PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday’s Otago Daily Times.) There is such a thing as being more English than the English and more royalist than the King. A thought of this kind may have perplexed the Duke and Duchess of York when landing at the ends of the earth to find a people who looked English, talked English, lived in English provincial towns that they had built for themselves in the Cannibal Islands, and at every turn presented complimentary addresses, surpassing in that attention the English of England itself. But a glance at our hills and dales supplied a corrective. The New Zealand cabbage tree has a South Sea Island look not to be mistaken, and our dead volcanos ith crater tops have nothing English about them. When somewhere off Cape Brett the Duke thrilled to the tug of a mako-shark and fought a winning fight till the big fish was hoisted in, when he watched the gyrations of a leaping swordfish that refused to be hoisted in and broke away in a flash, then perhaps for the first time his Royal Highness was no longer a Royal Highness but an Adventurer who

had escaped from the usual into a world of surprises. And glad at heart he would be.

Next, Rotorua and the Maoris. Better and better. The Maori, we say, is a natural orator. Unlike the pakeha. who is the creature of conventions, and limited on every hand, the Maori has an open-air mind that lives among the big things of Nature. lu excitement, uttering his soul, he himself is one of the big things of Nature, as little troubled by self-criticism as the bird on the bough, the vocal tui of his native woods. Here is the latest example: Welcome, oh, Sir, Welcome. -To the Duchess, Welcome.

To you, our Royal guests, auspicious in your coming as the once appearing mystic white heron, welcome to Ao-tea-Roa and Te Waipounamu. Welcome to you, son of the Emperor. We rejoice in the effulgence of our Royal estate and your awe-awakening presence, you, the living representative of the illustrious forefathers who haVb passed with the innumerable dead through the cold chambers of the grave to the dwelling place of the spirits. We welcome you, coming from your father, our gracious Majesty, King George V., who dwells in his far-famed stronghold in London. . . . We are pleased that you come to 'Weave more closely the strands of the great hawser that binds these islands to the. Mother Country. Welcome 1 Farewell !

Natural oratory, born of commerce, with the forest and the stream, the far horizons and the surges of the shore. Their Royal Highnesses will travel far before they hear the like again.

The Bishop of London, is very much out of his latitude here at the Antipodes, albeit a welcome visitor, suggests that we should drop the words “ emigrant ” and “ immigrant ” in favour of “ migrant,” if we would attract from the Homeland people who cherish self-re-spect. It seems that the old familiar term “ emigrant ” connotes pauperism and degradation. Very well;, migrant let it be; and let the Bishop of. London in his keenness for populating New Zealand help to send us migrants content to start where the early settlers started and work up. It is the reproach of our New Zealand- young people that they expect to Tiegiii where their .fathers and mothers leave off, at the same level of ease and affluence. So with our incom-. ing migrants; —the “standard of living,’* we hear continually, “ must be kept up.” What was the early settler’s standard of living? Amenities of the city were not for him, and he certainly didn’t go every other night to the “ pictures.” /The only migrant we can accommodate is a migrant who wilj begin on the level of the early settler. That kind of migrant has as much right to New Zealand as we have. I notice that the National Council of Women inclines otherwise:—

Mrs K. Downing (Dunedin) said that although the immigrants might not be of the right type physically and mentally they belonged to the Empire. They had as much right to live in New Zealand, which was part of the Empire, as in England, and New Zealand should be prepared to absorb them. Delegates: Oh, no. Oh, yes;—a British citizen may pass from one part of the Empire to another as freely ac from London to York, or from Putney to Pimlico. And he may live where he pleases provided he lives cleanly, and, like our ever-memorable early settlers, will earn his bread in the sweat of his brow.

From Christchurch: “The policeman’s lot is not a happy one; neither is the politician’s.”

Dear Civis, —Mr Coates’s political existence hangs upon votes, an uncertain tenure. Parliament is in front of him; already his opponents are—metaphorically speaking—sharpening their swords for the fray. Mussolini in Italy has proclaimed himself Chancellor for life, supplying an urgent motive for shortening his days. The Opposition vote, to be effective, must take the shape of bombs and bullets. In France, the Premier, M. Poincare, is afflicted by a peculiar phase of the unemployed problem. Thus, from a Paris cablegram under date February 20 : “The idleness of executioners has become an affair of State. Three executioners are each paid £25 a year, plus fees, for each execution, but there lias-been only one job among the three during the last eight montlfe, whereas before the war there were at least one or two a month. The Premier (M. Poincare) promised to consider the men’s grievances, saying that if there were nobody to guillotine the executioners must not starve.” Quito so. The executioners must not starve, lie frankly recognises a duty, but how to perform it he does not say. It is easy to say. Either the frozen-out executioners must be put on the dole, or the guillotine must be set going again. In the earlier ■•'time, with Robespierre and the like of Robespierre in command, how simple the solution ! Those malcontents in the Senate—Socialists, Communists', Anarchists, what not?—M. Poincare could readily make up a tumbril full. And then—drive away, and drive fast to Madame La Guillotine !

A discussion going on in England about the word “ obey ” in the marriage service, where the wife promises to “love, honour, and obey” her husband —a discussion that has leaked over into the cables—is much ado about nothing. Most aptly the play of that name gives a ruling. Says Dogberry in “ Much Ado,” “An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.” He must; there is no’ alternative and no escape. ' The same rule holds if one of the riders is a woman; —she rides on a pillion, a pad or pillow attached to the saddle, and she rides- behind. Would you have her ride in front? Granted that she can make it very uncomfortable for the man in front if he doesn’t go the way she wants. But, metaphor apart, the elementary idea of the marriage state is agreement by concessions, each to each, reciprocal submission. The alternative to which is a police court separation and a maintenance order. Another alternative was suggested to Mr Lloyd George when once upon a time he was debating the franchise with excited suffragettes. A wild woman in the crowd shrieked at him —“ If I were your wife; I would give you poison! ” Like a shot came tile answer: “If I were your husband, I would z takc it! ” And, despite their wrath, the suffragettes themselves rocked with laughter. x

If any power on earth can check the tendency in womankind to get back to Eve ar.d her fig-leaf, it is the Church of Rome. Rigid discipline; but its iron benefits are limited. You must be within the pale. To all within the pale the Pope himself has spoken; though the Pope, good man, can know little good or bad about women’s dress from personal observation. He knows only what he is told; but that is enough. The Pope has spoken; and when the Pope speaks, urbi et orbL priests and people-’ lend an attentive ear. The episcopal fulminations against immodesty in dress reported from France and Ireland are echoes of the Vatican. The rest of us, dwellers without the pale, are set thinking. It is something to know that if Eve with her fig-leaf appeared in Princes street the police would close upon her, huddle her into a taxi,

hurry her to the lock-up. Not otherwise if she’ appeared in bathing costume or as a ballet girl. Bathing costume is for the beach; ballet girls are for the stage and the footlights. We seem agreed that street display should not go beyond legs in flesh-coloured stockings, a display which modest man with furtive looks finds not disagreeable. Legs for the street; neck and arms plus legs for the cabaret. But, really, one hardly knows what to say about these things. Perhaps, after all, one should try to assimilate the Vatican point of view.

“'Psycho-analysis”—don’t jib at the word, ’flying off at a tangent. There were members ’’of the Medical Congress who betrayed a sneaking belief in psychoanalysis, and there are simpletons ready to listen to any quack with this word on his tongue. In much of its so-called “ literature ” psycho-analysis is frankly obscene; in the rest it is patently absurd. The Professor Mental Diseases, Leeds University, up to derision its treatment of dreams. A man dreams that the number of his house is 72, the real number being 243. What does psycho-analysis make of ?

We begin with 72, the erroneous number in the dream, and find that 72 is 36 multiplied by 2. Now 72 was the age at which his grandmother died to whom he was greatly attached; 36 was the age at which his mother died; 2 is the only numeral common to the correct and the false numbers of the house, 243 and 72. Thus there were two people for whom his imagination longed, and both were represented by the age at which they had died. The unconscious mind —an outdoor department of Bedlam —had contrived this nonsense calculation to bring before the conscious mind a mother and a grandmother deceased. This is psychoanalysis, and the force of folly could no farther go.

The Leeds Professor tries his hand at a parallel absurdity. He invents a cryptogram proving that the Psalms of David were written by “ Will Shakespear.” The name “ Shakespear ’’ consists of ten letters; four of these are vowels and six consonants; 4 and 6 written together make 46. Therefore turn to Psalm 46, and, as there are ten letters,, to verse 10 of that Psalm. Count six words from the beginning of this verse, and we get “ I am.” Next count six words from the end of this verse, and we get “ will.” Then count forty-six words from the beginning of the Psalm,, and we get “ Shake,”, and counting forty-six words from the end, neglecting “ selah,” which does not belong to the text, we get “ spear.” We have thus deciphered the cryptogram: “ I am Will Shakespear”—the author of the Psalms. Nearly as good as psycho-analysis, this, born out of his own head. So the Leeds Professor thinks, modestly suggesting that it puts no greater strain upon faith. Vastly - less, I should say. It is one in principle and method with Donnelly’s “ Great Cryptogram ” proving that the Plays of Shakespeare were written by Lord Bacon. But Donnelly’s “ Great Cryptogram ” has long been cast to the moles and the bats.

Scraps of correspondence. “Dear Civis” at the head of each: —“Please tell me what was the surname of the present king at his birth.” His surname, if he has 5 a surname, from the time of his birth and always, is Guelph. But you might as well ask for the surname of Confucius or of Alexander the Great. Next: “Have you ever received a letter of the Prayer Chain? I received one a week ago, stating that if I broke the chain I would have bad luck. Whereupon I broke it, just to sec. . . The only question of

interest is, in what congregation, church, or sect did the pious simpletons who circulate the “Prayer Chain” receive their idiotic and execrable teaching? . There are ministers of religion, so called, who—not to put too fine a point upon it—ought to be run out of the country. Next, from Balclutha, satirical comment on an extraordinary phenomenon reported iu the Daily Times and attested by a lady of that No-license township—the levitation of a haystack. Caught up by a whirlwind, the haystack sailed over the tops of the trees an(J> vanished in the distance, perhaps carried out to sea, perhaps deposited among the ricks of some astonished farmer, a gift from the sky. Plainly a miracle. “Professor Huxley has said that miracles do not happen,” gasped the embarrassed curate from the pulpit. “That is a mistake; tYrstdes do haj.jevj. It is a miracle that I am here to preach; it is another miracle that you consent to listen.” Both miracles ended ircontinently by his descent from the pulpit.

Miracles of this kind are .".bout every day, if we cared to look for them. Civis..