“BOTTOMLEYITIS.”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4451, 9 August 1922, Page 1

“BOTTOMLEYITIS.”

A DISEASE OF THE AGFA

(By Brigadier-General C. B. Thomson, in the “Westminster Gazette.”)

Eottomleyitis is not a new disease: it has afflicted humanity throughout the ages ; a new name for \t has been suggested by its latest manifestations. Those who suffer from this disease are drawn from all classes of society, and yet it, is nearly always easy to recognise a person, man or woman, who has got it. Five minutes’ conversation on any current topic will reveal the symptoms: a super-* fleial optimism, resentment against change or progress of any kind, but more especially intellectual developments, a sporting outlook, combined with a quiteijspecial choice in Heroworship, a strong and indeed almost violent herd-instinct, professions of patriotism and a coarse sort pf 'good nature.

Eottomleyitis patients, like 'other sick people, need a doctor, but they prefer a quack, and having found one, look up to him as a leader. The qualifications for leadership are a quick eye for drifts and tendencies, an instinct .for publicity, imagination, "courage, the arts of a mob orator, and a copious vocabulary, including biblical quotations, for purposes bf abuse. Any clever and unscrupulous man can become a hero to these people, but, if possessed of real ability, he would be with them and not < f them. In such company it is impossi-* ble tp be both clever and honest; the leader saves his followers the trouble of thinking for themselves, plays up to their ignorance and prejudices, plies them with cant and clap-trap, appeals alternately to what passes with them for patriotism and love of sport, and takes their money for his pains

Periodically the leader is put in prison, but that does not remedy the evil ; the trickster is Less pitiable than iiis dupes ; it is they whp are sick, and. being numerous, they are more dangerous than he is to the community as a whole. They will always find a new deceiver, for, as Renan said, they wished to be deceived.

Eottomleyitis has invade d most branches of public life. A! the end bf 1918 it made havoc of politics. It is said that Horatio Bpttcmley has never ceased to regret tot having taken to the law as .a profession. The wonder •is he did not take up politics more seriously; he has all the gifts and qualities which, ip the recent past, have achieved supreme political success. Alone in his cell, .lie must think wistfully pf what might have been. To betray those who put their trust in him, to break innumerable promises and the most solemn pledges, co sigh a document and then wriggle unceasingly to evade its most elementary commitments, to avoid explan-

atfons apd cloud issues, to make misleading statements uncorroborated by a shied of evidence, ,tb deny accusations based on undeniable facts, to meet criticisms with vulgar recriminations and flouts and jibes—all these are practices and methods of which the convict in Wonnword Scrubs was a past master; and yet they could not save him from the clutches of the law.