WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 280, 20 August 1921, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

V.D.H.)

Seven 'Bays make, one week. How many make one strong ? It has been suggested that events in Upper Silesia tea-bh us that Nature knew what she was doing when sb« flattened the poles.l According to ’ tike ' Marion Star, President Hardingj’s newspaper, the great need of America to-day is something to make hoes )as attractive as hose.

Most of the witnesses yesterday at the Hutt County -Commission were of opinion that before setting out on its campaign for funds to bridge the rivers the county should (abridge its claims.

Lord Haig's opinion appears to be that the lady who r eceived the messages from Lord, Kitchener has been mixing her spirits.

Before disarming the nations, President Harding is bringing a lady to hit conference to disarm the delegates.

Dr. Bumpus informed me yesterday that ho had just had the family coat of arms amended in conformity with the spirit of the age an(l the recent order of the Health Department. The motto now reads, "Faith, ’ Hope, and Social Welfare.” “Although the matter has involved me in no li.ttle expense I am. the last to grndge it/’ tho Doctor stated with characteristic public -spirit. "An opprobrious cognomen is now removed from the language, and evidence is once again afforded of the jjower of the pen as the handmaid of progress, or, indeed, its fons et origo and. pons . ansinorutn. We are the slaves of 1 names, sir. In nomenclature lies the secret of regeneration. As Othello remarked with his deep insight [into human nature, 'A rogue by' any other name would smell as sweet.’ I am now engaged in en extension of the work into another department. ‘Prison/ sir, is an ugly word, a. grim word—a word associated in my own mind with anything but fragrant and refreshing memories, as it should be. ’ It. is* this circumstance, I am convinced, which has led to the present wise determination of Judges and juries not to send anyone there. A close analysis which I have made- of tho criminal proceedings of recent years shows that in all cases the offence is essentially the same. In essence it is more a misfortune than a fault—the misfortune of being found out. It is, therefore, the unsuccessful , whom we place in the dock and punish with a barbarity long overdue for relegation to the obscurity of the medieval era in which it originated. It is our sympathy we should extend to these weaker brethren.”

“ 'Embezzlement,' ‘defalcation,’ ’misappropriation’ are words displeasing to the ear,” continued the Doctor. "They are hurtful to a mar s innate and, indeed,. tend almost to make him think that he is dishonest. I am now moving for their replacement in the criminal code by the happier phrase 'unauthorised social welfare.’ We now allow prisoners, I understand, to wear their own clothes, and young men of refinement and discernment in taste unhappily incarcerated can thus indulge their taste in butterfly collars and fancy socks. With first-class railway travelling to gaol for those who get away with more than a thousand pounds of public money, sleeping berths should be added for all who prove their ability by lifting over £5OOO. Gaol - being no longer gaol the time is’overdue for recognition of the circumstance. Instead henceforth of the brutal announcement, so damaging to the character, that 'John Jones is serving a sentence of .two years' imprisonment with hard labour at Lyttelton Gaol,’ how much more pleasant to the refined and discriminating eye would be this paragraph in. the pergonal columns of the Press: — Mr. John Jones yesterday had the distinction of nomination by - His Excellency the Governor-Gen-eral for two years’ recuperative treatment at the Royal George Retreat, Lyttelton, Accompanied by an illuminated invitation card suitable for framing and preservation by Mr. Jones’s descendants, the humblest in the land would ba proud to feel that the path was open to all to attract this distinguished recognition for services rendered, and to enjoy so prolonged and expensive a hospitality from the Representative of the Crown.” Rivers, says a paragraphist, had oome no me and was stumbling over things in the dark hallway. '(What are you growling about dear P” called Mrs. Rivers from the floor above. "I am growling," ha answered in his deepest bass voice, "to drown the barking of my shins." “Tho Divine Sarah," as the one and only Bernhardt is known, is reported to be seriously ill. This great French actress, probably the greatest actress that ever lived—much more diversified than Rachel and with a passionate fire fiercer than that of Ristori —will be 77 rears of age on October 23 next. That is a remarkable age for a woman who has lived so near to the elemental passions all her days, and who only a fewyears ago had to have a leg amputated. The recent war found Mdme, Bernhardt the fiercest of patriots. Thera was no half-and-half feeling about her, France, above and beyond all, waa hw great passion. She was the Frenchiest of the French, and it is said that had it not been for her disability she would have found the means to get to the front and have died gloriously for France. That was her ambition. Instead of that she had to be content to sit end recite most wonderfully to the poldlers on leave or wounded. Critics have said that to hear Sarah Bernhardt recite Cammaerts’s “Carillon" before the soldiers of France was to have heard the finest and most moving elocutionary effort in all time. She had the power of making her soldier audience grit their teeth and sob at the same time. And Bernhardt is dying!

“Does bigamy mean that a man. hoM one wife too many?” “No, not necessarily; a man can have one wife too many and not be a bigamist.”

In a well-filled tramcar, with the majority of the occupants gazing solemnly at a restless two-year-old iu its mother’4 arms. Catching the eye of a neatlygroomed middle-aged passenger, the child excitedlv hailed him as ‘Daddy! “Daddy!” "No, darling, that’s not daddy," cooed tho mother, "that’s & gentleman."

Mr. Maughan Barnett, the Auckland city organist, who was in town last week, was remarking that Auckland city had at least two institutions that. wor« showing good promise, when a clerical friend asked what they were. Mr. Barnett: "Fish markets and municipal music.” Clerical Friend: “That’s strange, to® they’re related.” Mr. Barnett: “Related! In what

way ?” C.F.: “Well, there seems to lie an analogy between fish and scales.”

“Can you tell me a reason why any person should try to get into your etrong-room ?” a witness was asked during the hearing of a burglary case at the Palmerston North Supreme Court. “No. I can’t," retorted the witness Immediately. “I. took it as a. compliment, seeing .how W business is." -