OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19180, 10 December 1927, Page 14

OBITER DICTA.

——♦ 1 [By K.] I suppose thnt people are much more interested in the arrival of the new comet than in the ending of the Parliamentary session. And yet the comet will not do us a bit of good, while the ending of the session is something to be thankful for. Every session 1 feel like the poor old horse in George Morrow's picture. Weary and apprehensive, he is standing in a forest glade, bestridden by his rider, Sir Agravaine, who has had a long day dragon-killing, maiden-rescuing, and grailing. " I wonder," the horse says, " what the fool is going to do next." Not that our legislators kill dragons or give succour to maidens or anybody else, or go grailing except in Bellamy's. But they go on from folly to folly, and we, fools and dolts that we are, pay them for it, and will fight each other next year for the honour of electing another set. The wonder is that when the session ends the public does not arrange a welcome homo for its representatives. That the public does not do this, but allows the members to sneak quietly back and lose themselves in the. crowd, is the best thing I know about our democracy. Mr George Forbes, to be sure, emitted a dull flash in the form of a statement to a Liberal paper before merging into the tussocks of Cheviot. He said that next year he is really going to begin, his theme being that what, is wrong with the country is not the Demon Rum, but the Demon Coates.

What many are hoping is that the voice that -will replace the voice of the politician is the voice of the nightingale. At the instance of Mr David Garnett, four of these fowls have been sent to.New Zealand, with the intent, one is sure, to persuade New Zealand that even if England .has no summers now she still has birds which can out-sing the kiwi, to say nothing of the tiki and the tui. Very few Englishmen have heard the nightingale, except in Norfolk, where it competes with the canary, but England has imposed upon the world the idea that of all mortal sounds the midnight strains of the sober-suited songstress are the loveliest. It may be so, but I hope I never hear her voice. King Agesilaus, according to Plutarch, refused an invitation to hear a man who could imitate the bird to perfection. "I have heard the nightingale herself," he said. So have I. But mine was the nightingale of dreams, a synthetic nightingale emerged from the passion of the poets, and England's prize bird's song could not. but sound harsh and halting and unrehearsed beside the song of the bird that I know. Perhaps, however, the nightingale will develop in New Zealand, as the trout has developed-in size and power, and the rabbit in numbers.. It may develop some unpleasant habits, and become a pest. .And the population may in the end be unable to. sleep for the enormous chorus of SUpersongstresses.

-gales, but bigger markets, and £**» * *»» publicity b^SSfc, 1 mentioned C-T < "Saturday jj& **J& and althSughpubH^! cultivated P eo p i o J k ***\ sped their money oa >*S of on our pri me not worth much, it nothing. poem by William fll >* "DdWUi Ti me After lamenting that SjH Leland never visited o M I??' continues: won «*%^

Hark!—O hearl—«» .l Of both of th« \»iv . From PUnty to jE^tfoSffl I" woe uminukiMt m t[ ,7'

Ah, "it's daffodil tlm. I. „' '■< With a M.I tobJSHL"*H on tho wheel M1, %W5 Of Tinio and ««« u,.*' . ''-Is In Sprins-ln New The rhymes aw ment good, tho politic, aj* what is most pleasing is thktK t knows or at any rate eohuj book which enabled Bencttyl! that there are two islands Jj Strait, and that the Bijwjh is in one island and W? the other. This is iWjuJ on the map. • - ■?■ " '-a ,i

The newspapers the beginning of,a taliation against Mayor, "Big Bill" tyjaj been conducting a (ttmnfft Britain and King GwiOl "Big Bill "has said rf| his snoot" if h 0 <x»mes|| Bill is a "100 per w&M in. that,.,,to quote a ttffira the London " Obscrv<*sJHj his OAvn preposterous ,oiss|l American Pundnmenu3a|} bodied in the Ku 'Nordic' associations,liL laws, and the countlessM|i now being mobilised, tifgHra powerful backing, to jmk safe and sepnrate fw«l|l world. ' B teßiU/injij|l the silliest and tie/Mkffgj champion at the. inomto|||j in which many tiill4btt]if| believe." If tie Brifsffl this freakish cretttuW ssm hard enough, CM<ago-flliljH after all dollars toßit;WJ§§ But we should Bill's as the America v 'it'aiiW own freaW§lMefMJj landers. cornel them here. could not has often beggaji|t|iw| heading into "Hinfu^R