PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3871, 22 May 1928, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

: (From Saturday’s Otago Daily Times.) ► The time is out of joint;—o cursed spite. That ever I was born to set it right! —“ Hamlet.’" Miss Maude Royden comes to us as a reformer of the time, but, unlike Hamlet, finds the job not distasteful. Nn “ cursed spite ” in her case. Far from it. Descanting on the theme “ The World We Live In: Can We Set It In Order ? ” she has everywhere the joy of a wide public and a good press. Dunedin had no lecture hall big enough for her audiences, and the Dunedin newspapers, like all others, were kind. Hamlet, with a similar job on his hands, would _J"ave been the better for an occasional cigarette to clear his brain and soothe 1 is nerves. Between whiffs he would have had no time for moans and groans— O, that thia too too solid flesh would melt, 5 Thaw and resolve itself into a dew—and the like. We should have lost some stock quotations; but no matter. Like Walter Scott when heading his chapters, we might have invented “ quotations ”

for ourselves. To Miss Royden’s cigarette habit I can bear witness—personal knowledge, ocular observation. Why should not this lady when doing a man’s work in the world claim without rebuke a man’s privileges?—a pipe, if she likes, though there is more of grace, if less of flavour, in a cigarette. Was it the Fundamentalists of Tennessee that attempted to block and boycott her? Anyhow it was an American variety of the “ unco guid.” According to rumour, they are to be imitated in Australia.

Miss Royden put to the question:— Dear “ Civis,” —At Miss Royden’s second lecture a question was handed in asking her to express an opinion on the results of Prohibition in America. With tears in her voice and with some hesitation she said she regretted she could not give a decided opinion—she wished she could. She hated the drink traffic, and the drink bill in England was appalling. But after spending four months in America she had seen so much graft and corruption, so much evil from the use of ‘ hootch ” by young people who drank because they were told not to (as she was afraid they -would do in England), that she reluctantly came to the opinion that she did not know whether Prohibition had not done more harm than good. She was sorry she could not give a decided answer, but she wished the Americans well in their gallant attempt. I send you this note because, unfortunately. the reporters left before questions were asked. I can guarantee that this is a “ fair report ” of what she said. Miss Royden found what, a priori, she might have been expected to find—the general demoralisation that goes with a law which one half the nation holds in no respect, and, in mere “ cussedness,” if for no other reason, is impelled to set at naught.

The motor car and Death at the wheel: I have many letters, the writers probably thinking that censorship is less strict here than in other columns of the paper. They are mistaken. Conveniently at hand, I have a receptacle into which are cast as rubbish to the void all libellers, even the discreeter sort who—

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer. And without sneering teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike. A drunken man at the wheel of a motor car is practically Death at the wheel; and . Death at the wheel is at once the affair of the police; next of the magistrate, with such penalties and restrictions as the worthy beak may graduate to the offence, since in criminality, even in murder itself, there are degrees. Here may come in an inquiry dated Milton, May 16: —

Dear Civis, —In to-day’s Daily Times there is an account of an Auckland doctor being fined £5O for driving a car whilst drunk, and his solicitor said he was not drunk but intoxicated. Is there any difference between being drunk, intoxicated, boozy, tipsy, or inebriated? Roget’s Thesaurus gives for the condition in question some fifty words and phrases, ranging from “ under the influence ” to “ dead drunk.” In a footnote it quotes chapter and verse in “ Household Words ” for thirty-two more. We may say in brief that the shades and grades are beyond count. In the Auckland case a Court fine of £5O fell short of the real penalty. Practically the magisterial judgment confiscated the delinquent’s whole livelihood.

At the concert hall; —(His Majesty’s Theatre, was it?).

Dear “ Civis,” —I think there ought to be a law to prevent encores at concerts; they bore me stiff. I came away from the Fraser-Gange concert the other night feeling absolutely rattled. A really delightful concert was spoiled for me by a surfeit of encores. It was evident that the artists enjoyed their own concert immensely, and required very little pressure to induce them to sing thrice again after each programme item. Perhaps in Dunedin the audience is t > blame —wanting a shilling’s-worth for sixpence. I have noticed too that those most insistent in their demand generally look incapable’ of appreciating any music higher than the bagpipes. Is there no way of stopping this nuisance?

Get up a hissing party, sit together, and try your strength against the blatant multitude. The right to applaud implies the right to hiss. You haven’t the courage? No; nor should I have the courage. So long as singe: s like to hear themselves sing and are flattered by a recall the nuisance will persist. It may even invade the drama. Conceivably any tragic death scene, any thrilling swordplay, the “Lay on, Macduff!” duel in Macbeth, might be repeated in response to “’Core! ’Core! ” from pit and boxes.

Take a classic page from Dickens. Mr Vincent Crummies, actor-manager, is superintending at rehearsal a broadsword combat between two stage sailors with belts, buckles, pigtails and pistols complete —his sons they are, one of them very tall, the other very short. “ There’s a picture! ” —said . Mr Crummies to Nicholas Nickleby, with paternal pride. “The Fttle ’un has him; if the big ’un doesn’t knock under, in three seconds he’s a dead man. Do that again, boys.”

Chop, chop.—the chopping recommenced, with a variety of fancy chops, such as chops dealt with the left hand and under the leg, and under the right shoulder, and over the left; and when the short sailor made a vigorous cut at the tall sailor’s legs, which would have shaved them clean off if it had taken effect, the tall sailor jumped over the short sailor’s sword, wherefore to balance the matter and make it all fair, the tall sailor administered the same cut, and the short sailor jumped over his sword. After this there was a good deal of dodging about, and hitching up of inexpressibles in the absence of braces, and then the short sailor (who was the moral character evidently, for he always bad the best of it) made a violent demonstration and closed with the tall sailer, who, after a few unavailing struggles, went down, and expired in great torture as the short sailor put his foot upon his breast and bored a hole in him through >and through. “ That’ll be a double encore if you take care, boys,” said Mr Crummies. “ You had better get your wind now arid change.” There you have it. Behind the scenes the criterion of success is a double encore.

Physical science, according to one of its expositors, is concerned only with things that can be weighed and measured. Things that cannot be weighed and measured lie beyond its ken. A short and simple account; I try to believe it. Of things that cannot be weighed and measured I know one thing, if thing it may be called—imponderable, impalpable, immeasureable—that is more than all other things in the -world, namely, human thought. At the back-of all human speech, human activity, industry, literature, art, its fount and spring, is human thought. And human thought can neither be weighed nor measured. Sir .Arthur Keith, an authority on physical science, that on weighing and measuring, would apply his foot-rule to human thought, hinting that he knows where it ends.

If we withhold the supply of oxygen or fuel the brain ceases, and medical men can find no grounds for believing that the brain is a dual organ or a compound substance. Every fact known to them confirms the inference that the mind, the spirit, and the soul are the manifestation of the- living brain, just as a flame is the manifest spirit of a burning candle. Both the flame and the spirit cease to exist at the moment of extinction. Here you have the expert who is. so much an expert that he is an "ignoramus on every subject but his own. I have known, and do still know, science experts who are men of broad culture. But experts there are who outside of their own narrow world are the most ignorant and hopeless of mortals.

Grammatical niceties:— Dear Civis:—Lately you quoted a couplet from Punch in which the rhymes were “ anthem hums ” and “ chrysanthemums.” Surely an ugly plural. “ Memorandums ” is equally ygiy- We can say “memorandums” if we like, but as a rule we say “ memoranda.” Can we do something better for “chrysanthemums?” Nothing better is needed. The plural “-unis ” is good enough in “ crumbs,” “ gums,” “ plums,” “ thumbs.” Ugly it is not; English it is, which is a very good reason for retaining it. The reference to the Latin “memorandum,” “ memoranda,” is unfortunate. “ Chrysanthemum ” is Greek—“ chrysos ” gold, “ anthemoh ” a flower. Cicero would have found no fault with "memoranda”; “ chrysanthema ” would be a barbarism. In words borrowed from the Latin or the Greek we cannot do better than stick to the common English plural in “ s ” —“ chrysanthemums.” Yes, and “octopuses.” I was bound to come to that word, since twice this week in the chaste columns of the Daily Times we have the astonishing plural “ octopi,” on the assumption that ’’ octopus ” is Latin. And there is authority for it—authority of a kind. Ihe Standard Dictionary (American in origin) talks of “octopi.”’ The word is Greek—“ octo ” eight, “ pous, podos ” a foot. We might say “ Octopods ” as we say “ cephalopods ”; or we might say " octopodes ” and be Greek; but we had best say “octopuses” and remain. English, since English we are. There is another odd fact. Three dictionary authorities, headed by the Concise Oxford, accent the word on the second syllable,. “ octo’pus.” I defy the lot. Nothing shall compel me to the form " octo’pus.” I should as soon think of calling the Dunedin Octagon the Octagon. Civis.