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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
The following lucid definition from the new « Century » Dictionary is quoted in the Literary World. It is doubtless scientifically accurate; but will be so much « Greek » to the unlearned reader. « Meta-pophysis.—In Anatomy, a dorsolateral apophysis, developed on the prezyapophysis, or anterior articular process of a vertebra, especially in the lumbar region. It corresponds to the inner tubercle of the diapophysis of a theoric vertebra. »
Mr Henry George says that Australasians are even more prone than his own countrymen to the invention and naturalisation of new words and phrases. He instances « to shepherd » and « to go bung » as typical illustrations. The suggestion has been made in England that the time has come for the publication of a dictionary of Australasianisms. It is pointed out that such expressions as « new chum, » « stuck up, » « cattle duffing, » « nobblers, » « bail up, » &c., require explanation to Englishmen.—To which we would add that the only fitting place for any of these terms is in a dictionary of slang. The only Australasianism in general use, and that seems to fill a useful place is not mentioned. That is the term « larrikin. »
The Woodville Examiner objects to the revision of proofs of public printing by the officials concerned, on account of the great trouble they give the printer, who is not allowed to charge for his loss of time. Some of the clerks can never get the work right. « We heard, » says the Examiner, « of an instance lately where an officer had to revise the proofs thirty times, and then the corrections were not completed. » The editor thinks that the correcting should be left to the printer. We do not agree with him. We would rather supply and correct the whole thirty proofs and have the final « pass » than run the risk of the work being sent back for some alleged error of the press. The real remedy is, to insist on public bodies paying, as private customers have to do, for authors' corrections. The case indicated by the Examiner is an extreme one, but the principle is the same, however few the alterations may be.
An extraordinary piece of plagiarism has been exposed by the Pall Mall Gazette. Lord Mayor Savory, who conducts religious services, lately preached to the Y.M.C.A. one of Mr Spurgeon's old sermons without any acknowledgment. Detection was necessarily swift; for though Spurgeon's sermons are in print to the number of some thousands, no religious literature is more widely known. The great preacher is held by many to be almost an inspired writer, thousands of people are familar with his discourses, and his more popular productions have been issued literally by the million. The Lord Mayor's defence is remarkably weak—he says he did not know that the sermon was Mr Spurgeon's: from which one may reasonably infer that he « lifted » and used it before—so long ago that he has forgotten its source. The exposure has brought down on the plagiarist quite a flood of sharp criticism and coarse ridicule; and it is said that it will prevent his gaining the coveted honor of knighthood at the close of his term of office.
Schoolboys long ago, in these isles, so far from the home country, used to sing, with national pride:
A Frenchman, a Dutchman, and one Portugee—
A jolly good Englishman can whack all the three!
According to La Liberte, a Paris journal, the Englishman claims even greater superiority in the industrial field, and what is more, the unpatriotic French editor holds that he has some solid grounds for his belief! In England, he says, the received theory as to English workmen is that 10 Englishmen do the work of 50 Frenchmen, 26 Germans, 27 Austrians, 43 Spaniards, 63 Italians, and 70 Portuguese. (These figures will strike the reader as being curiously precise.) The co-efficient, he goes on to say, may vary according to the profession, but the truth is that the English workman has an incontestable superiority. He lives well, which gives him the necessary vigor, and he carries into his work a concentration of mind which gives to his efforts the mechanical precision which is wanting in the flights of imagination of Southerners, and the slow conception of individuals of the German race.
An English telegram of 14th May records three deaths from the dreaded influenza epidemic: H. Sampson, editor of the Referee, and two Royal Academicians—Edwin Long and the hon. John Collier. Both these artists were men of mark. Mr Long was chiefly noted for his Egyptian subjects, which were remarkable no less for their beauty and admirable execution than for their archæological accuracy. His picture « Pharaoh's Daughter » (1886) was the most generally admired of all the fine collection at the Dunedin exhibition last year. Mr John Collier has been for a good many years a regular exhibitor at the Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery, and was known chiefly as a portrait painter, though he also contributed landscapes and classical studies. Among the notabilities whose portraits he painted were Charles Darwin and Professor Huxley. His wife is also a portrait painter of considerable ability, and an exhibitor at the academy. In 1883 she exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery a portrait of her husband, under the title of « An Artist at Work. » Mr Collier exhibited portraits of his wife in 1880 and 1882. One of his best pictures, exhibited in 1881, was a historical subject— « The last Voyage of Henry Hudson. »
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Gold leaves so thin that 282,000 of them only made an inch in thickness, were fabricated not long ago by a goldbeater of Berlin, and have since been on exhibition. Each leaf is so perfect and free from holes as to be impenetrable to the strongest electric light. The goldbeater's is one of the few occupations that machinery has not invaded.
In a recent lecture in London on Socialism, Mr Herbert Burrows said that of the 1,250 millions sterling annually produced in this country, 450 millions went in wages. The largest item of our Drink Bill was for Beer, which was par excellence the drink of the wage-earning classes. That item was about 80 millions, so that we saw at a glance that more than one-sixth of the entire earnings of the working classes in this country were spent on a luxurious article which was in no sense a necessary of life. The political economists talked about the standard of comfort. To what an extent this could be raised amongst the working classes if they only had their own truest interests at heart! The average duration of life of the capitalist class was 55 years, of the working-men 29, and whilst only 8 per cent. died under one year in the one class, 30 per cent, died in the other. Now whatever other cause this state of things might also be attributed to, one cause stood out boldly. Workmen could not both work hard and drink hard. Yet they evidently tried to accomplish this feat—without success, we saw. And as for such a large percentage of the children of working-men dying under one year of age, ؟ was it to be wondered at, when so much money was spent on drink, which everyone knew induced neglect of all sorts, and especially of helpless children? In Liverpool alone 271 children were overlain, almost all by drunken parents. The working classes might or might not be suffering under unjust laws; but they had at least one potent means of improving their condition within their easy grasp.
One of the principal Parnellite papers in Ireland the other day had a gushing article about « the immortal Parnell. » Sad to say, the t was dropped from the adjective, and « the boys » came round with their blackthorns and made things in the office pretty lively.—The following, from a Dunedin weekly, is going the round, with the heading « A Drunken Paragraph »: « Suffice it to say that the cause of death was traceable to exposure during a proper care in the Arrow Hospital, drink in its drunken fit, and though he breathed his last under worst form is accountable for his death. » —A Queensland paper bemoans « an absurd mistake. » A prominent sporting-man, on leaving the district, was the recipient of the usual amount of banqueting and flattery from his friends. The editor plaintively says: « We wrote that he was féted, feasted, and flattered; the comp made us pay a more doubtful compliment by printing, 'he was féted, feasted, and feathered.' » —A curious printers' error was perpetrated lately in an English city of musical renown. In a book of words for a concert the National Anthem was printed at full length; and in the second stanza, by a blunder in the pronouns, one of the lines read, « Confound her polities. » —A Dunedin paper has made a comical slip, also in the musical column. In reporting a concert the name of the song « Oh, where is the slave, » was turned into « Oh, where is the stove. » — Referring to Koch's process, the Wellington Post wrote of an « epidemic syringe. » The Times came to the rescue, and said that « hyperdermic » was intended. And then all the rest of the press joined in and set the Times right!— A South Island paper notes the sudden death at the age of 86 of a well-known lady of the district, and proceeds, « She was an old resident of the Port, having arrived by the ship Cashmere 95 years ago. » —In a paragraph in the Marlborough Times we read: « The young lady was in her seventeenth childhood, and could not be cured of walking in her sleep » —The local Express is as good. « The census of the colony, » it says, « will be taken on Sunday night, and the Superanuators are now busy leaving the census papers. » —Mixed metaphors generally arise from the fact that people are so familiar with one or more of the images they employ that they have lost sight of their figurative character. Here is a good fourfold example from the monthly organ of a certain society of professional gentlemen:— « When the whitewash was brushed off, what would be the status of our association? Without doubt the very life-blood would flow from it, and we should slowly but surely strand ourselves. » —A clerical slip of an unusual kind was made lately by a North Island County Clerk, who amazed one of the ratepayers by sending him an official letter requiring him at once to commence street preaching on his property. It turned out the official had written the letter from some rough notes, and in a fit of absent-mindedness had written « preaching » instead of « reclamation. » —The mixed metaphor still flourishes in the classic Wairarapa. A recent leading article opens in the following promising style: « The Governmental David, who goes forth with a sling and a stone against the dummy Goliath, deserves credit no doubt, but it is possible even in stalking dummies to pay too dearly for one's whistle. »
The Napier News writes:— « Here is another of the very pretty acts of the late Government. In Cassell's Saturday Journal of December 6th, 1890, the following appears:—'A few months back the New Zealand Government made a proposition to Mrs Pender-Cudlip, the novelist, that she should go out, study the country, and embody her impressions in a novel. The extraordinary part of the proposal was that, if she would accede to the request, she was to receive £1000 in cash, as well as her own expenses and those of a lady companion.' The lady did not listen to the voice of the charmer, and the unfortunate taxpayer was saved a nice little sum. It would be very interesting to know who, of the late Ministry, was responsible for such a brilliant idea! » Our contemporary is curiously ignorant of the facts, which appeared in every New Zealand paper. Cassell's Journal has completely inverted the truth. The proposition, exactly as stated, was made by Mrs Cudlip (« Annie Thomas ») indirectly to the Government, and the proposal was quietly ignored. Further, the « Liberal » press raised a dismal and prolonged howl at the parsimony of the Government in neglecting to avail themselves of the offer! Mrs Cudlip's letter appears in full in Typo of October, 1889. « I have conceived an intense desire to visit that colony and write a three-volume novel, » she wrote. « I think I may venture to promise that though an expensive, I should be a remunerative visitor. »
As a ponderously-comic weekly, the Wellington Catholic Times is becoming a dangerous rival to the Sydney Bulletin. This is its latest:— « The mighty, thrilling, throbbing enterprise which boasts the Archimedean lever which moves the world is not dead. In other words the country editor, who is also proprietor, comp, and devil, still shaketh the dew-drops from his leonine mane, and sitteth up and howleth at the coy advertiser. There is a certain country town, perhaps in Timbuctoo, perhaps grouped around the Arctic Circle, may-be in the Wairarapa—what know we? But there is a town, and it has two newspapers—one, old and established, the other, new and not so established. A peripatetic advertiser came along and gave the old newspaper an ad., and then went home to sleep and await custom. When the newspaper man saw that ad. in his rival's columns, he rose in his majesty and might, and sent a boy down to obtain 'a share of your advertising favors.' The advertiser refused, not once but many times, and his language was bad. At which the newspaper man snorted a good deal, and wrote two columns of a leader about' The Gross Neglect of the Commercial Community to take advantage of the Archimedean Lever,' and went down himself and lied frightfully and inconsistently about his circulation to the stranger, who remained obdurate. Then that newspaper man went home and ill-used the cat and the crockery, and sent down his mother-in-law and her gingham to the advertiser. And that good old Mother in Israel pranced around the man with her umbrella, and whooped wild whoops at him, and returned in triumph with a three-shilling advertisement. Since which several newspapers have discharged their canvassers, and have burnished up their mothers-in-law, and turned them loose upon society with lurid glare in their eyes and warts on their noses. And this is a true tale. »