ARGUMENT OR TWADDLE.

Evening Star, Issue 4025, 20 January 1876, Page 2

ARGUMENT OR TWADDLE.

To the Editor,

Sra,—Can you tell me if, for twaddle, any cure short of asphyxia is to be found, I am su» e it was never more needed than at the present moment in this City, Some time ago, Dr Gardiner, the Glasgow Health Officer, read before some medical society a paper on “ Fmo uoaal Aaphasia,” and described this as a stale m which the subjects of ic either could not speak at ail or were irresistibly impelled to speak nonsense. Now, sir, ihis i« a true wit-ness-a fact which you may prove for yourself any day this week by attendin? for an hour or two the meeting of Synod now in sesrioa in this City.

. H has always been regarded as a great evi> m the old country that chiefly members of long standing or recognised ability carry on the debates which take place in i.-hurch Courts, and no doubt this is an evil, but one that is easy to bear in comparison with the intolerable nuisance that is springing up in ' hatch < Courts here.

. in f? 01n f? into the Synod referred to, a stranger is somewhat at a loss to know if he has not mistaken hia way and wandered into bedium. One after another up to prove how many units nuke five. The first says 3 x 2=5; the next has further light, and he says 4xl = 5; the next, 6 like a horse in a mill. Why, sir I don’t think that even Job himself could have stood it. vt hydo the°e gentlemen not rest content on both aides when all their arguments have been e - X i * n *- wo or speeches on either side ? Were it not for the pleasure of heavin'--their own sweet voices, I think th y won!; bo silent. Would that they could lay the frog’s lesson to heart What may h.j spurc to you in death to us.** Take a sample of the utter absolute insanity of some of the speakers, line young member student and elder rolled into one, maintained that a certain celebrated professor had come to the profound conclusion that "‘one man was only one man and nothing more. The same ingenious youth, apparently as innocent of Greek as our reputed ancestors were of c othiug, maintained that salmo, salmon, or some such word, only meant to twang a string. This chronic state of imbecility is not confined altogether to young members, and (tell it not in Gath i) the ‘ ‘ lay element ” appears to be the most hopeless of all. * space forbids me to go further, and I wou d close by say ng that it is not my object to condemn the Synod. Ido not believe you could find abler and more effective speakirg anywhere. But I do condemn, and 1 know it is widely condemned, the eternal chaff-grinding of which I have spoken. If the membeis who have really nothing to say, and yet are afflict-d with the terrible disease rabies loqmndi , would only go down to the beach of the loud-bounding sea, they could there ease their laboring hearts without disturbing the equanimity of their neighbors.—l am, &c,, ~ , So.be Affliction. Dunedin, January 20,