HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17996, 15 April 1930, Page 6

HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE

(By “Gleaner.”)

THE MISSING LINK? A contemporary in an article on th® French Island of St. Paul, lying in the South Indian Ocean, says: “There are 20 women on the island, about 100 men (all French), and about 100 Lascars.”

What are the Lascars? Simians,-or representatives of the missing link found at last? ,

It is to be hoped Mr Gandhi does not see the article quoted, for otherwise as the self-appointed leader of his country he might taka it as “another insult to old 'lndia” and embark his motley crowd of followers for a march across St. Paul. •** • ! ■ THE CARBARIANS. The Times recently offered to the w'orld a new word, the invention or discovery of which was thus explained in a “third leader":—“ln this journal the other day a writer spoke of the ancient Athenians looking dowrn on a world Ailed with barbarians. When the proof reached the editorial .scrutiny the last word of the phrase was printed ‘carbarians.’ It seemed a shame to alter it. , If only the context had permitted, what a service to the English language to present it with that word! But the gift was only delayed. We offer it now—carbarian —as the perfect name, a name which only genius or accident could have invented, for those who drive to the danger, those who lack the manners of the road and defy the _ tradition of the road, the young carbarians all at play in their motor-coaches, the innumerable divisions of the class inadequately named road-hog. Such a misprint is hard to parallel, for few of these mistakes are creative."

A poem in praise of the word and of the unnamed creator was written by Lord Darting and published in the Sunday Times. 'ln this he .»rote: “Tiiou hast provided just the term we wanted; never henceforward will we speak of hut, when provoked, car-barians in passing scornfully call them. . . 0, ' thou a grateful world \ hast made thy debtor by this distortion.” • • • • ' MOTHERS-IN-LAW IN MULTIPLE. In a recently published book on the Congo by an American woman the \ author says: “A rigid tabu prevents a Congolese gentleman from ever seeing or speaking to his mother-in-law, and _ when a man may have 200 mothers-in-law the prohibition is a merciful one.” THE CHATEAU. The Chateau. Why THE Chateau? If it is considered necessary to use a foreign name instead of one of the many beautiful ones in our own and , the Maori language, why not be consistent and call it Le Chateau ? The Chateau smacks of the boarding house Grand Vue, and the cheap music hall’s Grand Finale, one English and one French word in fond imagination that an added “tone" is given by Gallic nomenclature. Why not good old English Grand View or Grand Final, of if French must be used to impress intend- -. ing patrons, Grande Vue and Grande Finale ? Reverting to . the chateau; It is idiotically out of place when applied to the building at tHe National Park. Nothing about the place, except perhaps a faint semblance of architecture, has any affinity to France,’ and there are no historical .connections. Chateau Frontinac, the great G.P.R. hotel at Quebec, is justly entitled to the name, part of it being in reality an old chateau, besides which as far as speech and mode of life goes, the majority of Quebec city and province is overwhelmingly French, despite the fact that the current French is really only evil sounding patois. If the powers that be were misled into naming the Tongariro Chateau in inane imitation of the Quebec one, they did so displaying a lack of knowledge of the origin of the name as applied to the C.P.R. hotel, and a decided lack of good taste into the bargain. * 4 * • WORLD .TRADE, , Despite the wailing of our own depression experts and the hard words of the United States, the British Empire is far from losing its grip on world trade as these pessimism mongers would have us believe. The latest returns show that the Commonwealth of Nations as a unit had 29.48 per cent, of the world’s trade, while the United States of America had 14.21. Northern and Western Europe, consisting of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium, all of the Continent that really matters as far as world commence is concerned, had 27.49. The balance, 28.82 per cent, was shared by the world at large. The crux of the matter is that we should be holding a still larger portion of the world’s trade, not so much as a unit but by dominion and dominion,, * » A SUGGESTION FOR THE CONFERENCE. While Holland has embarked on draining the Zuyder Zee, France, according to the latest news, has a scheme for flooding large parts of Flanders. The idea is defensive, and it is proposed to construct’ “a line of lakes and canals between Lille and Dunkirk,” so that a considerable area could be flooded in case on another invasion of “la Patrie” from Belgium. The French are not usually fond of wasting good soil, but in the sacred interests of “security” anything becomes acceptable. One of these days someone will discover the flying island of Laputa in “Gulliver” —and then perhaps there will be a proposal to pull the whole of France up by the roots, haul it into the air, have the whole underneath patrolled by submarines and the sky above filled with aeroplanes. When that- has been dona the excellent but slightly apprehensive Marianne may be able to sleep o’ nights. Preposterous, certainly; but so is the other suggestion in a large measure. In the meantime, and if there must in truth ’be created a new series of Great Lakes along.the Flanders frontier. it might lie a good idea to have them “stocked" with those surplus submarines which Britain’s neighbours propose lo “humanise.” The process could probably he carried out with more success in specially preserved waters —and the mere English, who are also concerned with security, would regard them as much nicer pets if they had a pond of their own .to play io. - ■—;