OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19174, 3 December 1927, Page 14

OBITER DICTA.

[By K]

Although the Parliamentary correspondents told us that while the fate of the Licensing Bill was uncertain the atmosphere was tense, the debate was unexpectedly quiet and good-humoured. There was no disturbance and no crisis, and members all snored peacefully together when the time came for Mr MeCombs to wind up the discussion with a long speech on the liquor problem garnished with illustrations from the rule of three. Nobody listened to him, the reporters noted, except the Hansard man, who had to. and Mr Charles Todd, who will drink anything non-intoxicating at any time. And Mr McCombs's oratory is so completely without a kick that Mr Todd found his speech as comforting as a long drink of cocoa, with oily globules winking at the brim. Once satisfied that the Bill did not make cocoa compulsory, I was able to read with a composed mind Mr Coates's explanation of his proposal that barmen should be licensed. It was necessary, he said, to have reliable men retailing liquor, and "this provision would iu course of time elevate the tone of the Trade." This was not tactful, for the Trade will say that its tone is not in need of uplifters, while the Alliance will say that the Trade has no tone at all and that if even the Archbishop of Canterbury were to work the beer pump the resultant fluid would still be a cancer gnawing at the vitals of the nation. Perhaps, v however, I misunderstand the proposal, which may have for its aim, as Mr J. A. Lee suggested, the installation in our bars of barmen who have studied the psychology of the customer. Psychology was, of course, sure to come into it, and, we may expect our local Professor expert to explain the application of the science to the barman.

Mr Coates said he was not joking in making his proposal, just as Mr Nosworthy declared that he was not joking when he proposed that Hansard should be abolished and replaced by some broadcasting apparatus. It is easy* to think of worse ideas than There are, it is true, 28 subscribers to Hansard, who pay twopence per number, or about 10s a year, for the revised reports of the Parliamentary noise, and since Hansard costs £30,000 a year, these 28 thrifty pouls obtain for 10s a publication which, if sold to them at cost, would stand them in at over £IOOO apiece. There are so few things costing £IOOO which one can buy for 10s that if I were a subscriber to Hansard I should vigorously resist any attempt to cut off supplies. The value of broadcasting the noise, so a friend said to me, would be in its revelation that oiir legislators split their infinitives, mismanage their aspirates, and pay no attention to grammar and syntax. As it is, the readers of Hansard and of the Press reports imagine that the hon. member said, as in Hansard he is reported to have said (Mr Sul- | livan speaking): • Again, I ask, if the total production of the Dominion was increased —and that it has been increased! can also'be ascertained —and if the added value cheated by. each worker shows an increase. where is the justification for asking for any reduction of the wages of the worker—where is the justification for the suggestion that he has been "going slow"? Heard over the wireless, that would be something like this: I ask again—Sir, I hnsk, ask—supposing the total of the production is increased, of the Dominion, the total production—l mean. Sir, increased, supposing it was, ana it can be hascer-

tained, ascertain^ jtdd«d" tho Si,^* m queßt 'on *f y i should be redoooed—*> as f sai <l h^ 1181,0 «• w^SJpjOb Surely, my frien d . n- «»'<■ lie public ta»f,u„d Pro, lattons. But I V that our democracy JS"* 4 ' 1 V difference. yOUldso t^ With nil their faults 1, politicians have one thom:thoy« makeita^H^ iron them to other is scarcely a plcasant cr to than the girl of to-dav ! 40 to her this week, I «* .J \> have abandoned the attack costume and character to rally the vegetarians chemical composition, director of the British dJS* porat.on has announced, £*£ stones, her shoes are of leather, her sub-garments an St* cal silk, the sheen of her hi! • thotic and hercomplexio^ the laboratory. This disturbing if it were notthu knew that, the flapper, like Et»k Adam, and everyone since, is &T of water, metnls, and gases. U* us have wondered whether aJt is of any use, since it-has *5 the world any better or mJJ But it is something in favour that it helps to make tU? the pleasing thing Science did nothing worts tU ,•> stockings and Mr CotVs , should be ready to snbseribTh«. i Chemical Society. . N

Some correspondents li&ve some further news of America by Mr Mencken in hia "mJ Truth is far more interesUnTS perhaps less useful, thai the and misinformation which it U purpose of these notes to snppta I therefore quote some items fot} " Americana " in the of Mr Mencken's review. FinU legal news from Orange, CaLc The R«v. N. P. Jengen, fonft. tor of the Emanuel SnJf Lutheran Church at Orann, fit" friend and organist at the (Wi Matilda Grote, wife » Orange merchant, charged cretions," have been Treed of 10 £ after a three-day trial in the On Court. Mrs Jennie Jetueo, ts k Court, action, charged her fob with "taking several bitm fan fe Grote's sandwich at a picnic m while refusing to take em obefn •hers." t And an item which vill mimfa cocoackles of Mr Isitt's MHi ■ Mrs Lora S. La Mance/ipMri^k fore the sixteenth annni] itMa of the W.C.T.U. of characterised tho Prohildm,JiF i "the second biggest IaMUI &UB b invoked since time bem" -,1 l» firtl .big law, she declared, Commandments.—Cedar "Evening Gazette and Bepupm 1 !. They know all about Heaven, . The pastor (Rev, Chas. S.fftd stated tHat. according to ficlmt Heaven would cover over IJMI square-miles, that it would It,l» times as big as Germany, antLW times as big aB England, ana<|wl the basis or the number of Moftk the square mile in the city of tog* the population would be 100,000,0P —seventy times the present pwjWjj of the globe.—Pittsburgh 'JCwra Telegraph." Those figures would be encourigii|- " if 100,000,000,000 can do it, pdfyl can"—if it were not that BOmeriri pastor, after his. fit of jealolß.lV that the idea did not occur to ifyri give still larger figures coniernliigrt the politicians call " another pi*#-'