UNDERCURRENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18534, 14 January 1932, Page 6

UNDERCURRENTS.

HEBE, THERE & EVERYWHERE, (By “ Gleaner.”) A GRAMMATICAL GRIEVANCE. A Chicago wife who is suing for divorce Inoludes “splitting his infinitives” among her husband’s shortcomings. Presumably this is produced as an example of the “mental cruelty" which occupies' so high a place in American grounds for divorce —not even in Boston could it be regarded as an example of “moral turpitude.” But it is interesting to think that there are ladies in Chicago who somehow' contrive to put up with all the ramifications of American slang but who yet manage to unmistakably wince if a mere split Infinitive wriggles its way into the conversation at the sup-per-table. ’lt is odd to think of a cutie who turns pale and runs round to see her lawyer because her husband promises to faithfully remember to certainly get the theatre tiokets and to dutifully take her out for a thoroughly swell time. However, any excuse is better than none—and' when the punctilious lady gets her decree perhaps she will relax to the extent of announcing, like the abandoned pirate in “Peter Pan”: “Split my infinitive, but ’tis my hour of triumph 1” *.» • * SPORT IN THE BIG HOUSE. ‘ We in New Zealand are wondering whether too much time is being given l ' to sport. “ Gleaner ’’ for one is quite sure we are. ' ~ ( Efforts i to introduce the public school spirit into the American prison have reached a climax. Sing Sing convicts have formed a football team, have played their first match against an “outside club,” and w T on with ease, after a game which their chief warder described as “the cleanest he had ever seen." •

This is mighty good news, but we hope Sing Sing will not be 1 tempted to too much of a good thing. Some of the American 'universities have made themselves almost ridiculous by their athletic zeal; brilliant footballers or baseball, players have been, recruited by the offer of scholarships, ‘the salary of the football 'coaoh has soared above that of the professor. It will be a sad day for Sing Sing when (and if) the sport mania goes to its head. One hales to think of warders told off to scour the State for a flrst-olass fullback, and to bring (or run) him in; of policemen suborned to arrest prominent athletes In order that they may lend lustre to the team; of elderly, retired, and respectable old lags reading in the papers of their Alma Mater’s growing fame, and putting their sons down on the waiting-list. . . . So far, Sing Sing Is the only prison from which football is reported; the opposition was furnished by? a naval team. But If other ’‘big houses” take up the idea we may yet see house matohes played and a Big House championship organised; w Gleaner ” presumes that' th&'fhovemenf will not extend to cross-country running. ‘ • * • * . ' .. ••• \. . C UNMASKED IDENTITIES. If the Irish Sweep has done nothing else it has at least provided some pleasant tou’ohes in the Way'of designations and disguises. These have worked both ways; when the mask has been removed the effect has been sometimes to enlarge and sometimes to diminish the standing of the actual ticket-holder. The diminishing values are represented by the discovery that the “Maharajah of Jodhpur" is really a cat that lives at Twickenham and Is owned by the lady who bought the ticket and put that ticket In her pet’s name.

1 On ‘the other hand, there Is a rise in personal Importance.and social prestige when it is discovered that the tioket which came out of the drum for “Polly Wolly Doodle” Is really owned by a Canon in the - diocese of Southwark. One thing seems fairly certain —the reverend gentleman Is no minor canon at the moment but a veritable big gun. But If he escapes being called Canon Polly Wolly Doodle for the rest of his oareer his luck in the matter of nioknames will be nearly as remarkable as his luck In tlia Irish Sweep. * * • • • » \ . ,_THE WORDLESS ART. Mr Bernard Shaw’s older aptitude for consistency appears to be weakening; he has consented, it is reported, to become a subscriber to the Camargo Society, which exists in order to foster the art of the ballet. When he %vas first invited to subscribe he declined on the'ground that “I neither dance, nor compose, nor play ballets” —and he might have added that he 1 disapproved of them because .they represented quite the most un-Shavian form of art in this obviously u'nregenerate world. You can do a good many things in the course of a ballet, but there is one thing that you must not do. and that is talk. One can; have Shaw on the stage, one can have Shaw on the talkies, one can have Shaw in a book —but to put Shaw Into a ballet would be like trying to add two pounds of butter to four o’clock. It just can’t be done —and one would say that Mt Shaw’s earlier attitude w'as the correct one in' deciding that the form of art which won’t accommodate Shaw is not a form of art which Shaw ought to approve.

However, he has now gone back on that decision—so we may yet have an attempt at a Shavian conversationpiece with the argument entirely conducted in arabesques and entrechat*. * * * * SURVIVORS. There could hardly be more convincing evidence of the honest workmanship and material put into British motor-cars than the annual run for veteran cars which took place again In England recently. The oldest of the cars was 37 years. They all, with one exception, ran from London to Brighton without a serious breakdown, and many of them went at what even to-day is a respectable speed.

And these ancients had not been coddled. The car which finished the course second was built in 1904 and had been for three years exposed to the weather In an orchard. The third car, 23 years old, had lain for 15 years neglected In a barn. Tills annual run is a reminder of what many old-fashioned people still regard as the wisdom of older years. It commemorates "emancipation day" —the day which saw the last of the old traffic regulations that mechanically propelled vehicles on the road must be preceded by a man walking and bearing a red llag