PASSING NOTES. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Otago Witness, Issue 3764, 4 May 1926, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

(Pram Saturday’s Otsfo Dally Tinas). Qualifying the grief and pain of surrendering the Exhibition is a complacent and comfortable self-righteousness. Our achievements in the impossible put Wembley to the blush. We have sailed whereever man can sail, and beyond; we have reached the Pole; we have climbed Mount Everest; we have squared the circle. Other incredible things we have done. Through the Exhibition wicket-gate we have passed the whole population of New Zealand thrice • over, or pretty nearly. These facts will console us when Aladdin's Palace that rose like an exhalation shall have vanished like a dream, and when the place it has made sacred is abandoned to the flannelled fools at the wickets and the muddied oafs at the goals. For these epithets Kipling must be my excuse; but Kipling himself needs no excuse for deriding fanatical devotion to what is called “sport.” England at this hour is divided between two things—tile coal crisis and the visit of an Australian cricket team. Which is thought the more important! Hard to tell. The cables report Mr Bald win and the coal crisis people in midnight conference and leaving off exhausted. But they also report that “Grimmett is still coughing” and Collins is “a trifle pale.” Alas my country!

Oh this, the closing day of their big responsibility, the Exhibition directors will have nothing to regret—except that they omitted to impose a betting tax on Chocolate Avenue. This crumpled rose-

Ifal may well disturb their rest. A betting tax on Chocolate Avenue would have given them a pot of money;—they would have been able to present the Art’Gallery to Dunedin City. Alas and alack a-day I The Highlanders, on whom we dote and who to-day must bring to an end then career of triumph, can have nothing to regret, except that they will see our approving face no more. Handel’s great “Hattslujah" to wind up) Would that it were possible’ Nothing could be more fitting, nothing finer, Handel might have had a military band in view. But if we can’t have Handel we may reasonably for “Auld Lang Syne.” Lot tfcst be'ti— Highlanders' las* Word—‘AAcld Lang Svne wit*; wtiacks of the big drum, so t-«t we. may clasp hands, wave and waggle, lifting a united voice to the electric lights and the empyrean. How lovely! But all things come to an end. At the long last it will be for the Mayor and the chairman to lock up and see each other home,—“remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,"—but for motor cars. W*l either of them be up by church time to-morrow? Frijsi a disgruntled “ Briton Dear “ Civis,” —While trying to fill up my Census paper some of the “ headings ” seemed to me rather vague • and I was wondering whether all the Britons born, say, in England. Wales. Scotland, and Irelam. would lie content to sink their nationality and write themselves down as just Europeans. What reason can there be for turning Britons into just Europeans even on paper? For reasons of its own the Government wants to know whether you are of European descent in contrast with “ Maori, Chinese, Indian, Syrian, Maori-European half-caste, etc., as the case may he.” I am quoting its own words. If of European descent you may be anything else you like, —English. Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Bolshevist, Fascist, Jew, Turk, infidel or lipretie,—the Government is not interested. On the point of Census paper “ vagueness ” I agree. There are “directions” that I have read half a dozen time 9 and still felt myself undirected. For which reason it is in a hypercritical- spirit that I turn me to an “ Explanatory Note ” filling a page. “ The New Zealand Government is investigating the practicability of providing assistance for householders with families.” Prodigious! For I am myself a “ householder with family,” and apparently may look for a Government pension. Then follows a sentence in which I bracket unnecessary wqrds: ** Statistics of (the) social conditions (as they exist throughout the country) are required to enable the problem to be (properly) "studied and estimates made (of the coßt, etc.).” Official English should always be the King’s English; but it isn’t.

Nor is it always in the King’s English that official persons are addressed. Here is a war-time letter, ite genuinenese avouched by the Admiralty:— Respected Sir, Dear Sir, Though I take this liberty as it leaves me at present I bgg to ask if

you will -.indly be kind enough to let me know where is my Husbin, though he is not my legible Husbin, as he as a wife though he says she is did, but I do not think he knows for sure but we are not married though I am getting my allotment reglar which is no fault of Mr boy George who would stop it if he could and Mr M'Kenna, but if you know where he is as he belongs to the Royal Fling Corps for ever since he joined in Jan. when he was sacked from his work fir talking back to his Bo.? which was a woman $t the laundry where he worked, l have not had any money from him since he joined, though he told Mrs Harris what lives on the ground floor he was a pretty Ossifer for six shillings a week and lots of underdose in for bad weather, and I have three children what In has been the father of though he says it was my fault. Hoping you will write to me soon and you are quite well as it leaves me at present I must close hoping you are well* Mrs Jane Jenkins. Years old, yet quite new, and worthy of a place in this miscellany. Dr Mott, who arrives :rom going to and fro in the earth and walking un down in it, h naturally sir 'Authority iirf people that live at home at ease, the people wit. Dr Mott has much to say and says it well. The World is in a bad way:— The friction points between the races to-day were more numerous and also more inflamed than they were two decades ago. The whole worldwide situation might be characterised * as one of distrust, irritation, and bitterness. Unmistakably there was a growing volume of racial fear throughout the world. And yet— One ground of his confidence that the Christian forces w r ere on the threshold of something far greater and more wonderful than they had ever known was the fact that they found themselves in the midst of such an overwhelmingly difficult and impossible situation. For the very reason that the problem is insoluble we are on the verge of its solution. Here is your true optimist. Listening to Dr Mott is a moral tonic; a glass of grog is nothing to it.

About China, we may readily believe Dr Mott, since China seems to have been his last point of departure. “ I can say with assurance that the prospects for Christianity were never brighter. 1 don’t consider that the civil war in China has the slightest effect on the missions. Actually the people of China are at peace.” It is a coincidence that immediately after hearing these reassurances I opened London papers by the mail and read (March 13): — The civil war in China proceeds apace. Peking and Tientsin are cut off from both sea and land communications. Reuter says that during the past few days the Taku forts have fired indiscriminately at all vessels which have tried to pass up or down the River Peiho. The issue has been joined in earnest for the possession of Peking, and it may be hoped that it will soon be is to win the prize of control over the Central Government. When we write Peking, Tientsin, and T&ku are held by the armies of Feng and the so-called national army. Chfl.rtg, the Manchurian War Lord, h&s joined forces with Wu Pei-fu. And so on, till among the Changs and Fengs ais Wu® and Fus you lose ivll sense reality—don’t know who’s who or what’s what. But, singling out Feng —a convert of Dr Mott’s and “ a sincere Christian it is interesting to learn that he “ is endeavouring to abandon his present activities and leave for the United States/’ where Dr Mott hopes to

meet him next year. So let us try {o sing with Browning’s light-hearted Pippa, Feng and Dr Mott joining in— God’s in His heaven, All’s right with the world. At a meeting this week to discuss “ the outlook of the Christian ministry ” one clergyman remarked that “ the ministry sometimes held out such a miserable pittance that there was no inducement to the young man.” But suppose the miserable prance were supplemented by a votive motor car ? How to bring that about?—listen to the Irish novelist G:**A. Birmingham (you spell it “ P : rmingham ” but may pronounce it Hannay, Canon Hannav) : “ The vicar called on the editor of the local paper and asked him to insert a short paragraph of church news:—‘We understand that the parishioners of St. Willibald’s intend shortly to present their vicar with a motor car to commemorate the completion of his ten years’ service among them.” The editor, who knew something about the parish, asked who of the parishioners had thought of making the presentation. “ Well,” said the vicar, after a moment’s hesitation, “no one has thought of it yet, but they all will as soon as they read that paragraph.” He was right. The parishioners presented the. car. Such is the story. So may the sight of means to do good deeds make good deeds done. Dear Civis,—You seem to be an “enquire within upon everything, gentlemen” ; could you please tell me the meaning of “antinea”? As he writes the word in Greek characters, this inquirer will probably have looked for it in Liddell and Scott. Ought to have done, anyhow. If he looked he didn’t find it, and he didn’t find it because it is not there. That fact should have warned him that “antinea” is of the same family as “chortle” and “jabberwok”—a nonsense word. However, for the removing of all doubt, I have laid under tribute the Otago University,, no less’.—with this result—- • a 6 emi jp2 Greek word: unknown in either s-nci'ent or modern Greek. If ths context wofe given, one could probably indicate what the word is intended to mean, made up, as it is, of “anti” and “neos.” So that’s that. Let it be admitted that the Otago University, and “Civis,” and the Daily Times—that concedes this space to a trifle—are an amiable trio, and unreasonably obliging. From Palmerston: Dear “ Civis,”—Are you not a little hypercritical in objecting to “Filluel”? 'li might so easily have been “ Fillool ”—as generally (mis) pronounced. I take this opportunity of thanking you for many good things culled from your column, particularly rhyming parodies. May I hope for more—in due course? The probability is that the early settler whose name is perpetuated in “ Filleul Street” did pronounce it either “Fillool” or “ Fillule.” and not “ Fillehl ” as if it were French. Pass for that; let us come to verbal quips and cranks as desiderated by this correspondent. Here is an example:— Imus tritu menda mansuescat. I must try to mend a man’s waistcoat. The words in the Latin line are all good Latin, as the words in the English line a.e all good English. For the relation between the two—reference to the printer’s devil, or some other classical authority. Try again:— The waters wild went o’er his child, And ho was left fermenting Vv alter Scott, last couplet of “Lord Ullin’s Daughter.” Parody or schoolboy howler, as you will. Civw

A Nautical Enquiry ... ... SO A Casual Musician 84 A Shark Sensation ... *» r A Chinese Protest Alleged Fraud Athletics 7 Z n Births, Marriages, and Deaths - 51 ■*A Hr markable Generation” - 7 A Spartan Trek By Motor Caravan 8 5 Boxing — 17 British Trade 6 Commercial ... 3C-37 ... Concerning Royalty ... ... 82 * Censu* Hetarns ... 8 * Christchurch Church Hospital ... ... - i*irr Contempt of Court ™ 0 V Casualties ... 37 “Chinese and Cabbages” 75 Christian Co-operation 15 Clutha County Council 18 Country, The - ... — 57 Lake County. Otautau. Cromwell. Balclutha. Wairoa (Hawke's Bay) Cvcling and Motoring Notes — 74-75 Motor Fuel Problems. The Motor’s Death Toll. The Mudguard. Petrol Tax Favoured. long Distance Buses. British Motor Cycle Exports. Care of Stored Car. The Faithful Ignition. Deflectors for Cyclists. The Level Crossing Danger. Motor Bus Regulations. The “Blue Peril.” Car Imports into Italy. / Dot’s Little Folk ... 82-84 Destitute, but Brave 73 Dancing Time 79 Daylight Saving ... 75 Dilatory Motorists 81 Draughts 73 Essence of Christianity 15 From North of Tweed 73 Future of Wembley 75 Fanciers’ Column 56 Farm and Station 12-14, 19-21 Agricultural and Pastoral Show Dates. Notes on Rural Topics. Agricultural and Pastoral News. The North Island. Stock and Grazing Notes. Mineral Requirements of Animals Wheat Sowing. Dairy Industry. The Pig. Falmerston North Show. Agricultural College. Canterbury Grain and Produce Market. Our Yorkshire Letter. Breadstuff? and Produce Market. Commercial Cablegrams. Garden and Orchard 11 Game of Chance ... Hound’s Pasture 76 5 Health Education 14 Inventions and Appliances 80 In Touch wilh Nature ... » Immense Apple Crop 76 Jottings from Snnnv Seas 81 Land and Timber 81 Lake Onslow 7!) Ladies Page ... 67-72 Table Talk. “Alien’s” Letter from England, flints and Suggestions. Home Interests. In Fashion’s Realm. Pet Animals Land and Water 59 Law Queries 52 Local and General ... 3-4 Literature and Life 78 Books of the Day. Publications Received. Motor Lorry Accident 75 Mining ... 58 Mv Country Notebook 57 “Much too Common” 82 News bv Cable ... 53-34 Notes and Queries 52 New Zealand Dinner 11 New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition ... 23-34 Ngauruhoe Active 14 Our Babies ... 72 Paestna Not** ... ... ... Pater’s Chats with the Boys Passing Notes *** ... s 80 Round About Wellington 38 Returned Soldiers’ Association ... 14 "Ringing the Change” 73 Scientific Miscellany SO Selfishness 81 Soviet Propaganda 10 Shipping Notes 17 Shipping News 57 Scottish Farewell 57 Short Stories ... 85-86 The Bug Hunter. The New Charlady. Cousin Bernard. The Storm Child. Sporting Racing Calendar. Talk of the Day. In a Nutshell. Canterbury Doings. ... 40-63 Wellington Notes. Auckland Topics. Racing in New Zealand. Racing in Australia. Racing in England. Weights. Acceptances, etc. The Stage 76 Theatrical and Musical Notes. Wellington Wing Whispers. > The Sketcher 71 My Proud Dark-eyed Sailor. A Little Bit of Love. Jonathan buys a Saxophone. Taste in the Home Sea Rust. The Care of the Shoos. Features of Ship Design. Obtaining Perfumes. On Making Friends. Desert Dusk. Summer Air. A Pioneer s rooms. The Apiary 11 ’The Garland 72 The Race Problem ... The Novelist ... 6 ... 66-67 The Pixie’s Mistake ... 82 The Aeroplane Disaster ... The Taupo Fisheries 17 7 The Vanishing Continent ... 10 The Drug Habit 72 The Maori Race 16 The Week 51 The Naturalist ... 80 Unfair to Motorists ... 70 Voluntary Liquidation ... 18 West Coast News 58 What Sydney Roads ... ... Wnipiatn Sanitorium ... ... m ... 9 76 Young Girl Abducted ... ... - ~ 18