THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22987, 16 September 1936, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By Wayfarer

An out-of-town excuse for a yarn: Dear " Wayfarer,"—Can you, or any of your readers, give the full and correct story of which this is an incomplete fragment? It is told, I believe, of Epaminondas, though it is hard to imagine that so distinguished a general could have had such an inelastic mind as a boy. This boy, then, was sent to the market place to buy a cabbage, which he treated, on his return journey, like a football. His father told him that the proper way to carry a cabbage was in a basket. The next day he was sent to fetch some bank notes, and, remembering his lesson, he put them in a basket. Unluckily, there was an old-man Sirocco blowing—and that was that! His father told him the proper way to carry bank notes was to put them inside his cap and wear it. The next day he was sent to the market place to buy a pound of butter. He remembered his lesson —and arrived home with a sticky face. His father told him that the best way to carry butter in hot weather was to tie it in a cloth and put it in a bucket of water. Accordingly, the next day he returned from his mission with a drowned puppy. His father told him that the proper way to bring back a puppy was to lead it on a piece of string. The next day he did not forget his lesson—and returned with a very battered loaf of bread. As well Epaminondas as another, say we. One imagines that there dwelt with him in Arcadia many as literalminded; and that in this our century obtuseness and eccentricity have not vanished from the earth. The dullard has as many lives as Plutarch. One tall tale begets another. For instance, without apologies to Munchausen: , A waterman talked one night from the street to a woman at a window, and as neither of them could hear distinctly what the other said, " What did you say?" was frequently repeated by both. The reason why they could not hear was that it froze very hard at the time, and in the morning the wall was covered with " What do you say? " in ice. We trust that readers will give this anecdote the frosty reception that it seems to deserve. But we spoke of eccentricity in the modern world. In illustration, we print from Nichi Nichi, of Tokio, what may rightly be called the most-candid-story-of-the-year. Mr Yuzawa, the Vice Minister of the Home Office, on the occasion of his daughter's wedding, was so moved with his. delight that he licked the face of the bridegroom, to the surprise of the assembly. To speak the truth, Mr Yuzawa has the curious habit of licking people's faces when he gets drunk. Since his appointment as Vice Minister of Home Affairs, his closest friends, much concerned over his notorious habit, advised him to correct the curious habit. Seeing much truth in the advice, Mr Yuzawa has been refraining from it as much as possible, but when he attends a drinking party and gets drunk, he feels the temptation, and is often seen licking his own hands to comfort himself in his melancholy state. When Mr Yuzawa begins licking his hands, his friends get frightened, and say: "Don't get too close to him." Well, licking, we imagine, is no vice, or what office boy would escape the moralists? But there should surely be a better way to occupy the time at a drinking party than licking one's hands. Tongues, as it seems to us, are given rather to sip with, or _even, as it seems to politicians, to 'speak with, though in that pursuit they may become vicious indeed. An episcopal declaration of an abiding faith:

His sister married an Edinburgh doctor who was an elder in Old St. . George's Established Church of Scotland, his wife is the daughter of a man who was an ardent Presbyterian in his younger days, his own daughter has gone and got engaged to a Presbyterian minister—and yet he remains an unrepentant Anglican. To which a prominent Presbyterian makes reply: v There was an eccentric genius of last century, a professor of Hebrew in Edinburgh, who on one occasion said he was first a Christian, next a . Catholic, then a Calvinist, fourthly a Baptist, and, fifthly, a Presbyterian, and that he could not reverse the order. Then we like to recall William Holmes M'Guffey on Napoleon: A Royalist, a republican, and an emperor; a Mohammedan, a Catho-1 lie, and a patron of the synagogue, a traitor and a tyrant, he was through all his vicissitudes a Man. That is versatility. And this is the just word: For forms of government let' fools contest: Whate'er is best admlnister'd is best; For moods of faith let graceless zealots fight: His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. We are all like to find ourselves in some mental imbroglio, whence escape is easier by a turning of the coat. In this clime there is good precedent. Let us remember that the first New Zealanders have an honourable record of variability in credo, and we think none the worse of the Maori for it. At first the "savage," making obeisance to Maui; then, perhaps, as in Otago, the Wesleyan; next, when Selwyn travels zealous and evangelical through the south, the convert to Anglicanism; then branch the Catholic and the Presbyterian from this tree as mission influences increase and diversify. And now, if we mistake it not, a Maori may) like any of us, espouse Spiritualism or become a Seventh Day Adventist; he may declare himself a Tory, or be wooed to Social Credit; he can join the League of Nations Union or be a Bigger Navy man. So, in truth, it seems to us of less purport than fraternising clerics would have us think if a Presbyterian should wed an Anglican and their children be brought up as Salvationists. Every jack to his trade, and every man to his faith. The butcher does not find it remarkable that his neighbour is a baker, nor the doctor that his patient is a Mason. The more vital and confusing issues in life, we think, are such as a Dunedin divine used to recall: A widower with a large family married a widow with a family by her previous husband. Their late union was equally largely blessed. One evening, as they sat, placid man and wife, before the fire, there was an uproar from the nursery, and the wife ran out to see what the trouble was. Presently she returned breathless and alarmed to cry to her spouse: "Come quick! Your children and my children are killing our children in the nursery!" Which makes clear something of the problem the League of Nations has to deal with. The current newspaper heading, "Limerick in Dock," coupled with our own thoughts upon poetical interference with the verse-metre, produces the following minor explosion: There was a poor rhyme called the Limerick, Whose brilliance burned with a dim wick. When his efforts grew worse, He was tried for bad verse. And convicted of making us whim-sick.

We read of some barrels of fine Scotch whisky which are being brought to New Zealand in the course of a voyage round the Suggested appropriate ditty of welcome: "Will ye ne'er come bad again? " "King Toasted Twice—At South African Banquet." As the African missionary said when they warmed him up for supper,." Don't you think this is rather overdoing it? "