PARLIAMENTARY SLANG.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1845, 19 May 1888, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY SLANG.

(" Cornhill Magazine ") To ' rußh a Bill " is an expres ion Wbll known m the American Senate, and occasionally also used hero. To " hang up a Bill " is to pass it through one or more of its efagep, and then to lay it aside and defer its further consideration for a mere or lets indefinite period. " Lobbying "ia a process familiar to members. '• Logrolling " is a somewhat rare term m England, bat ia well known m Washington When a backwoodsman outs down a tree his neighbors help him to roll it away, and m return he helps them with their trees ; bo m Congress, when members support a Bill, not because they are interested therein, bu' simply to gain the help of its promoters for some scheme of their own, their action is called "log rolling." Another American importation ia "bunkum," a word generally used to signify empty, frothy declamation! . It is eaid to be derived from a speaker who, persisting m talking to an empty house, said he was speaking to Buncombe, the name of the place m North Carolina, which he represented. The word «' platform," when used for the programme of a political party, is often classed as an Americanism, but it is really a revival of a nee of the word that was very common m English literature m tho sixteenth and saventeenth centuries, though less common perhaps as a noun than as a verb, meaning to lay down principles. For instance, MiltoD, m his « Keason of Church Government,' says that some " do not think it for the ease of their inconsequent opinions to grant that Church dia? cipline is platformed m the Bible, but that it is left to the discretion of men. " A word that has been a good deal used of lato years m connection with politics is (< fad." It has hardly yet found its way into the dictionaries 5 but " fads " are many, and " faddists" aud " fadraongora" abound, Mr Sala has suggested that tho word is a corruption of "f addle," to dandle— in ' French, dorloter. A "faddist" is continually dandling and oaregping his "fad." Thia seems a trifle far fetched. It is more probably a contraction of "fidfad," a word that haß beeja long m use with much the same meaning as » fad." Edward Moore, writing m the Woild m 1754, applies the word to a very precise person — "the youngest, who thinks m her heart that her sister is rib bettor than a slattern, runs into the contrary extreme, and is, m everything she does, an absolute " fidfad." From "fidfad" m this seme to the modern "fad" and " faddist " is not a very violent transition. The tendency to abbreviation is very general. The common parliamentary word " whip" is of courso » contraction of tho word " wliipper m." Dickens, m Sketches by Jhz, tells us how " Sir Somebody Something, when he was whipper m fov the Government, brought four men out of their beds to vote m tho majority, three of whom died on their way home aguin " The phrase, the " Massacre of the Innoconta," as applied to tho abandonment of useful measures at the close of a session from lack of timo for their discuß3ion", was first used by the " Times" m 1859.

The Empress Victoria has oauso, indeed, from a pecuniary aa well as every other point of view, to be grateful to the dootors m preserving the life of her husband so far. If he had died before he ascended the Throne all she would have got from Germany would have been £3000 a year. Now, however, on the Emperor's death ahe will receive £40,000 per annum aa Dowager Queen of Prussia, m addition to her allowance as Empress, and a portion of the enormous private fortune left .' by the late Emperor. A story is .told of a Oatholio priest m Australia whose bishop gave him a horse. To oommemorate the event the priest named the horse •' The Bishop." Soon after the bishop dined with the priest and during the ooure of the dinner the priest's man of all work oame m and said m an audible whisper : " It's a hot day your reverence, an' I was thinkin* it would be a good thing to throw a buokot of water on the Bishop." The bishop was somewhat startled until matters wore explained to him. A. correspondent,. writing to the " Taranaki Herald" Bays apropos of the Broken Hill Mines: — "A young fellow I met ont night told me that ho was only oat eight days with a few ohums when they struck good specimens. They pegged out their claim, were m town early next morning, and had a company formed by 8 o'clock at night. Each of the prospeotors got £5000 oash m addition to syndicate shares. It is not often though that such good results ara so quickly realised. Anyway that is how the ball rolls. Duffers are sometimes floated with equally good results." The Rev J. M. Sohleyer, of Constance, the inventor of Volapuk, is stated by his disciple, Mr Ham, to be acquainted with fifty-five languages, of which he speaks and writes twenty-eight. It was, we are told, after forty, five years' Btudy of these tongues that he formed the idea of constructing a language " by means of whioh the oivilised inhabitants of the world could make themselves understood m speaking as well as m writing." Mr Ham complains m his lecture on the subjeot, now published m pamphlet form, of the common mistake of supposing that Volapuk is intended to supersede other languages. It is designed, he explains, only to sorve as an easy auxiliary means of communication between races, and particularly m oommeroial transactions. The superstition that human beings should sleep with their heads to the north is believed by the Frenoh to have for its foundation a \ Bcientifio fact. They "affirm that each human i system is m itself an electrio battery, the head being one of the eleotyodes, the feet the other. Their proof was discovered from experiments whioh the Academy of Science was allowed to make on the body ot a man who was guillotined. This was taken the instant it fell, and plaoed upon a pivot free to move aa it might. The head after a little vaoillation, turned to ihe north, and the body then remained stationary. It was turned half way around by one of the profesßors, and again the head end of the trunk moved slowly to the cardinal point, due north, the same result being repeated until the final C^Sfttigu of organic, movement,