PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3768, 1 June 1926, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(Prom Saturday’s Otago Daily Times). Preoccupied by the tragicomic General {Strike in England, and by its pitiful sequence in Wales, where the miner prefers to starve rather than work 10 hours a (lav, we have given scant attention to the 44-hour strike in Australia. Of the 144 hours in a six-days’ working week the Australian worker announces that he will work in 44 and no more; further, that until he is assured of this 44-hour week he will not work at all. What it is to be an Australian “worker”! One Melbourne editor remarks gloomily that a 44-hour week means a lower rate of production throughout Australia, and that everybody will be poorer, the worker included. There was a time when the worker paraded the streets in mile-long processions to celebrate the “ eight-hours day”; hi;; creed and “Chant-Pagan”— Eight hours' work, Eight hours’ play, Eight hours* sleep. And eight bob a day —when in groceries and butcher-meat eight bob was equal to eighteen bob now. What has made the difference? Mainly strikes and “go-slow.” As production falls, prices rise. But considerations of this kind are wasted on the “ worker.” His present goal is a 44hour week; his next will be a week of 40 hours; and indeed a 30-hour week

has been mentioned. And so in the end we shall reach the Lubberland of dreams, where there is loafing at will and every one does as little as he dam pleases. Or, to put it more poetically, the land of the lotus-eaters. In which it always seemeth afternoon.

We have been celebrating the Jubilee of the Presbyterian Theological Hall, — we, —I use the inclusive pronoun, for the whole community is in it; even St. Joseph’s, holding aloof, is kindly. The names Salmond, Stuart, Michael Watt bring back old times, and re are willing to think that the former days were better than these. Ati uncomfortable note at this Jubilee was that the existence of a Theological Hall did not necessarily connote the existence of theological students. “If Hebrew is the disadvantage,” said one speaker, “ toss it away.” In Hebrew I don’t know Alepli from Beth nor Beth from Alepli; Jowett, Master of 'Balliol and a translator of Plato, was in the same condemnation, I believe, and not ashamed to avow it. But though in Hebrew I don’t know A from B, in preachers I think I know the difference between education and no education; certainly I know the difference between good education and bad. Presbyterians will gain nothing by letting dow r n the standard. The expert in preaching specially brought from Australia to advise has told them the same thing. Ay a preacher, the student for whom stuay has been made easy will have nothing to say and will say it badly. If lie lasts out, and if his congregations last out, till age overtakes him, his portrait. is limned ineffaceably in an experience of Thomas Carlyle:— The droning hollowness of the poor old man, droning as out of old ages of old eternities things unspeakable into things unbearable, empty as the braying of an ass, was infinitely pathetic. But I fancy this was an Anglican.

Growing desperate. “ Yesterday ” says a Washington cable of May 22 “ President Coolidge authorised the creation of an army of 10,000 ‘dry* agents through the enlistment into the Federal prohibition service of State, county, and municipal officers with a remuneration of a dollar annually.” I don’t pretend to understand this—quite. Apparently State officers, county officers and municipal officers are to be taken by the scruff of the neck and made to help Pussyfoot willy-nilly—at the nominal rate of one dollar per annum as remuneration. And if so, the wrath of the Senate against “the most revolutionary order ever issued from White House in peace time” is intelligible. Anyhow, one thing is clear—Pqssyfoot must be in evil case.. We may sympathise with President Coolidge, poor man, in his worries. Afto issuing this revolutionary order lie will not say with Mf Micawber when signing a promise to

pay at three months—“ Thank Heaven, that’s off my mind!” It isn’t off his mind. But I can quite imagiue him saying: “Dang it all! —Get me a whisky! ”

Quoting from a recent volume of memorrs, Blackwood gives a convivial scene of long ago, the place, Calcutta; the year, 1790; Viscount Wellesley being Governor-General. His brother, the Colonel Wellesley of this story, is the Duke of Wellington that was to be, who, as we know, led a busy life, did much useful work in the world, and died at a good age. Tlie narrator says that, being invited by Colonel Sherbrooke to meet at dinner Colonel and other equally “ strong heads,” he did his best to excuse himself on the plea of ill-health. His host would accept no excuse, but promised that he should not be asked to drink a drop more than he wished to. The promise, of course, was not kept. At dinner they drank as usual —that is to say, the whole company drank with each other at least twice over. When the cloth was removed the real battle began. “The first half-dozen toasts proved irresistible, and I gulped them down without hesitation. At the seventh.

being disposed to avail myself of the promised privilege, I only half filled my glass, whereupon our host said: ‘ I ’should not have suspected you of shirking such a toast as The Navy.’ And my next neighbour immediately observing. ‘ It must have been a mistake.’ having the bottle in his hand at the time, he filled my glass up to the brim. . . After drinking two-and-twent.v bumpers in glasses of considerable magnitude, the President said every one might then fill according to his discretion, and so discreet were all of the company that we continued to follow the colonel’s example of drink-

ing nothing short of bumpers until two o’clock in tlie morning.” Other times other manners. Note tlie difference between 1790 and this present year of grace. And no thanks to Pussyfoot.

A variant of the “ Prayer Chain ’ intercepted on its way to the wastepaper basket:—

This Good Luck letter was sent to me, and I am sending it on to you to prevent breaking the Chain of Good Luck. Copy this letter and send

it to 12 persons to whom you wish Good Luck. The Chain was started by an American Officer, and should travel thrice round the World. Do not break the Chain of Good Luck, for whoever does will have bad Luck. Write 12 copies within 24 hours, and in 10 days you will have Good Luck. # It is remarkable how many times this has come true.

Our senior printer’s devil, who has a turn for figures and is suspected of an unholy acquaintance with betting odds, calculates that at the fifth remove from the “ American officer ” —if his scheme were a going concern and used to the full—the candidates for Good Luck would outnumber the population of New Zealand, and at the tenth remove they would be equal to the population of the »lobe. Beyond that it would be necessary to take in the Solar System and the Milky Way. My thanks to the amiable imbecile who has offered me a chance.

“ Amiable imbecile ” —how do I know that J am not indeoted to some bigwig ot science, a Conan Doyle or an Oliver Lodge? Mr G. K. Chesterton, with lua t»ste for paradoxes, argues somewhere that thfs is a superstitious age because it is a rationalistic age. He says:—

I remember defending the religious tradition against a whole luncneontable of distinguished agnostics, and before the end of our conversation every one of them had from his pocket, or exhibited on his watch chain, some charm or talisman from

which he admitted th.it he was never separatea. I was the only person present who had neglected to provide himself with a fetish. A credible story. The chances are that neither Conan Doyle nor Sir Oliver Lodge would walk under a ladder, or sit down the thirteenth at table.

Dear “Civis,” —Perhaps my “English” has gone amiss. If it has please put me right. Here are two extracts from a Dunedin paper: —(1) The unenviable lot of the tram conductor in charge of a crowded tramcar is recognised . . . etc. (2) The passengers ori the express included 22 school boys, who were in chjjrge of one of the masters. I can understand that the conductor looked after the tramcar. but what happened to the master that mad’ it necessary for 22 boys to. look after l.im? Should the word “the” be inserted before “charge” in example (2)?

The prepositional phrase “in charge of” is ambiguous. “Jack in charge of Jill” may mean Jack in Jill’s charge or Jill in Jack’s. The insertion of “the” would not help. With a little perversity “Jack in the charge of Jill” might still be read either way. The Oxford Dictionary recognises the ambiguity of the phrase “in charge of” and leaves us to fall back on motherwit. No need to fret if you heard that Bill Sikes was in charge of Pleeseman X —you might bet your boots on the bobby.

My correspondence pigeon-hole is choked this week. A general jail delivery would fill columns. A lady, who writes from “tlie bleak back-blocks of Southland,” winds up with the thoughtful remark: “All of which I don’t expect S V OU to P ut in your notes, or any of it for that matter.” Modesty deserves reward, and 1 find room to say that she visited the Exhibition, made a circuit of our Dunedin hills, and now exclaims. “What a heritage of beauty you Dunedin people have!” It is true. For scenery, climb to the Upper Junction road and from that coign of vantage look down on the Harbour, the Islands, the Peninsula, and the blue Pacific beyond. You might visit half the show places in Europe and see nothing finer. Another back-blocker begins thus: Tlie petty foibles of the present generation eked out with cable news and egoistic correspondents afford you ample scope for the exercise of wit and wisdom. Under your guidance we see in miniature:—

Ho# pas«ert the youthful, how the oil, their days. Who sank in sloth, and who aspired to priise; Their tempers, manners, morals, customs. arts. What parts copy had and how they played theii parts Yours is the city heart that drags from o’er the country’s va®t expanse the vapid vapouring*. of the rustic mind. . . . —and thus proceeds* through foolscap pages. I feel kindly towards him ; but vaoid vapourings—it is his own word—can only be published as an advertisement and at double rates Civis. d