THE MAN FROM SEACLIFF

New Zealand Tablet, 7 August 1919, Page 17

THE MAN FROM SEACLIFF

“Dear Tahiti, —I happened to get my business done in Oamaru early , and to be able to travel back by the train which bore the Man from Seacliff and his captors.* A brief account of the journey—-as far as it wentmay interest your readers.—l am, etc., V • - '■ V - “UnUS EX pueris.” Accompanying the foregoing note'from “One o’ the Bhoys” was the following, which we publish verb a m verho : .. Seacliff was not perturbed. He seemed to take his capture as a matter of course. Wrapping his blanket round him, he settled down to bread and mutton birds. His hunger appeased, he produced a small jar, labelled ostentatiously, Be tv-ley and Draper’s Ink. He applied it to his lips. It did not blacken them. He offered it to mo, remarking tersely, “Hoc . gst quod unum est pro labor tantis.” When I returned the jar he observed, “I don’t like to talk Scotch hut I have no objection to smell it.” As we passed the McKenzie cairn he sighed: “Hadmy plan come off, what a monument a grateful and coalful people would have given me!” Later, he took from his pocket two large corks and an ink-pad. Having dabbed the corks on the pad he applied one to a scrap of paper. He then passed it to me. There was an impression of a head with a hand (spread wide as to the fingers) in front of the nose. "Under it were, the words, ’lemmata quid faciunt? “Juvenal, you observe,” he said. “Freely rendered, and colloquially, it might be: ‘Side bo blowed !’ ” ’ Then he made an impression with the second. This time it was a head protruding from a life-buoy on the ocean. Underneath were the words. Hants nans in qurgite vasto. “Virgil this time supplies the hint,” he remarked. “Obviously and phonetically it means, ‘ I float a loan.’ These I made in case I should be asked for family seals for myself and my colleague. I am a man of foresight.” The train crept on. Now and then, running down a hill, the driver was hard put to it to keep the pace under the legal two miles an hour. Time began to hang heavily when we noticed the keepers were asleep. The Man smiled and murmured, Quis custodial ijrsos custodes /” “If Latin were your hobby as it is mine,” he said, “you would get a lot of fun out of life. Wonderful chaps these old Romans were. That tag means variously, Who shall guard the guards, Who shall nurse the nurses, Who shall govern the Government, and so forth.”

: I invited him to give me a few details "as- to his programme of reform, had his plan succeeded. T “Very,simple and elementary,” he said. “Granted a sane Government, its obvious business is to reduce chaos-' to order. To do this it is necessary to attack the roots of the disorders. To abolish pot-hunters would be my first care. I would stop the £3OO a year and I would make M.P.*S pay a heavy tax. That would secure unselfishness. Then they would all have to pass an examination. The papers'would be a little harder for Prospective Ministers. All should be able to answer little questions such as ‘ Who made you ?’ How many Gods are there?’ ‘ Where is New York?’ ‘ What is a lie?’ and so forth. A Minister of Education would be expected to pronounce simple words like ‘ hyperbole ’ and to have a few general ideas as to how not to put one’s foot in things. A Prime Minister—after my time, of course— have to pass an examination in deportment and politeness. He should be convinced that street arabs’ gestures are not meant for his-imitation on public Before his own glass he might do as he pleased. I might add that as certain Ministers have made their office unpopular we should use phonographs for a. time until the people have forgotten all about them.” I ventured to suggest that it would be hard to find suitable employment for the present politicians. “Not a bit,” he retorted cheerfully. The miners would look after some of them tenderly; the returned soldiers would see that others gave no trouble. The weaker brethren could sell newspapers. Bigger fry—too proud to beg, too lazy to —would be looked after in frozen-meat establishments. A certain number might be sent to Somes Island and trained to make Christmas toys for children. And lastly there is the Zoo.” I then asked him how he would deal with the press, agreeing in my own mind with the now prevalent view that, only for the lies of journalists, politicians would be comparatively harmless. “We went in to that in great detail,” he said. “It is surprising what a few general rules can do. We ■ agreed that every time an editor published a calumny about another nation his ears should be clipped and a tin can tied to his tail. The sight of the editors of the Menace or the oran f/emon kittling down Princes Street with a concatenation of benzine tins and cans behind them would have a surprisingly remedial effect. Again, an editor should be held personally liable for forgeries published in his columns by regular contributors. That would wipe out at once a peculiarly objectionable type of Jingo. Other hints are that to publish any such inflammatory twaddle as peace speeches by parsons should be a capital offence ; to mention Carsonexcept to announce his hanging would entail a whipping. In this way we should speedily reduce both the size and the danger of newspapers.” The sleepers snored. The train crawled. The day died. We were beyond Herbert now. We had some more mutton birds and Bewley and Draper’s Ink. . I asked his opinion os to the possibility of abolishing wars. , “We shall go a long way towards that,” he said. “Small wars will be inevitable. But they will be brief. My scheme is this. The Ministers and the Governments involved, and all the journalists of .their respective countries, shall be shot at six o’clock on the day that war is declared. The same evening peace will be. signed and we will go mafficking. One of my colleagues wished to have a pitched battle between the Ministers and journalists of countries that have a grievance against one another. It would be. nice to read before breakfast that ‘ Civis ’ was hanged for burning a Catholic church, that a Minister of Education was suffering from a dislocated thigh because the Generalissimo kicked him for not being able to write an intelligible note, that Messrs. Gog and Magog won a Siamese Twin race at soldiers’ sports, and so forth. But ray plan is much more efficient and drastic. Don’t you think so?” ■ >. ... ' We reached Shag Point at midnight. . The guards still slept. We could not see-them, but we heard. v

Seacliff gapped-his knee; “What was I dreaming; about !” he said. • ,“Now’s my, time.” He got out on the port side of the train. He; climbed up to my window, which was open, and whispered : > “I’m off, old man. There is hope yet. Expect a; wireless. The code will be It AM PANS AShVUS. Come to Wellington when you hear from me. You will be my secretary-that is unless Porirua has provided one for me already. Some wonderfully clever chaps; there too. My word, we will make things hum. This; country is going to boom, sir, absolutely boom—boom; is the word for it. By the way, would* you mind handing me that last mutton bird ? Will you be at Eiccarton? Ta-ta, now, old sport. Addio per sempre, Leben Sie wohl, Beannacht lath, Prospere precede, apithi eis, ton asebon choron. Adieu, mon p’tit chou.” He was gone. Out of the gloom towards the north, came the sound of a voice singing— I fear no foe in shininy armor.