PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3549, 28 March 1922, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday’s Daily Times.) Tlie Gandhi trial seems to have resolved itself into a competition in courtesy between bench and dock. “You are a man of high ideals, Mr Gandhi,” said the judge,—“of high ideals and of even saintly life. It is with extreme satisfaction that I propose to accommodate you in one of his Majesty's jails. I give you six years.” “Oh, thanks!” said Mr Gandhi; “no honest judge could give me less. Safer in jail than out. If out, I should still play with fire. The highest penalty would not be too much!” This the tone on both sides. What remains to see is whether, as a preacher of mutiny, this holy man is now going to be more or going to be less. Will be preach more effectively from his dungeon cell than he preached from his open-air stump? The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church ! But what tells with Indian populations and has always told is authority with power at its back and the will to use it, —that knows its own mind, and can pounce. The Indian Government has pounced on Mi- Gandhi; pity perhaps it didn’t pounce earlier. Suppose it were possible that the Prince on leaving India —-taking on what might have been the style of Aurungzebe, the Indian Great Panjandrum—should release Mr Gandhi, carrying him off to Japan as a guest in his suite ; —suppose this impossible thing ; —what then ? We should' have all the world wondering. The French press would talk of a “beau geste,” and an “action d’eelat.” But Gandhi himself, —would he yield to the spell ? He is an ascetic, remember. Given assurances in point of fasting and in respect of sackcloth and ashes, I think he w-ould. With an eve to converting the Prince.

As there is “a soul of goodness in things evil, would men observinglv distil it out,” something to our advantage may he distilled out from the bilious seizures to which Sein Fein ecclesiastics are prone on St. Patrick’s Day. At once thev put us “on side.” We know who’s who, and what is what, and where we stand. Byway of putting himself “on side,” a correspondent of the Daily Times, Wednesday (an R. 0., bidding us “be fair”) repudiates the episcopal admiration for murder; denies that “the sentiments of Bishop Liston and the Tablet are the sentiments of Homan Catholics generally” ; and asserts that though “Irish Roman Catholics predominate in New Zealand and voice their own sentiments,” there are “thousands of other Homan Catholics

| who are as loyal as the members of anf | other denomination.” Which indeed was I already common knowledge. With Roman Catholics as such there is no quarrel, j They have had their saints and martyrs, as everybody knows ; in devotion to rej ligious ideals they set a pattern to the ; rest of us. When, however, we hear a bishop boasting “the glorious Easter of 1916” —the glorious stab in the back—it is not only disgust that takes us but shame, positive shame, that any sort of ■churchman , should sink so low. The Auckland Hibernian Society may not be ashamed of Bishop Liston ; but I am ashamed, and with me the universal “man in the street,” who, as a rule, has no time for lI.C. bishops, whether for glory or for shame. In this country the man in the street is usually a Protestant. Blackwood’s Magazine for May last puts into juxtaposition two paragraphs from the London Times of the previous November: ®lxtract from the ‘Times’ of Monday, 22nd November:— “At 9 o’clock yesterday morninggangs of assassins visited simultaneously a number of selected houses and hotels in Dublin, and in circumstances of revolting brutality murdered at least fourteen British officers and ex-officers, and wounded five more. In two or three cases officers’ wives were pulled out of bed, and their husbands murdered in front of them.” Extract from a letter written by Father Dominic, a Roman Catholic priest, who was arrested a few weeks later:—“Sunday, November 21st, was a wonderful day in Dublin.” The same Father Dominic would subscribe to “the glorious Easter of 1916” doctrine, j Beyond a doubt! He was “run in,” it seems. I agree with the suggestion of a Northern newspaper that any New Zealand lather Dominic should be presented with his passports and run out.

Question by—not any correspondent of mine, but—“the man in the street,” as an authentic organ of general opinion : Is there nobody to wring the neck of

this bloodthirsty halfbreed? The man in the street had been reading the later manifestoes of Mr de Valera—e.g., “You must march over the dead bodies of your own brothers; you must wade through Irish blood.” ‘"‘Ugh!”— continued the pavement critic, snorting contempt: “Pie’s no Irishman ! His father was a New York dago. No Irishman would talk that way. Wasn’t even born in Ireland ;—born in New York. Is there nobody to wring his neck?” Not anybody, so far as can be seen. But, as the chances -point, no such surgical operation will be necessary. There is an attraction, mutual and reciprocal, between an Irishman and a shindy. If Mr de Valera were promising ti general Donnybrook, were distributing shillelaghs, were proclaiming officially the ancient rule, —“Wherever you see a head hit it,” he might go from strength to strength. But there is little to attract in a march over Irish dead bodies and a wading through oceans of Irish blood. It is Sassenach gore that is wanted, and the bodies of Ulster Orangemen. Lacking these essentials, Mr de Valera has nothing better to propose than the duel of the Kilkenny cats. I am tired of citing this Kilkenny cat parable, but in discussing Irish affairs it is impossible to keep it out. Tf my word could count, I should recommend Mr de Valera to go on as he is going—an Irish Riuvhead and Bloody Bones. Disillusion will the quicker come.

Poor Mrs Asquith! In England censured for the*-indiscretions of her autobiography, satirized, laughed at, parodied, from some circles ostracized, she has carried to America an unpublished continuation and is publishing it there by tile novel method of platform readings. For English lecturers America is a land of fatness . There are big towns by the hundred, in every big town —given efficient touting and competent agency arrangements—big audiences may be had and big prices. Sirs Asquith opened in New York to an • audience that packed one of trie largest theatres in America, prices from 15s to 7s 6d. Seated at a table she

read from her diary in a low-pitohed voice. Cries from the audience: “Speak louder!” After a while a shrill voice in the balcony: “Good-bye; you’ve got our money for nothing.” The New \ork Times says four women who vainly clamoured for their money back went to the Tinxes office last night to protest. The Times quotes one of them as expressing her indignation thus: “I got up from a bed of sickness to hear her. The only thing I could hear was something about the old grey mare ’ and ‘ I—l—l—l, ah ! The old grey mare.’ That is all that reached me.” Reciting behind the footlights in the manner and garb of Miss Dorothy Spinney— Greek draperies, loose and easy—or even in stage shorts and tights, Mrs Asquith would have held her audience. Perhaps it has since occurred to her. In press interviews she did better ; the New York reporter met his match. The reporters vainly tried to secure her opinion of Mr Lloyd George. “Is he as popular with the British public as formerly?” asked a reporter. “ I wonder!” replied Mrs Asquith, and refused to be drawn further A woman reporter asked her what Mr Lloyd George thought of her. “Ah!” replied Mi's Asquith. “That would be interesting. That is a capital idea. Why not ask him?”

This smacks of earlier days. In repartee, conversational thrust and parry. Mrs Asquith could usually keep her end up.

From Knox College : Dear “ Givis,” —Could you please settle a long drawn out argument: How are the lights on the posts in the harbour lit?. Are they electric, or does someone light them every evening, or are they left on all day? The most satisfactory explanation we have been given is that they are phosphorescent jelly fish, attracted to the top of the posts by butter placed there weekly. Hoping that you consider this is important enough to answer, and that yon can shed light on our darkness. —- Etc., etc. The Panama Canal is an artery with an aneurism—a wide-spreading inland sea, dotted here and there with beacons that as day fades show a light. The nearest shores are many miles away. A 12,000-ton boat happens along, and there happens on dock the “dour Scots engineer”—as Kipling’s M‘Andrew styles himself,—*end he stands at gaze. To him, as to an accepted man of science, a question : “How are those lights kept going?” He hangs a moment, and then: “That’s just what ah’m askin’ mvself ; an’ I don’t see the answer.” Problem left at that. But Dunedin Harbour is easier ; —its opposite shores nowhere far apart. The beacon lights are not decaying jelly-fish, and idea that does Knox College-credit, bet kerosene lamps, simply. The lamps burn continuously The oil reservoirs are replenished from time to time. Like the Columbus puzzle, how to make an egg stand on end, the ■answer is quite simple when you know it. The backblocker and I know each other very well. Affection is tlie bond. Proofs are divided between this column and the waste-paper basket. The backblocker has a sharper sense of humour than other people, due perhaps to the humorous conditions of his existence. From Ettrick I am invited to rejoice in the advertisement of a poultry farmer who announces himself “the winner of an egg-laying competition.” If I were a backblocker I should ask. How many eggs does the man lay a week? and over that question chuckle for a week. From South Canterbury a correspondent writes; “You have a good many readers in these parts;” for which reason it should “appeal” to me, he thinks, that at a local concert reported in the local paper Mrs So-and-so “sank Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ with a violin obligato.” She sank it; and she sank it with a violin obligato. Very tragic. I see and perceive although so far away. The same correspondent would like the following advertisement enshrined in Raising Notes :—- Wanted Known— Will Person who saw a Young Lady riding with a Fellow in a Gig and Gray Hack, wearing a Yellow Tam o’ Shanter Ilat and a Black Velvet Coat, and of Smart and Good Appearance, going towards Geraldine through Geraldine Road, on Sunday, sth of March, 1922, between the hours of 7.30 and 8.30, or who knows where she is : Hazel Eyes; Fair; please communicate with:

Forsaken, C.o. Cricklewood. He professes a doubt whether it was the Young Lady or the Gray Hack that wore the Yellow Tam o’ Shanter and the Black Velvet Coat. That is a detail. But I suggest to backblock editors that in the London newspapers “Agony Column” advertisements are or used to be charged double rates.

An epileptic seizure : Hooray. Ilooroosh. Heureusement. Likewise, Haeremai, Banzai, Io Triomphe, and Nunc est bibendum. ‘■Givis” is down. lie who for so long

has chided us for our errors, -and ad* monished us for our ignorance, has crashed at last. Aliquando dormitafc etiam Ilomerus. Nemo ' mortalium omnibus horis sapit. All of which means that last week he reproduced that misquotation “Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.” There ain’t no sick line. “Omnia” i< the word, and the next_ line is “Ilia vices quasdam res habet i ilia vices.” But as to lempora, I repeat, there ain’t no fiich quotation not nowheres. The worm, has turned. Yes, the worm has turned; and how much better off is a worm for turning? A worm is a. worm all the time; turned or unturned it may be trodden on, or the early bird may get it. Tin's correspondent s polyglot chortling, if not epilepsy but humorous make-believe, presents him as Sir Nathaniel in the play—or was it Holofernes?—who had been to a great feast of languages and stolen scraps. In “tempora mutantur” I professed no quotation, but, as I said, a Latin tag, which tag I dealt with according to my need. When ’Omer smote ’is bloomin’ lyre ’E’d ’eard men sing by land and sea; An’ what ’e thought ’e might require ’E went an’ took—the same as me. “Tempora” I required, and “tempora” I took; “omnia” 1 did not require. That the times change is true; that all things change is not true. The duty of suffering fools gladly never changes. It is a duty that I practise every week. But let me have yet a word with thw same learned Theban. Though I professed no quotation, the “Tempora mutantur” line exists in that form, is of respectable authorship, and of decent age. John Owen, a Wykehamist of three centuries back, known to Continental scholars as “the British Martial,” published in 1606 a volume of epigrams on the Martial model, amongst them this : Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: , Quo modo? fit semper tempore pejor homo. But Owen’s principles resembled ’Omer’s and mine: “What ’e thought ’e might require ’e went an’ took.” Owen frequently adapts and alters to his own purpose the iines of his predecessors in Latin verse, and one such borrowing has become celebrated as a quotation (the "lempora mutantur” line) though few knotv where it is to be found. This line is altered from an epigram' bv Matthew Borbonius, one of a series of mottoes for various emperors, this one being for Lothaire I. Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: Ilia vices quasdam res liabet, ilia vices. All of which, together with anything ha might like to know about Matthew Borbonius, my polyglottic friend may learn by turning up the proper books. Civis.