PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3467, 24 August 1920, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday'3 Daily Times.)

The ease with which Holy Days become holidays was no doubt in Colonel Mitchell's mind when he spoke upon the Anzac Day Bill in the House of Eepresentatives a week or so ago. Says the newspaper report: He expressed a hope that it would be kept as a holiday day, and not as a holiday, and that people would not indulge in sports, as they did on other holidays. It should be a -day of rejoicing. It should also be a day of mourning for cur gallant dead, many thousands of whom went away and never came back. "Their bodies rest in

peace, but their deeds remain for ever." If Colonel Mitchell has been correctly reported—which I doubt —his distinction between "a holiday day" and " a holiday" might have been more clearly expressed. But his meaning is plain. Holy Days gradually but inevitably become transformed into holidays. "It may turn out so in the case of Anzac Day. But is this a ground for misgivings? The memory of the Triumphant Dead is not necessarily dimmed, nor is our respect for this memory necessarily diminished, when a holiday spirit takes the place of mourning. Honour need not come " like a pilgrim gray, to bless the Earth that wraps our clay." Whv can she not come like gay children playing about the grave. The best tribute to the departed hero may after all be the happiness and freedom which his death made possible.

The next greatest thing to solving the problem of perpetual motion is the penetrating of the secret of perpetual existence. The University Court of Convocation now being stirred into life in the city has done both —so far. Most of us in this vale of tears have but one brief span of life. The Court of Convocation, by virtue of its somewhat ecclesiastical name, is pointing out the way to eternity. A meeting of this body never comes to an end: it is merely "adjourned." The memhei-fl met a month ago, sat for a couple of hours, went out for a brief interval, came back a month afterwards, and lo! 'twas the same meeting. A meeting may therefore not be a meeting, but merely part of a meeting. Any number of meetings may still be the same meeting. At the second meeting of this meeting the Court of Convocation unearthed an illegality. One member of the University "Council shouldn't be there. He clambered in over the fence. There will probably be an election petition,

magnifying the technical illegality into a public scandal. An inquiry will be held. Electors will be examined on oath as to whether they are '' on the roll '' —as if they were old horses in a paddock. The school committeeman who is also a member of the City Council, also a member of the Hospital Board, also a member of the Education Board, also a graduate, also a member of the governing body of secondary schools, will feel that even a public body may be too democratically constituted. And there is talk of extending representation on the University Council to the Presbyterian Church, — which is surely entitled to it, —also to the Accountants' Society, to the Medical Association, to the Dental Association! Why not also to the parents of the students? And to the students themselves? As regards the above mentioned illegality, is the matter worth while?

A correspondent writes to ask the meaning of the German word " Schadenfreude," which he found in an English paper. This raises the whole question of the philosophy of humour. " Schadenfreude " indicates that form of primitive humour which arises from "joy at the injuries or misfortunes of others." As human life is an epitome of the history of mankind, such humour is found most frequently in the youth-time of men and of nations. Our ancestors the Cave Men no doubt gave way to inextinguishable laughter when one of their number had his leg caught in the jaws of an ichthyosaurus. The gods of Homer were similarly overcome with laughter at the sight of a lame, ugly, clumsy blacksmith serving as their cupbearer in place of the elegant Ganymede. The spectacle of a ladylove with blackened teeth and faded charms roused laughter in Horace. The contorsions of a victim at the stake are still an object of amusement to savages. This crudenes3 is a mark of primitive civilisation. Similarly a child boy might find amusement in seeing a man blown up by a Zeppelin bomb and landed on the top of a neighbouring house. The removal of a chair on which a person is about to seat himself is still an object of fun to many who are not boys. Possibly on these occasions we get back to nature. Life ia full of mishaps and untoward accidents, and "one touch of nature makes the whole world grin." All this gives riso to the reflexion that laughter and humour have little in common. The man who is always laughing, and whose laughter •is easily excited, ia generally a man deficient in humour. Humour becomes more refined as the world moves on. Decent people do not now talk of ropes in a household of which the father has just been hanged. Decent people do not now say to a talkative person who has his arm in a sling, " Hullo 7 Been trying to hold your tongue?" All the same, it is possible, any Saturday afternoon, on the Carisbrook Football Ground to hear spectators yell with glee when a player nearly breaks his neck in a somersault, or is seized in a fierce tackle and shaken as a rat is shaken by a dog. This is " Schadenfreude."

A correspondent forwards further extracts from the evergreen " Tablet" for comment: The Irish people turned in a mass towards the policy of Sinn Fein, which taught them that there was no use any longer trusting to the promises and pledges of British statesmen, who never kept a pledge in their livesThe leading independent English papers have come to acknowledge that Sinn Fein is the do jure and the de facto Government of Ireland, and that Sinn Fein is the only force making for law and order to-day. Newspapers interpret the cables as meaning that an effort is going to be made to exterminate our race at Home. Eeferring- to 175 "guiltless Irish prisoners," the "Tablet"—says my correspondent—quotes that by their stainless character and _ their consummate passion for human liberty they have confounded the base_ agents of England. . , , and we hail them

as heroes of the first rank, and are not without hope that the inspiration of their dauntless spirit may kindle embers even amongst the slavish democracy of England, which the giddy buzzing of the Welsh grasshopper Avill only fan.

This is disappointing. The "Tablet" can surely do better than this. But the " buzzing of the Welsh grasshopper" is good. A grasshopper as a substitute for a pair of bellows 1 We picture a recalcitrant fire beinp- fanned to a fierce blaze by the buzzing of a grasshopper. It gives a new meaning to the '' Cricket on the Hearth."

The misprint that occurred in last Saturday's Note on misquotations—the misprint of Kipling for Kingsley—shows that the printer's devil has a sense of humour. The mistake was surely calculated to make Kingsley—or Kipling—turn in his grave. The well worn sentiments expressed in Kingsley's lines, so often warbled in drawing rooms and bellowed from platforms, "Be good sweet maid and let who can be clever, etc.," would doubtl&s3 have been expressed by Kipling in more racy vernacular, in a form such as this : ■

If yer donah just is good, if yer donah's got a 'eart, Does it matter if she aint bo bloomia' clever ? For the girls out East of Suez cut no ice by beiu' smart. Or could win a school prize—though they worked for ever. On the coast by Maudalay, where the old-tima fashions pay, 'Tisn't in a Burmese girl to read much books. When the sunlight ia at play all the burning, blazing day,All the merits of a girl is merely look 3. There is abundant humour in the misprinting of names. An English magazine recently gave a few examples. Lord Charnwood's "Lincoln" was advertised as Lord " Charmworth's " —a truly charming mistake. "Fraternity" was ascribed to " Golds worthy." Mis 3 " Buckrose, author of "Down Our Street," was turned into Miss " Buckasse." Mr Phillpott's "Human Boy" got printed as " Human Body." Of the same genus is the following: T. J. Hudson's "Psychic Phenomena" has been inquired for —so say booksellers.—under such titles as "Fly Sick Phenomena," " Physic Pneumonia," and "Psyche and Desdemona." One bookseller was asked recently for " Tess of the Dardanelles.." One up-to-date lady assistant, when asked if she had a copy of Omar Khayyam, replied in her sweetest and most learned manner " No, sorry. Won't you try his Iliad?" I have, however, no quarrel with the printer. I marvel, not that he makes errors, but that he makes so few. The printer who does the Law Reports must live in hourly dread of-a charge of contempt of court. For did not one report of a Supreme Court case begin thus: Mans laughter. A Serious Charge.

The misprint in question lias, after all, been productive of more good than evil. The literary sense of the community has been stirred. In addition to correspondents regular and irregular who have sent in eloquent protests, no less august an author itv than the , Waimate Advertiser'' devotes a leading article to the subject. I find it in my heart to be sorry that all this eloquence should be wasted. There is hope for the world if people in Otago, Southland, and Waimate read poetry to such an extent that they are able 'to distinguish Kipling from Kingsley, Butler's " Hudibras" from Shakespeare, or Polonius from Solomon. Kipling's style i 3 so individual in quality and so easily imitated that even the London " Times " was taken in a couple of years ago by a poem entitled '' The Old Volunteer," sent in by R. Kipling. I can hear the bugle calling And it don't want me, While the euperannuation-chap O' Germany 'S a fighting for the Kaiser in His Fatherland; But our order's for the young 'una O' the old Brass Baud. We were ready in the nineties, When the call rang clear, For the yeomen and tho gentlemen To volunteer, Awaiting- for the enemy On nine days' drill But the Army wants xecruities, Not the old Free Will. The "Times" had to apologise to Kipling and his readers. In the present case, I call upon the Waimate Advertiser to apologise for even thinking that anyone could confuse Kipling and Kingsley.

Dear " Civis," —Did y<ju notice that, weeks ago, a member of the House of Representatives sank so low as to perpeti'ate a pun on the name of Mr Witty, member for Ricearton? Mr Witty was speaking of the effect something or other would have on people. An honourable member interjected, "It would make them witty I" Is an easy pun ever a good pun?

The easier the pun, the poorer it is. Nobody—except the schoolboy—puns on such names as Black, White, Brown, or Gray. To be good a pun must be difficult. I

should like to challenge the honourably member in question to devise a pun orji such namea as Massey, r Statham, Malcolm. A member twenty years ago, complaining of the autocratic, methods of' the late Mr Seddon, said! '' My objection to this House is thai everything's Seddon done before we enter." But the best puns must be spontaneous and instantaneous, and this pun was neither. Some miraculously neat puna have this defect, Sir George Eose, tha famous punster, turning round in tha street and seeing somebody imitating his gait, said " You have the stalk without the rose." This pun shows evidence of previous invention, and was lying in wait for a suitable occasion. A good pun, though probably more a jest than a pun; was that made by Horace Smith, pari author of the " Rejected Addresses," wheij his daughter was being christened. The clergyman asked the name of the child, " Rosalind," said the father. "Rosalind!" was the reuly, "How do you spell it?" "Oh, as you'like it." The follow* insr i 3 better known: " What is the differv ence between Dr Watts and Don Juan?" " One is a writer of hymns, the other i£ a wronger of hers." CIVIS.; ■