Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 28 July 1892, Page 3

Notes and Events.

In the future, distant or near, probably near if we accept the prophecies of the people most interested, whan Palmerston will have gained the proud eminence of having exceeded the size of any other colonial town, the wise men who will there reside will decide that a dictionary of the language " as she is spoke " or understood in the capital, will have to be prepared. In such a short notice it is impossible to foreshadow the many changes which will be necessary, but one, even which the multitude will now be willing to admit the need of correction, is in the verb Grant. The dictionary now defines the word to mean to give, admit, allow, concede ; but the expedience of the past few months forces the Pahnerstonian to imagine that grant means just the reverse, that there is little of admisssion, or conceeding, especially when hospital affairs are under discussion. Such a direct topsy-turvy change is nothing new in the. English language, as a period of fifty years creates, a complete change in the meaning of Some of the commonest words.

"In days of old, when knights were bold, and barons held their sway," and persons troubled them with too impertinent, insinuations they were directly and very emphatically told to "Go to Jericho." Alas even this is now altered, both in meaning and intention, as when two persons now fall out, one generally threaten? to " go-to Jellieoe.'V Both "are hard roads to travel I believe," but we should say that to Jericho was the cheapest, if not the best.

The papers have, been producing many of the most remarkable expressidng of our Representatives, they do not come up to some very mixed metaphors which have been carefully preserved, "made by members of the English House of Commons. This does not run very smoothly, " 1 smell a rat ; I see it brewing in the storm ; but I will nip it in the bud." A lawyer once described a witness as coming into Court with unblushing footsteps, and with the cloak of hypocrisy in his mouth !"

Noting the trouble in Afghanistan, it is worth recalling the warning given by the Duke of Wellington in 1838; He said " I had understood that the raising of the siege of Herat was to be the signal for abandoning the expedition to the Indue. It will be very unfortunate if that intention should be altered. The consequences of -Crossing the Indus once, to', settle a government in Afghanistan, will be a perennial march into that country.",

Lord Deerhurst (writes the London correspondent of the Age), who is, I believe, not altogether unknown in Victoria, has left England for another V trek " to Mashonaiand, but before his departure be completed a book on his recent African trave's. In the course of those experiences he came across Lord Randolph Churchill, and his opinions of his brother courtesy lord are. not flatterin '. The following is an oxtract from Lord Deerhurst' s diary :

—•" Oct. 5.— 1 went tc see Randolph to-day. I think him an extremely rude man, but lam told that it is only his* manner, and that I am treated better than most men. I wonder that some of the men don't go for him. He' has got himself into. very hot water over here, and is very unpopular. Oct. 7.—Randolph's sales are on, and I am very busy buying things'. At one of his sales he put up some tea, which, he said was given him by the Queen. The Boers at once took on. ani it was sold for something like £4 per Ib. His sales lasted for four days, and pecuniarily, I. should say, were a success ; but they made him more unpopular than before owing to his Itremendous stinginess- He stood there bullying, the auctioneer, and jallowingno one to, have a say ex/ -cept hVinself/'arid he insulted nearly everyone he came across.' " I wonder what the Queen would think of his selling the presents which she made to him. But perhaps the allusion to royality was only a clever way of advertising the goods he had to sell.