PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2810, 22 January 1908, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturdays D^ily Times.)

The reported find of gold in Nelson constitutes a rather racy exposition of the beauty of fitness as comprised in the old term " filthy lucre." The initial discoverers, it will be remembered, were labouring under the singularly mundane i conditions of excavating the outfall sewage main when they found the " colour," and every old miner knows the glorious vision which wiped " sew- j age " off the slate in one act ! A hurried | and hopeful "wash-up" was promising enough to suggest more, and the final results were reported as satisfactory. Oh, but there's a difference between, earning filthy lucre paid in commonplace wages — so much per day and hour of monotonous toil in laying a sewage outfall over a I mud flat— and "striking it" in genuine! specks in that same mud, however filthy ! ; Yet the old Greek caution, " Call no man happy until he is dead," holds good , in smaller things, and as long as news is ; as necessary to our content as " bread and games " to the Eomans, so long we j may " call no news good till we prove it." Like the burglary by motor which promised so well as a proof of England's progress, this Nelson story is but a practical joke. And for the amount- of pleasurable excitement on both sides, hoaxer and hoaxed, I make no manner of doubt the game was well worth the candle :It is the outside public that is beginning -to look with lack lustre eyes on the columns devoted to "grams" of all kinds. Such as it is, however, the Nelson joke reminds me of a more solid and finished article in the goldfields line manufactured in South Africa and told by a Natal paper, thus :—: — Splendid samples of quartz "were sent Home, and in due course a prospectus was issued. So excellent was the promise that the amount asked for subscribed twice over by the public. The enthusiastic directors, meeting in high good humour, at once telegraphed to the nevrly-appointed manager, " Begin crushing at once." It was the answer -which, they received back that first hinted to them that all was not -well. I/he cable Horns read : " Can't, until you send back the reef." Looking seaward, an easy enough matter in these coastwise islands of ours, there has been a pleasant and unaccustomed sense of active and imposing well-being in the presence of the Australian squadron. The chairman of the Bluff Harbour Board, I notice, assured the Admiral that " New ZeaTanders generally had a high regard for that distinguished service." So they have, but, fike the Scotsman with his love for his native country, they show it by keeping away from it. And it is a curious development (not nearly co easily explained as the trout question in Lake Wakatipu) this indifference of New Zealanders to the eea as a profession. White man and brown man alike, the New Zealander comes of a stock of sea dogs — white man and brown man alike has fallen under the spell of this pleasant lotus land, where all is too smooth and easy, and the eight hours' chime for work and play sound's "gentlier far than the bells of the dog-wa.tch. Sir Joseph — not Porter, X.C.8., of "Pinafore" fame, but just our own Sir Joseph — genially foretells big training-ships and a thousand men under training as our future contribution. Meantime facts are represented by the Amokura, as trim a little craft as may gladden a sailor's eyes, and her nucleus of something considerably under a hundred small fry. It may be that the seafaring spirit languished in the past for lack of encouragement. . Our own mercantile marine certainly never showed any desire to enthuse the apprentice— or, as his fond parents prefer to dub him, the "middy." The substantial premium which admitted the sons of the- well-to-do to the privileges, toils, and perils of an A.B. (mitigated, certainly, by the glory of brass buttons and reserved seats, so to speak) ■was *coepted -with an air^trf-

dignified condescension, almost reluctance. No, there is no doubt that the colonial mercantile marine was as guiltte6s of "pimping" as it was of pampering, but a better, training in navigation than the boys got under these old captains, as tough as their own salt junk, would be hard to v find. '■ Free as air," that ancient phrase dear alike to the poet in his everyday, and to the journalist in tie inspired moods, must go by the board. There is no longer in selfrespecting and up-to-date countries any freedom of air. Edison has pronounced that it will only be a few years before Marconi Eas mastered the atmospheric conditions between London and New York, adding "he will be able to protect by legal suit any other' couiitry butting inanywhere about his stations." Which looks bad for the enterprising Willenborg and his pocket edition of wireless telegraphy, and might even result in his discarding his overcoat — apparently an important factor in the business, — and devoting himself to more prosaic pursuits. " Fi-ee as air," with the evolution of airships and, flying machines still fluttering uncertainly on, and anxious legislation hurrying ahead to set its aerial limitatjoils . for fleets which are not yet in being", is undoubtedly a thang of the - past. The mishap to the " Dirigible No. 1," the failure of poor- Wellman's "America," to say nothing of the mysterious antics of the respectable "La .Pa-trie," indicate that, despite Dr Rudolf Martin's picturesque forecasts, we are still a long way off Tennyson's weird conception — "■ Heard the heavens fill with shouting, And there radn'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling In the central blue. ' i ' Truth to tell, oar twentieth century experiences still have a good deal in common with those of the artist whose optimistio plans for flying so captivated Kasselas in the Happy Valley, and recent QJrench legislation reflects tbe same misgivings which caused the inventor of the Happy Valley to dread his invention becoming the common property of nations. What would be the security of the good if the bad could at pleasure invade them from She sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds neither -walls, mountains, nor sea& could afford security. After all, his virtuous precautions were as unnecessary as Wellman's culinary preparations concealed in the famous sausage rope :—: — ' > j In a year the wings were finished, and | ~ on a morning appointed the maker appeared, furnished for flight, pn a litt!« promontory: ho waved 'his" pinions awhile to gather air, then leaped from his sfand, and in an instant* dropped "into the- lakfc. . . . His pinions, which' wera no use in the air, sustained him in the weter. With the of the air departed and the soundless menace of wireless telegraphy encompassing him, where may a man take refuge from news that he doesn't -want to hear, inventions he is indifferent to, science that he doubts, and discoveries that narrow the world already grown too small. A step in the j right direction once seemed to lie in j the purchase of an island, far from the madding crowd of summer tourists and winter scientists. There -have ; beeri times when I have envied Smith— -not the übiquitous John Smith, but Dorien Smith, of the Channel Islands — presiding over his flower-crowned kingdom \vith dignified urbanity. Now I find greater.: allurement in the future of the enterprising Berkeley, purchaser of Fanning Island, with all its "rights, easements, and appurtenances," for the reasonable sum of £25,000. Since it is not well, however, to covet any man's, goods, I have fortunately discovered a fly ( in this ointment, which sets me right with the decalogue. There is a cable station at Fanning Island, with 30 or 40 operators attached to it. so the trials of the Thaws and Goolds, the indiscretions of the Keir Hardies, the rascalities of the Schmitzs and Ruefs of the universe will be on - tap even here: An island where a man may sit under the shade of his. own cocoanut palms while he tots up his revenue by comfortable annual thousands, fly the Union Jack above his house flag, dispense justice and mercy to some hundred or so gentle islanders, sounds ideal. Yet even if "the cable station could be ignored, there is wireless telegraphy, into which the piratical < Willenborg has brought j the element of industrial competition, j It is indeed increasingly, impossible to escape the news and notes of a restless world where Nicola Tesla has only abandoned his schemes for boiling the domestic kettle with liquid air in order to devote himself to the despatch of a message to Mars. And, by the way, does anyone remember the actual amount bequeathed by a French lady to the person who first establishes communication with Mars? / — "The observant traveller" who has been recording his surprise and gratification at the decrease of the opium habit i in China scarcely realised, perhaps, the i force of the argument which backed up j the Imperial edict. There is, I seem to I recall, some well-worn tag greatly used '■ in discussions on temperance, to the . effect that you cannot make a man virtuous by act of Parliament. The Chinese Emperor, like Keir Hai-die, j considers nothing is impossible, and by j way of justifying the conclusion, condemned all army officers or soldiers found smoking opium to be beheaded. | Now, that's the sort of legislation that finds nothing impossible — be made virtuous, or die. Short, sharp, and eminently to the< pomt — no acts, no amendment acts, no waste of time ; no homes to put the weaker brother in, no island farms whereon the " habitual " may work out his, little weaknesses and, incidentally, advertise the Salvation Army to the strains of militant music. In view of the' extreme efficacy of Chinese pie^hods, it will be interestine

T to track the procedure of the anti-opiun* I legislation in France, where recent investigations show that there are 15 per cent*of opium-smokers in the Marines, 20 per cent, in the Foreign Legion, and 20 per j cent, among the Europeans detached fop .' service with native regiments. Toulon' was the first port in France in whiJb opium dens were started — so it is said,— but from Toulon, with all its intercourse with Eastern ports, the opium habit haj spread far and -wide; until it is asserted that the French" national services art cankered with the habit. For our o\rt intemperance — how" ia it that we takq no cognisance of . any "temperance" of "intemperance" but- one— -a liquid one! I came across a neat little 'apologia th« other day, as follows :—: — skß Panacea. "When pain and care' oppress my soul - "My physic is the sparkling bowl; Gaily I pour the tonic down, For Sorrow's heavy, and will drown. But when my heart from care is free, In this same course no harm I see: ..One difference I gladly note, That Joy is light, and so will float. s As an instance of the truly ingenuous advertisement, the following is quoted as being displayed in. the bar .of an inn ,near .Hayes, in- Middlesex- r — \ All spirits sold-jn this establishment contain as much^fquor as the landlord can get into • them. /hough parish Ipoli|tics1 poli|tics " remain dull, deadly .dull, a, matter for' congratulation is ,the' successful opening of the campaign! for jthe Kaitangata Cottage Hospital. This is the kind of medieal> progress that appeals to' even the" dullest of us, for ifc provides the prompt and instant attention demanded by those distressing happenings among miners which too often spell tragedy as , their final word. ' Upheld by the , ethical support of such a hospital expert as Dr Batekelor, aruJ tke practical help of such a man as Mr Robert Lee, the cottage hospital should soon be an accomplished fact. Less of „ the heart and (presumably) ) more of ' the head — more brainy, in fact, — was the affair of the local School of Art, the board, the inspector, and -the press. During the last few months many "heated" discussions on various topics have made themselves heard in different parts of the duodecimo Dominion. Nor there alone. The virile amenities of parliamentary procedure in the Commonwealth have been quoted in the English papers almost side by side with : electoral. Billingsgate from the United Stated. - Things, really looked bad for the- manners of the .world generally; even, the " painful' incident " of the little signalling message about making the British ' warships "look pretty" was dragged in by the people" .wJio wanted ( to prove that not only our private, but our public, manners had gone' "'to the "demnitidn" " bow-wows." No such sEbckiig conclusion, however, breathed from the entirely, punctiliously, polite discussions on that amusing local institution, the School of Arts. So irreproachable indeed was it ' that I rather __ have my doubts about passing on for oblique interpretation the . following story of a little "difference of opinion and its accompanying apology: — , The. scene is laid, in one of the great woollen 'factories of •■ -the* /West "" Biding, owned and run by a 'firm of strict disciplinarians who severely resented the use of *ny strong . language on' the premises. One day a new hand, unaware of the stringency of the' rules of -the , factory, in a, moment 'of exasperation savagely told a fellow-woTker to "Go to H— 11!" The latter at once reported the breach to the authorities, who sent for the culprit, severely reprimanded' him,, and ' told him that he must apologise to 'his workfellow under pain of instant dismissal. " Oh ! Ah'll apologise reight enough," he said. Then, turning to the offended one, " Did Ah tell the'a to go to H— 11?" r Yes, tha did." "Well, tha needn't," he cheerfully observed,, as he turned on his heel and strolled out of the office. Civis. The first vote ever given by a woman ia a. parliamentary election was 'cast '4o years ago. The occasion was a bye-election caused by the death, in" 1867, of Edward James, Q.C., who had been elected one of the members for Manchester at the general election of 1865. At the bye-election ther© were three candidates, of whom Jacob Bright was successful. The register of | voters in St. Clement's Ward included the | name of a woman, who in due course, presented herself et the polling place at the Fairfield, Street Police Station. An objection was raised to her voting, but the fact that her name appeared on the list of voters compelled the presiding officer to accept the vote. The Ballot- Act had not yet become law, and under the system of open voting then in vogue the vote was given to Mr Bright, who was the 6turdy champion of women's rights 40 years ago. A motor car, in which were Drs Anderson and Mills and two ladies from Christ-ohurc-h, met with an unusual kind of misi hap on the Amberley beach, on Saturday 1 afternoon (says the Press). The party, i delighted with the scenery and beach, inI structed the chauffeur to take them for a good spin. All went well for about a mile and a-half, when suddenly the car sank in. a quicksand at low water up to tihe axle. I The occupants, after fruitless endeavours to | extricate the car, decided to send to Amberley for horse assistance. Mr J. Grieg went down with two horses and I gear, and on arrival found the car covered l up with sand and water to the 6eat, the tide having set in. After many pulls and breakages the horses managed to extricate the car, and towed it to Amberley, some three miles distant. * The Dunedin Painters' Union has decided to write to the Minister of Labour protesting against the employment of cheaip labour by~the Ofcago Education Board in the paint* ing of the schools under its oootiU,