Mixed-Metaphors.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 47, 19 June 1917, Page 2

Mixed-Metaphors.

“A FLEA-BITE IN THE OCEAN.”

Mr. “Lulu” Harcourt’s father, Sir William, once said, when taunting an Opposition member as to a Bill which had not come off : “We overlaid this bantling, and so it never came to birth”; and about the same time a well-known member of Parliament declared, in his grand oratorical manner, that “the pale face of the British soldier is the backbone of the Indian Army.”

On another occasion this same orator, still talking about India,. said, scornfully : “Talk of this as a loan to India.” Why, it is a mere fleabite in the ocean.” On the very same day, in “another place” the late Lord Cross said : “The allegation is that the places are so far off that the man couldn’t be in both of them at the same time, an allegation which we deny.” And on another occasion he looked round the noble chamber with quesioning eye and said : “I think I heard a smile.” He certainly heard a| roar of laughter the next moment. A similar slip was made by that genial nobleman and splendid man of business, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, when he exclaimed : “The noble lord shakes his head, and I am very,glad to hear it.” But one of the very finest examples of getting the metaphors mixed is attributed to Captain Craig, who said ; “The naked sword is drawn for the fight ; and never again will the black smoke of the Nationalists’ tar-barrels drift on the Home Rule wind to darken the hearts of Englishmen.” “The law relating to labour combinations,” said a well-known laborist, “must be watertight, so that no judge may drive a coach-and-four through it.” Mr. Swift Mac Neill ©nee said : “I will now put to the Attorney-General another question, which distinctly arises out of the answer which the right honourable gentleman has not given.” But although this raised a laugh in the House it was as nothing to the roar which greeted a fiery speaker who exclaimed : “Whenever the Prime Minister mentions Home Rule he puts his foot into it up to the knee.”

The late Mr. Forster, of Education Bill fame, began a peroration one night with the words : “I will, Mr. Speaker, sit down by saying and some time since a member made the flesh of nervous M.P.’s creep by saying : “At one stage in the negotiations a great European struggle ■was so imminent that it only required a spark to let slip the dogs of war.”

It goes without saying that it was a native of the Emerald Isle, which is not as green as it is painted, after all, who said, "Sir, since the Government has let the cat out of the bag there is nothing to be done but to take the bull by the horns and set the ball rolling at once.” But the biscuit is most certainly annexed by Major Archer Shee’s wonderful sentence : “Even the Stygian eloquence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not been able to wash the white elephant entirely.”