-date handbook would contain such precepts as these: Go right, ahead, and don't worry; whatever you do you are sure to be blamed. You'll have ample time to get round your constituents before you next seek their votes. Never acknowledge a mistake; if you make one, defend it stoutly. Many will believe you. Never change your mind. The strong man ifl the man who sticks to hia opinion even when he knows he is wrong. Never reply to newspaper attacks; if you do, people may find you out. Never give reasons; you may hit upon a right decision, while your reasons may be wrong; or else your reasons may show to be wrong decisions that would otherwise be taken as right. . If a subjeot arises for discussion upon which you- are ignorant, and upon which you cannot speak, move that it be taken in committee. But if you are well up in the - subject, see that the reporters get you in full. On questions of exceptional importance, get your speech in early, and then slip away home. The public won't know. . If any member annoys you by talking too muoh, put him in the chair, and tell him that the previous chairman failed to keep control of the meeting. All this is applicable in varying degrees to City Council, Harbour Board, School Committee, Universitv Council, Expansion League, Chamber of Commerce, High Schools' Board, Education Board, et hoc genus omne. Yet we wish them all well. They are doing work which we haven't the gumption to undertake ourselves. To all of them we sayj VGo ahead, don't mind us. iWe growl, Hut that is only our

way. We criticise, but that is our birthright. We write letters to the papers, but what does that matter, when you don't read them?" All the -same, these bodies are sometimes wrong, and sometimes do queer things. The poor High Schools' Board of Governors, for example, seems fated to put its foot in it. Its latest stumble is the erection of a committee to examine the schools' examination results. Once again the curse of New Zealand is rearing its ugly head—the judging of a school or a teacher by the number of examination passes. : Examination results may have as much relation to the success of a school as the number of steps at its front door. Or, if this seem to be an exaggeration, let. me put it 'n another way. Out of the dozen or more factors that so to make a school great, why lay much stress on one which the best authorities regard as minor?

As , a subject for study in national psychology, America and the Americans have always been interesting. Never more so than now., A correspondent has sent an extract from the Philatelic Journal containing an account of a presidential address at the St. Louis convention of American .philatelists last year. Said the president:

As I understand from data furnished me by Mr Diamant, it was England that first manufactured the postage stamps in 1842, in rather crude production, but this country with its great composite minds, with its soul-inspiring >. and wonderful irrventive genius, with all the . brain of art and,, soul of passion of creation, in 1850 created and produced a much handsomer and better stamp with better ink. From that day to this the country has been producing better stamps, better men, better women, better soldiers, and greater victories than any other country on the face of the globe.—<Applause.) The correspondent instances the wonderful American victories of 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, and suggests that Mr President should verify his dates. America merely requires to be understood. New Zealand would be quite as bad if the conditions were similar. These conditions are: an almost premature birth ; a. tremendous development ; everything on a gigantic scale; woods that are forests, lakes that are seas,' farms that are ranches; the tallest buildings, the greatest railroads, the biggest theatres, the longest rivers; no past to speak of; no genuine ruin anywhere, and no moss on anything; Niagara, the Grand Canon, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Ford Car; cities contemporaneous 'with last night's mushrooms; every village "the biggest little city of its size." If New Zealand were as big as a continent, and if everything else in it were big in proportion, no doubt we would have the same characteristics. Distance from the centre of things is also a factor. Do we not call this land "God's own country"? When a visitor comes from England do. we not take him out to show him the tremendous development of' St. Clair and Musselburgh during the last 25 years? We pass an old house. "See that house? That house is 60 years, old!" And we expect him to be impressed. •

Dear "Givis," —I personally know a man In business in this city who held a large, stook of cutlery-, and general earthenware when the war broke out in 1914. Since then he has been bumping prices tip and up until now he is getting anything up to 200 per cent, profit on his landed cost. Would this come under the Board of Trade as bein I g > a sufficient case of profiteering? In my opinion it seems to be, only I am not quite clear on, this point. Veritas. First make sure of your facts, and then lay the matter before the Board of Trade. A friend of mine told me the other day that recently he went to a cutlery shop to buy a pocket knife. He was shown a cheap sort of thing—one which before the war would have cost sixpence. He was told it was of Sheffield manufacture. He bought it for half a crown. On looking at rl at home he found it to be German. Was it bought before or since the outbreak of war?

The epic character of Dr M'Tulloch's contribution to the proceedings of the Medical Association, as reported in last week's notes, has been perceived by at least one reader. He sends me the same in metrical form. I have space for a few verses only: - The 811, the N.Z. branch, Had mot, sir, to discuss Discoveries new and methods fresh, And bugs and germs and wuss. read a paper on The bagpipes versus worm, Reporting oases he had met Within his time and term. A worm malignant did afflict A thin-legged little child; i , And the M'Tullooh called to mind How ofttimes in the wild ' Environs of his Scottish hills The bagpipes' -piercing swirl Would draw the folks from fax around Wi' sonorous drone and dirl. Ergo! Into the sickroom quick M'T. brought forth a piper, And bade him charm, the wicked worm— " A tapeworm, sir, a viper. . < In less than minutes five, dear sir, That tapeworm did emerge From the child's mouth and wagged ita head, Arid kept time to the dirge. And then in spite of warm protests M'T. did draw it out, ■ Despatching it with eagerness, "" E'en wi' a mighty clout. . , And so on.

This column is a Correspondence College of an "Enquire Within upon Everything. ' I am supposed to be a guide upon every topic—from points of spelling to drawing room conundrums, from picture puzzles.to literary- criticism. But everything is welcome. As an example of conundrum a correspondent sends me this week an old chestnut: *"

Have 1920 years passed at the begin-

ning of the present year, or will they pass at the end' of this year? I answered this years ago in this very column. Year One began on the first day of Year One, year Two on the first day of_year Two, year 1920 on the first day of 1920. On the first day of year Two, one year had elapsed. On the first day of year, 1920, 1919 years had elapsed. 1920 years will have passed at., the end of 1920. Where is the puzzle? Another:

In order to settle a dispute, 4 Will you

please explain through the medium of your Saturday column wha«t the figures on the back of the Bank of New Zea-

land promissory not© represent? All cleared up by Sir Joseph Ward'* speech a few nights ago. Sir Joseph spent a quite unnecessary time in explaining that the picture in question was not the coat of arms of the Pope, that the Pope did not buy this honour and privilege for a loan of two millions. Seeing that this charge against the Government originated, I believe, in a mental hospital, the speaker treated the matter much too seriously. One of. the figures in the picture is unmistakably a Maori. As regards the other, did not someone say it was Bishop Selwyn? Quite likely. A third query: _ r

Please tell me in what History of England I can find an account of the trial arid execution of the' Earl of Staf-

ford, in 1 1641 A good account is given in Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Book 3, Vol. 1; also in Browning's Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford (Eminent British Statesmen, vol. 2) j also in J. Forster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth: (Strafford). For the Articles of Impeachment see Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, vol. 2, pp. 737-739.

When a correspondent signs himself "Civis Reader," and speaks of the pleasure and instruction he has derived from this column, he has me at his mercy. This particular correspondent has been re-read-ing "The House Boat on the Styx," and wonders why the book is not more widely known. He asks me my opinion on the book. It is a modern, up-to-date, racy "Dialogue of the Dead"—American in its humour, burlesque in its aims and methods, exquisite in it 3 fun. There is fun in the spectacle of Jonah and Baron Munchausen wrangling over the proprietorship of a whale story, in Barnum exchanging ideas with Adam and Noah on the management of a wild beast show, in the question of inviting "Henry VIII and Lady to the Ladies' Day. But there is another ideal at which one should aim in a "Dialogue of the Dead"—an ideal more difficult, higher, finer, more artistic. This is to make each personage talk 'n character, talk as he did in life, talk so as to reveal unconsciously his foibles and eccentricities. This was done by Lucian in Greek and Fontenelle in French. In the present book, however, Confucius and Artemus Ward. Diogenes and Beau Brummel, Xanthippe and Ophelia, Nero and Bobbie Burns speak the same glib, smart Americanese, and. as far as their language goes, might be keepers of Broadway saloons or summer visitors to Palm City. In fact, in my humble opinion, the author hag n °t lived u.p to his opportunities and his knowledge. His work is smart and very clever-nothing more, "Why is it not more jpidely known?" asks my correspondent. It rial ha 4 ita yoguo,_

And since, at the present time, mask people know of Adam and-Noah only b« y hearsay, Tiave only a faint notion who B* r ? Johnson, Nero, and Raleigh were and know as much about Confucius, Diogenee, and Boswell as does an Influenza.microbe, • —this vogue has been short. Unless th« allusions are known, the book is meaning, i less. What can you expect? Greek is gone, Latin is going, modern foreign lan* guages have not yet arrited. The human g mind has been pouring out its • treasures for thousands of years all to little*-pur-1 pose. A stupendous waste of effort,/ Treasures, did I say? Few nowadays will believe it. - * . ; Ciyis, • }.