RANDOM NOTES.

Grey River Argus, 19 February 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

RANDOM NOTES.

(By a Bolling Stone). I took a ticket in the Eldorado, and like thousands of others who failed t "in the £2OOO, I’m in a critical moot this week-end, oozing good udvici hi. n geyser, and ready to play the part o. lUrs Grundy, or Airs Candle, or an; other strong-minded old lady who ha come to realise that the " hopes am the dreams which we sail on at morninj often leaves us at eve on the Ideal Shore alone. Give me bacK the mill freshness of morning, whose smiles an tears uro Worth evening's best light and I’d guarantee to dilute the expen nice of age and the buoyancy id youtl in just the measure that constituteWisdom. I’ve remarked before nmv 1 think, that the only of the soptm; Cfcuuriujis is to raise the hopes ot tin middle aged, and to moderate those o! early man ami womanhood. fige has been termed a struggle and el<i age a lament, but it all depends upon what one is taught to expect. Suicides generally have expected either tot much and been disappointed, or toe little and have not been disappointed. It is all a matter of accommodation f lhe fewer one’s needs, the richer one > s , no matter how much one may possess. The Prohibition Party, I see, are again girding their loins in preparation for the fray next year, for which they hope to be arrived with a new ballot paper. After visiting America, one of their leaders, discounting poison liquor and the 4< dry law” budget, is still hopeful, even if the Canadians Lave reverted to arf-an-arf. Decadent customs are certainly associated very often with the abuse of alcohol; and even a ballot paper, old or new, would have been better than nothing for each of a mixed party of young people remit ly observed by the aid of an <«L-ctri<-tight sporting in the water at a nopal Wellington bathing resort, at night, ii a state of complete nudity. It is a question, however, whether their blame attaches to liquor. One imagine s that, v. hile it might explain the feminine “return to nature,” under those circumstances, the starting of such execsecs is due to a decrepit moral, rather than a disordered physical condition. The genus homo may’ be animal, but It is at the same time rational, so th it moral or mental, at least as much as physical, means are essential to check the decadent tendencies of the times, vhich themselves are by no means limited to the physical sifle of the Luman composite. Hence the social up lifter, along with his new balltft paper, requires to be able to distinguish cause from effect, and, instead of leaving in the mind of the rising generation a vacuum—such as an abhorrent Nature will not tolerate, but will fill with anything available, even the novelty of nude sufang— must by both education und example instil as from a supremo Authority an intelligent will towards If-restraint and control. There is often question raised as to the nature of education, and as to whether it me;ins drawing out something from within, or leading in something from without to the learner’s mind. If wp admit the former, then how can anyone attempt to dictate to his fel lows, eitjier in conduct or in anything else? The man with the new ballot paper will soon again bo telling his fellow man what to do, and he must have mine sanction external to them both to which he can appeal. That neces bity brings into view all there needs to bp said as indicating the nature of educating the nature of education. The process is simply to demonstrate the learner’s mind and drive into his heart principles of proven utility in the lives of all humanity, such as that honesty is the best policy. Many young people are lately learning the truth of that principle, but it is in the uncongenial and unrelenting grip of the law that

their lesson is being driven home, after ( many a sure winner has “also startI read, too, where the Charleston is going to be replaced, and lat first thought it a proof of a return of better sense, until it turned out the antics in question are being supplanted by what an English paper calls the “Heebie Jeebie. ” This new jazz effect comes, like the Charleston, from the country that has failed so far to assimilate a race which its rising generation has now begun to imitate. The “Manchester Guardian” referring to this new instance of American “evolution” rays: —“To the spasmodic, convulsive, and negroid movements of the Charleston there is now to be ad<U?d a yet more savage and primitive mode, the Heebie-Jeebie. Its six basic steps are described as representing the move meets which accompany the incantations of a witch doctor before a human sacrifice. It is not yet suggested that the engrafting of this holy ceremony of the Upper Congo on the ballrooms should be accompanied by the actual slaughter of one of the guests. But the fix basic steps will at least serve admirably to celebrate the assassination by jazz of the aesthetic of dancing. When we have accustomed ourselves to the “shiveringing hopping, and stamp lug,” (as the instructions bid us) round the impending corpse of that Muse we shall have taken part in a rite as deplorable in its kind as any that darkest Africa or wildest Haiti can furnish.” Now what sort of a ballot paper is going to cure that? I mean what sort of remedy is needed to cheek those taking up such a thing from .going ahead and achieving on to a further degree of 11 emulation, ’ but actually providing a victim It. is evidently not so very big a step from Loeb and Leopold of Chicago and their youthful murderers for .ne sake of notoriety, to the children of other rich parents who in American colleges are now reported to be choosing the resort of the Selo-de-se. What better ex (Continued at foot of next -o!umn.)

ample is shown them? Yet some people whose minds find “prohibition the remedy for the ills of civilisation can go no nearer to finding a preventive' for suicide than to forbid newspapers from naming the poisons or the other means which are taken by those who lie by their own hands. To pass from the rational to the inational animals —some are beginning to think the dividing line is almost imaginary—l’ve a word or two to say anent the oxen, who had their representatives present at the dawn of Christianity. Though as successful in many respects, such as edibles and decorations, as the promoters hoped, and in others only short of their expectations through the weather to remain on good behaviour, the A. and P. Shw this week disappointed me in more than one particular. The quality was not in the live stock, and the further they came the better they wore. Of course, it costs money to exhibit, ami 1 think, the Association might set aside something to meet exhibitors transport costs, but even so. I doubt if our Jerseys, Southdowns, Romney, Berkshires, and Geegees are up to the mark. The lesson science has for pastoralists and stock raisers is the value of quality, which otherwise spelt is pedi gree. The importation of possession of pedigree animals needs encouragement, and thus it needs publicity. I seldom nad of West Coasters attending stud stock sales. They could just now pick up quality rams very cheaply in the North Island. It will take another decade or generation before the sense of pedigree values fully permeates the men on the land with this province that is destined to be a leading producer of high grade dairy and. beef cattle, mutton and pork. The Shows, whatever their immediate vicissitudes, financiallv and otherwise, must help to educate farmers here as to their backwardness. That will be the greatest ultimate benefit from them. Indeed, I’ll admit, in conclusion, that there are shows elsewhere in which the. annual exhibits are no better than those here, and that taken over a decade past there has been locally evident improvement, but I expect the next decade to show one I three or four times as great. If we * are content to stand still, we shall remain at the barrier after tbe other competitors have passed the post.