PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3830, 9 August 1927, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday’s Otago Daily Times.)

There were touching scenes when the ’oskis and ’ouskis, emissaries of the Soviet plotting a British revolution, left London, —exported if not deported, assisted out of the country at the point of the bayonet. All the London Communists within coo-ee gathered at the railway station; Labour members of Parliament appeared with flowers, Mr George Lansbury, M.P. for Bow, bringing a huge bunch of red carnations; also the same Mr Lansbury raised the mournful strains of the “ Red Fag,” beating time with his bowler hat. At sight of which one of the departing Russians, ’oski or ’ouski, under impulse of Bolshevistic sentiment, embraced and kissed Mr Lansbury. The man that did it should have a medal, says the Morning Post. But Mr Lansbury sees in this tribute of affection nothing extraordinary. “ Why should there be any hullabaloo over one Socialist kis ' -g another? ” hi asks. If a Reddy meet a Reddy, Looking rather wry, j. If a Reddy kis a Reddy, Need a Reddy cry?

Kissing Bolshevistically may pass on a London railway platform; in Russia, if he ventured there, Mr Lansbury might expect to be lined up against a blank wall. For not only is he an Englishman, and an Anglican churchman to boot, say the papers, facts bad enough in themselves, but he has criticised indiscreetly the Soviet practice of shooting people in batches without the formality of trial or judicial condemnation. Whereupon, from Moscow— M. Stalin bitterly attacked the British Labourites, especially Mr G. Lansbury and Mr J. Maxton, who he characterised as worse than enemies, because they refused to understand that the execution of aristocrats was necessary to the revolution. Their attitude enabled Britain to organise

further murders of Soviet ambassadors. Plainly the Soviet temper is on edge, and with reason. One of themselves who had a hand in the murder of the Czar and his family has been shot down on a Polish railway station, Britain inspiring the deed—what else? In London the Arcos nest of conspirators has been rooted out. And in the Far East, Borodin, the Soviet factotum at Hankow, once as “ George Brown,” a strike leader in Glasgow, is a fugitive with a price upon his head. For the capture of Borodin General Chiang Kai-shek is offering a reward of £lO,OOO. Rather a big price for a runaway Bolshevic; I shouldn’t have thought him worth the money. Be that as it may, more power to General Chiang Kai-shek!

In Dunedin we have been listening to a lady missionary on furlough from China who on her return to that land of distracted Chings and Changs will take up work in “ Changtu, a large city, 200,000 miles up the Yangtse Valley ” —2o“' OGJ miles being about the distance of the moon. All things in China arc on a large scale; if there is a flood, 10,000 Chinese are drowned in it; nothing but a big round figure would fit the case. But in this 200,000 miles up the Yangtse we may suspect a freak of the printer, and so go on to note with satisfaction the courage of this lady missionary who with her husband will go up the Yangtse to Changtu as soon as “ quieter conditions ” permit; her belief that quieter conditions will certainly arrive; and her hopeful interpretation of the whole Chinese puzzle: “Without something like the tremendous upheaval that is going on in China to-day the nation would have been doomed.” She praises the “ unliounded patience and moderation of Britain ” —probably thinking of our retirement from Hankow, which Mr Putnam Weale considers a cowardly scuttle; and she foreshadows the surrender of “ concessions ” —our scanty foothold on Chinese soil for warehouses and shop-windows in behoof of trade with three-fourths of the earth’s population. To Christian missionaries in China I take off my hat. All the same I think with satisfaction of the twenty thousand good British bayonets at Shanghai.

At the instance of a Scottish inquirer I invited information about the coat of arms home by Glasgow city, and this week must needs make room for replies that leal and learned Scots have sent me. Compression, yes—this is the bed of Procrustes; I lop or I lengthen as may seem to me good. First, from Gore, an account which includes the “verbal blazon ” contained in a Patent from the Lyon Office:

“ Argent, on a mount in base vert an oak tree proper, the stem at the base thereof surmounted by a salmon on its back, also proper, vith a signet ring in its mouth, or; on the top of the tree, a redbreast, and on the sinister fess point an ancient baud

lx.ll, both also proper: Above the shield is to be placed a suitable helmet, with a mantling gules, doubled argent, and issuing out of a wreath of the proper liveries is to be set for crest the half length figure of St. Ke’.tigern, affronte, vested and mitred, his right hand raised in the act of benediction, and naving in his left hand a ciozier, all proper: On a compartment below the shield are to be placed for Supporters two salmon proper, ea»_h holding in its mouth a signet ring, or; and in the iscrol entwined with the Compartment this motto, “ Let Glasgow Flourish.’’ This peculiar motto forms part of an old inscription on the bell of the steeple of the Tron Kirk, which Ivars the date 1592. The entire inscription is “ Lord let Glasgow Flourish through the Preaching of the Word and Praising Thy Name.” In 1699 it appeared for the first time occupying the place of a heraldic motto in connection with the City Arms over the entrance to Blackfriars Church, and here it is shortened to the wxtrds “ Let Glasgow Flourish.”

Heraldic technicalities must go unexplained, except perhaps the term “ proper,” which means “in its own natural colour.”

Next, from the Legislative Council Chamber, Wellington, an M.L.C., “ for many years an interested reader of Passing Notes,” supplements the Patent given above by some legends appertinent: —

The armorial insignia of Glasgow are richly storied, the different emblems referring to several legends in the life of St. Kentigern, otherwise called Mungo, who was the first Bishop of Glasgow, and died about A.D. 602. The tree represents the bough which, according to an old story, St. Kentigern kindled by his word into a blaze in order to relight the church lights, which of ..is enemies bad put out. The bird perched upon the tree is a robin, the pet of St. Serf, which St. Kentiger: restored to life, as the tradition goes. The b 11 is the consecrated one that was brought from Rome by St. Mungo when he visited the sacred city in his latter years. The bell which hangs from the tree signifies the church ■-nd see of Glasgow founded by St. Kentigern. Kentigern (“head master ” -or “lord”), founder of the Glasgow bishopric, was born on the sea beach of Oulross. His mother, “ probably a nun,” who ought to have known better, had been flung from a cliff by way of punishment, had miraculously escaped the sea, and now was succoured by St. Servanus, who brought the boy up to man’s estate, and in recognition of his good character and high intelligence gave him the additional name of Munghu (“dearest friend ”). After vicissitudes many and strange, Munghu was consecrated bishop, and named his see Glasgu (“the dear family”). This inheritance of legend, little to edification, coming down from the dark ages, the Glasgow of to-day does well perhaps to disregard and forget. For the Glasgow of to-day is or ought to be strictly Presbyterian.

A chield amang us takin’ notes—a re cent visitor from America—has communicated his notes to a New York suburban newspaper, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. His name? —we should be none the wiser for his name; I shall call him Ananias. Speaking generally, Ananias . mnd New Zealand to be a backward country ; in the matter of dress, for example. The girls have discovered “rolled socks” and a craze for rolled socks is “spreading like wildfire” ; but in knowledge of styles and fashions our womenkini rre “ten years behind’’ the rest of the world. Ananias notes as result of a decline in the frozen meat market a widespread desire to get out of the country: —

. The docks are black with people trying in every way to get aboard out-ward-bound boats and the country is “I'l of swaggers. “ Swagger ” is the New Zealand term for vagrant or tramp. It needed an Ananias of forty-cracker power to write that.

Then our newspapers—the literary taste of Ananias is on a par with his veracity. New Zealand as we have seen is behind in most things; but— Particularly in its newspapers. Journalism there is exactly as we would find it if we were to read the newspaper files of American sheets of 50

years ago. The idea of this American Ananias would naturally be any New York morning paper with an item of parochial importance splashed across the front in letters an inch long, and with paragraphs of general information such as these : —

Gene Mathews can spit farther than any other member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. He won the

standing broad spit at, the picnic held by the organisation at Grand View Park. Mustache growing contest started thirty days ago and terminated when a committee of six women judges reviewed the exhibits offered by seventy men at the Valley Club at Pomona. To determine the winners the judges used calipers, magnifying glasses and T-squares.

Specimen newspapers of this type adorn our reading room tables, but the type has failed to appeal ; we cannot even say that New Zealand journalism toils after it in vain. Taking leave of Ananias with thanks, we may admit that he has done as much for us as any Ananias could; we have no reason to complain. The average American doesn’t so much as know that New Zealand exists.

Apparently I am supposed to preside over a Public Inquiry Office, dispensing on demand useful or useless information do omnibus rebus et ceteris—concerning all things in heaven and earth and a few things beside. Here are specimen letters from this week’s correspondence : — Dear ‘‘ Ciyis,”—Can you tell me what Pelmanism is? By help of Pelmanism, according to advertisements in the English papers, a foreign language can bo learned in six weeks. Many systems of mnemonics, or artificial memory, have been devised ; Pelmanism is the latest and the best advertised. You remember a thing hard to remember by connecting it with something easy to remember ; —that is the whole principle of mnemonics. Dates, for example, important events: —Julius Caisar landed in Britain n.c. 55; repeat often ought the jingle “J.C. double five 8.C.,” and you won’t forget it. Again, William the Conqueror and Battle of Hastings, 1066— Wilconk one nought double six”; again, the English Kings in due succession— Billy, Billy, Harry, Ste, Harry, Dick, Jack, Harry Three- . . How mnemonics can be used in teaching a language is Mr Pelman's secret ; —I suppose there is or was a Mr Pelman. As for his system, if you ask me, I don’t think there is much in it. Next, from Makarora via Pembroke: —

Dear “ Civis,”—Can you tell me if it is a fact that no burial ground of the elephants has ever been found by a white man, and could you recommend any book that deals with the subject? No “burial ground of the elephants’’ has ever been found by a white man, nor by a black man either, for the reason that no elephants’ burial ground exists. It is computed that 100,000 elephants are slaughtered every year to supply the demand of civilisation for ivory. Tbc carcass of an elephant shot for his tusks rots where it fell, unless made butcher meat. There are savage tribes that count elephant flesh a delicacy. The statement that no one ever saw an elephants’ burial ground may be bracketed with the saying that no one ever saw a dead donkey. Certainly I never saw one myself. But it is impossible in logic to prove a universal negative. Civis.