THE COMMON ROUND.

Otago Witness, Issue 4048, 13 October 1931, Page 74

THE COMMON ROUND.

By

Wayfarer.

Football, like archery/* has its own code of manners. The toxophilite, versed in the graceful phraseology and wayward ceremony of his sport, greets his rival with a formal shout: “ He! He! ” The football crowd is equally wayward if uot as ceremonious, and its greetings are more pertinent:— ■.

. . . when play was in progress 20 minutes English (a Rangers forward and the player who had accidentally killed Thomson) collided with a Celtic player, causing shouts to “ Kill English! ” extra police had to be drafted m. lhe captain of the Rangers appealed to the crowd to desist, and play was stopped. English later retired injured. There were further jeering and counter-jeering, and a number of fights among the spectators. Football customs are not, indeed, of the delicate formality of the pursuits of Mr Osbert Sitwell, whose aim is the encouragement in England of “ Pelota, Kif-Kif and the Pengo (especially the latter)”; yet even football has its nice distinctions: —— appeared and admitted using an obnoxious adjective, but it was applied, he said, not to the referee, but to the game. An appropriate moment, this, for the O.R.F.L. to echo the archer’s greeting—“He I He! ”

No longer need the ostrich bury his head, for very shame, in the sand. Twenty Jong years, more or less, have passed since he gave so nobly of his decorations in the cause of fashion ; twenty long years since burgeoned the Merry Widow- hat, dangerously impeding the view with its bulk, imperilling the eyes with its pins, but delighting the ostrich farmer with its fluffy,, flaunting feathers. . But now the ostrich can offer praise to a lady for the recovery of his importance. The Empress Eugenie, bowler, ocean wave —cal] it what you will—returncth as the queen of headgear and from it must append fine plumes. Marie Eugenie Ignace Augustine, Empress of the French, was born in an earthquake, and throughout her tempestuous career the earth trembled where she went. As madcap Spanish aristocrat, .iding hard and far with eyes flashing, courtiers following, and a cigar between her small white teeth ; in disgrace and expulsion from court after midnight escapades; as wife of Napoleon Bonaparte the, greatest; as daring leader of the fashions of Imperial Paris; as - the friend of Queen Victoria, she led a romantic and often extravagant life and left her ■ name to posterity. She would be flattered to know that posterity now is taking her hats to its fickle head, and haply she would be pleased to see the ostrich holding again his own head proud and high, oblivious to the depredations of his nether plumage.

None, it may be said, would admire an effective tableau more than Alfred Lord Tennyson, who in his life delighted to create such, whether the occasion was the d'-ath of Arthur by the wintry sea, or at his own Farringford dinner table ■when he boomed to a speechlessly adoring companion, “ Madam, your stays are creaking.” The tableau, one can imagine, was complete and gripping as the guests in sudden silence gazed at the bearded bard and hi blushing victim. And even in death Alfred Lord Tennyson contrived another tableau last month when, 50 years after it was niade, a gramophone record of the poet’s readings from his own work was carefully unsealed, and savants raptly awaited the nobly sonorous voice:—

An official reverently inserted a needle and adjusted the record on an old-time gramophone. He turned it on. From the old trumpet came a little sound; that was probably the bard clearing his throat. Then came his voice, dismally wailing: “ Oojce, Boojee! Oojee. Boojce! ”

Which suggests that we must be careful, in writing about poets, in our use of the phrase “ the bard's immortal voice.”

Matisse,, who died last week while making the last stroke that would have finished a painting, might have welcomed, had he foreseen it, such a symbolic ending to a career not unrelated to Symbolism. His work has not penetrated our mass consciousness as yet, but he will receive historic credit for the introduction of “ shock tactics ” into painting. Serene, uncommunicative, he painted what he saw to the best of his ability and let it go at that. To Ruskin, to Whistler, to later angry critics, he left the talking. When he visited the United States early this year he proved the most disappointing artist, from the news point of view, that reporters could imagine. What were his views on American art?—He had none. Were there signs of a return to classicism in France? No comment. Who were the greatest living artists? He didn't know. The only thing the papers seemed to find to write about was that as soon as be decently could Matisse escaped from human society and spout hours in front of the cage of a black panther in the zoo at the Bronx. Again, Symbolism, perhaps—it was not unfitting that the leader of Les Fauvres should, in his declining years, commune with the more primeval of the wild beasts.

Since that note was written death has claimed another apostle of art, Sir William Orpen, affectionately known as “Billy Orps,” whose pictures have honoured wall space in galleries through-

out the world, and in the mansions of the great and wealthy. Small, dapper, “ Billy Orps ” had none of those n ®S^B ence 3 of attire we associate with the painter, but he possessed an Irish temperament, a friendly gift, and was a clubbable sort of fellow, if we are to judge from hislist in “Who’s Who”: Athenaeum, Garrick, Savile, Beefsteak, Arts, Buck’s,Chelsea Arts, Travellers’, Paris. He shrewdly kept well in the public ej - e, and never more so than when that surprising opus, " Christ Riding on an Ass,” 1 was exhibited at the Royal Academy thisyear. The ass was copied from a medieval wood-carving, diminutive and disproportioned: the draped figures which knelt in the roadway were in the likenesses of Sir William’s very charming, and far from mediaeval daughters! Some said it was “ a monstrosity suitable for Moscow,” some that it was “ childish and primitive”; the News-Chronicle critic found it “ astounding,” and Viscountess Elibank, a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, gazed at it, pained, and confided to the reporters: “ I just can’t bear it! ”

The struggle to make Prohibition a success is still going on. One of the recent moves in the American national game is especially interesting. It relates to the growth of a new industry, State subsidised to the extent that the Federal Farm Board has lent millions to foster it. The purpose of this industry is to make every American home its own wine-press. Encouraged by Mrs Willebrant, for eight years an official upholder of the Volstead Act, the grape-growers of California are putting on the market a grape concentrate called “ Vine-Gio.” Their agent places a keg of this pure, non-alcoholic beverage in the customer’s cellar, and the customer carefully tends it for GO days—the result, a 15 per cent, alcoholic wine, made within the law. Another enterprising firm has gone a step further with grape bricks, “ Vino Sano,” which are sold with a list of warnings. Don’t dissolve the brick in a gallon of water; Don’t add sugar; Don’t shake-daily; Don’t decant after three weeks. If any brickbuyer is so wrong-headed as explicitly to disobey thes e instructions he soon has a barrel of 13 per cent, alcoholic wine on his hands. Imagine his embarrassment! Soon, one fears, the only people in the United States who will not be satisfied with Prohibition will be the starving bootleggers. " °

In 1825 the first railway line in England, constructed with Parliamentary authority to carry passengers, was formally opened. The first train consisted of 3t> vehicles, including 12 wagons loaded with coal, and made an auspicious journey of 12 miles, punctuated by frequent stoppages, in three hours and seven minutes. A man rode on horseback ahead of the engine to see that the line was clear. The reckless speed of the velocipede wrung wondering editorial comment from the Scotsman:—

Think of 600 persons, besides twelve loaded coal wagons, moved by one engine, and that, too, with such rapidity! Had the twelve loaded wagons been removed ... it is obvious that the velocity would have been greatly increased. Perhaps the average velocity might have been raised to 15 miles an hour, and the velocity at the most favourable parts of the road to 20 miles.

In September, 1931, the Cheltenham Flyer, a lineal descendant of this monster of speed, made a run of 77| miles from Swindon to Paddington in 58 minutes, at an average speed of nearly 80 miles per hour. And in the next month of the same year, a British seaplane, lusty young offshoot of the older forms of mechanical transport, hit up the speed record to seven miles a minute. History transcends itself and the world moves on apace. Only the bravely pessimistic would take courage sceptically to ask whither, and to what purpose.

Sporting item: Pliar Lap pulled up when going fast owing to a mishap to his gear. This refers, of course, to his well-known top gear.

Peter Chenault, states a sporting note, had unfortunately only a brief career at the stud, as "after "being imported in 1226, he died in 1929. A short life but, we trust, a merry one.

We have been asked to deny that the noise made by excited hens in the egglaying competition last week betokened extra productivity. As a matter of fact, the birds were entertained to find the report of their activities placed next to thia column, and were cackling at what they read. •»