CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 73, 5 July 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

BAD LANGUAGE. Men of all nations "swear." Our own Suguage contains a number of words at, by use and custom, we have come regard as vulgar, obscene, improper, disgusting or irreligious. If we attribute a disgusting significance to the commonest word, it becomes vile. The sound in itself is no worse than any other spoken word, and is only so by general consent. The ignorant man has a small vocabulary. Indeed, the average person's vocabulary is limited. The art of conversation is not taught; therefore, as talking is very necessary, the added necessity of embellishing a weak vocabulary is apparent. Emphasis is the life of conversation, but if, in this column, we were to emphasise thoughts in the ordinary street-corner fashion, the public would be deeply' and justly disgusted. Yet so common is verbal embellishment that but a lew really strenuously object to it. Just to show that the use of bad language is regarded as a serious offence, we quote ithe case of a Dunedin jockey, whose ordinary vocabulary was so limited that lie had to interlaid it with selections from the common Obscenities used in everyday life. For this he was sent to gaol for a month. The reason he was sent to gaol was thiit he offended the tars of the public, so that the aesthetic

sense of tlie people is their safeguard against obscenities and the evil practice of indulging in profanity. The use of vile words, although not confined to the ignorant, is the outcome of ignorance, and an inability to converse without emphasis. The English language is the most explicit language in the world. To express any single thought one Has the use of thousands of combinations. Yet there is no language which is more atrociously interlarded than our own.

A MATTER OF LOYALTY. | It is impossible to expect people to be | enthusiastic about matters that do not return them hard cash, unless they are merely artistic. Taranaki people are utilitarian. They, together with their relatives all over Xew Zealand, are shy of any enterprise that someone else has not sampled. Indeed, it may be said that many people must .be dragged forcibly into money-making proposition's. Right at their doors the Taranaki peoDle have oil wells bubbling wealth into the world for them if they will only reap it. The people are so apathetic in the matter that the majority .will not even go to see the oil bores at Moturoa. Presumably another section of the people are not yet convinced that Taranaki has any oil. Perhaps it is thought that folks sink casings three thousand feet into the earth for fun, and erect huge derricks for pastime. Here is a corollary. A | man sows oats—two and a-half bushels to the acre. He anticipates that this will produce forty bushels' to the acre. As a matter of chance, fifty bushels grow on every acre. He does not gather the odd ten bushels an acre, merely saying, "What's the good?" A better harvest than oats is simply forcing itself out of the earth at Moturoa. The people, without whose enthusiasm in cash the field ca,nnot be developed, would be quite willing; to believe there was a fortune in the oil if it bubbled 1 out in America or Baku, or anywhere else. But on the .Breakwater road impossible!- Distant fields seem always greenest. If the. people of Taranaki do not rouse themselves to the enormous possibilities that lie awaiting development dn the spot they will probably wonder that outsiders can come into a strange country ,to make fortunes. We know there are [people who will laugh at the idea that 1 there is a vast store of wealth at Moturoa and elsewhere in Taranaki, that it is better oil than that of most countries in the world, that it is worth "going in for," and that it may be even a better friend to this province than < the cow. It is all very well for sceptics- to stay at home and assert that the whole idea is farcical. The potentialities of the Taranaki oilfields have only to 'be examined personally to convince the sceptic. Most of the visitors to the wells are outsiders. Why this should be it is impossible to understand. Mr. Cock last night made an optimistic remark about the future of New Plymouth. His audience greeted 'liim with laughter. How on earth could New Plymouth become anything or be anything, when New Plymouth people do not push it? He accused the people of being unprogressive. We do nothing;of the kind. We merely mention that many people in Taranaki believe that there'is the making of fortunes in Taranaki oil.

MADAME CARREKO.. Madame. Teresa Carreno, the greatest woman pianist on earth, honors : New Plymouth to : night by playing for, its people. The people of New Plymouth might, honor Madame by crowding the theatre in which she plays. Madame Carreno's fame is world-wide. In the capitals of the world she is able to draw not only the most critical musicians, but the world of art. Pathetically, outside the artistic circles of the world, a grfeat artist is not always given the support his or her genius should demand. It is the misfortune of the people who remain at home that they are not artistic ,and appreciative, There has never been in Austrakisia a pianist whose'supreme Command of the instrument used approached the perfection of Madame's playing. To the instrumental dabbler, whose love for music is greater than his skill of interpretation, such playing as Madame Carreno is capable of is «. whole series of lessons and a lifelong inspiration. Under her beautiful hands the piano is, instinct with/ life, power, and tenderness. She expresses the soul of things iby her art just as surely as does the Royal Academician, the supreme sculptor, the master of words. It is not necessary that Madame shall come to New Plymouth. Berlin,* London, Paris, New York want her to -play in their theatres, but so instinct is this great woman with the idea that all the world shalf share her triumphs of tone, that she diffuses her benefices world-wide. To the people who love music and do not know what music is, we say, "Hear Car.reno and learn"; to those to whom the sweet sounds have never appealed; we would say, "You have not yet heard the sweetest"; to the merely careless, whose idea of public amusement is bounded on one side by the horrors of a bad melodrama. or the blatant fun of vaudeville, we say, "Bask in the sunshine of Carreno's music and forget the inartistic past." '