NIBBLES FROM RUDYARD KIPLING

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 37, 26 November 1920, Page 5

NIBBLES FROM RUDYARD KIPLING

(From "Letters of Travel," by Rudyard Kipling).

When England stiimbles the Empire shakes. All things considered, there are only two kinds of men in the world — those who stay at home, and those who do not, The second are the most interesting. In Madeira once they had a r, evolution which lasted just long enough for the nat. iona! poet to compose a national anthem, and then was put down. All that is left of the revolt now is the song that you hear on the twangling nachettes, the babybanjos, of a moonlight night under the banana fronds at the back of Funchal. And the high-pitched nasal refrain of it is "Oonstituci-oun !" "Some men when they grow rich store pictures in a gallery." Living, their friends envy them, and after death the genuineness of the collection is disputed under the dispersing hammer. A better way is to spread your pictures over all earth; visiting them as Fate allows. Then none can steal or defa.ce, nor any reverse of fort'une force a salej sunshine and tempest warm and ventilate the gallery for nothing, and — in epite of all that has been said of her crudenesa — Nature is not altogether a bad framemaker. What is the matter with the English as immigrants In Canada? The answers were explicit: "Because the English do not work. Because we are sick of Re-mittance-men and loafers sent out here. Because the English are rotten with Socialism. Because the English don't fit with our life. They kick at our way of doing things. They are always telling us how things are done in England. They carry frills! Don't you know the story of the Englishman who lost his way, and was found half-dead of thirst beside a river? When he was asked why he didn't drink, he said: "How the deuce can l without a glass?"