page 115

Ex Cathedra

What need have we of the Sea Serpent? So the Chair questioned not long ago. Six weeks thereafter, that much-travelled monster, resenting the disrespectful query, made his first recorded appearance off the shores of New Zealand, and badly scared the early watch on board the Rotomahana. Rearing out of the water a flattened head ten feet long and thirty feet of neck, he critically surveyed the steamer, approaching to within a hundred yards. Having satisfied his curiosity, and made a profound impression on the seamen, he dived, and was lost to view. His upper surface was dark, his belly white, and he exhibited a pair of paddle-shaped propellers. In fact, just such a big marine saurian as those whose bones have been found in certain ancient deposits in the South Island, and whose length, naturalists tell us, was a hundred and twenty feet.

No sooner was the story published than a land-surveyor declared that he had seen the beast from the Manapouri on the previous day, two hundred miles farther north—but had held his tongue, knowing how his unsupported testimony would be received. Any one who professes to have seen an unknown sea-monster—and every year one or more credible people are ready to swear that they have done so— is called by the same names as those applied thirty years ago to Du Chaillu when be described the Gorilla. The men of science were the most incredulous. There was no place in their scheme of nature for such a creature. One gentleman showed his philosophic spirit by spitting in the explorer's face.

Since then Science has had to make a place in its scheme for the Gorilla—beg pardon, the Troglodytes. The Greek name makes all the difference, as Kingsley showed, in his delightful satire, the Water Babies. Philosophers, he said, having long denied that Flying Dragons had ever lived, and derided them as fabulous and impossible monsters, at length found bones which proved that at one time they had existed in considerable numbers. But it would never do to admit that any mistake had been made. Science has never acknowledged Flying Dragons, but has found a place in its system for Pterodactyls.

So some day, when the sea-monster is stranded on a civilized shore, and gives up the ghost, « scientists » will find that he is just the creature that they have been wanting to supply a missing link in an evolutionary chain. The testimony of sea-faring men of all ages will be ignored, and the credit of this crowning fin de siècle discovery in natural history will be awarded to some one—Professor Muggins, let us say—who has never been out of sight of land, and who has long since demonstrated that no such marine vertebrate could have existed since the Cretaceous Epoch. The Professor will record the weight and dimensions of the beast—not in vulgar tons and yards, but in kilogrammes and mètres, and will receive the Gold Medal of the Royal Society for his paper On the Pineal Eye in—؟the Sea Serpent?—no—the Thalassiosaurus Mugginsii.

Greek a « dead » language, indeed! In curiously corrupted forms, it is more lively than many modern tongues. ؟Where would quackery, scientific or unscientific, be without it? Anything so commonplace and direct as Jones's Black Hair-Dye would only have repelled Mr Tittlebat Titmouse; but he could not resist the mysterious claims of the Cyanochaitanthropopoion—and his carrotty locks became green as a result of its application. As the language of science, Greek cannot be displaced. Even the vernacular-loving Teuton has to bow to its influence, and [unclear: Fernsprecher] gives place to [unclear: Telefon.]

It is only fair to add that those who go down to the sea in ships and have never seen a sea-monster are as sceptical as any landsman. And now we have a skipper who reports having found a creature very like the one that startled the crew of the Rotomahana, and not far from the spot. Close examination showed it to be a floating tree-trunk, with a large projecting branch. If the saurian was really of the ligneous order, the phenomena that so vividly impressed the first observers must to a large extent be classed as subjective.

The stationers in the United States are naturally aggrieved at the action of the Post Office in destroying the retail trade in envelopes at one stroke by supplying stamped envelopes at the price of the stamp. This may be taken as a practical experiment in Looking Backward theories. New Zealand, however, is coming out several points ahead. Not only are envelopes to be supplied by the State, but penny-in-the-slot machines are to be provided to peddle them out. A sample machine is already ordered. This is a cut at the stationers, but printers and newspaper-men are not overlooked. The envelopes are to be adorned with patent-medicine advertisements, The next step will probably be to make the possession, sale, or use of private envelopes a penal offence. The telegram-forms are also to be hired out to advertising quacks and foreign distillers. Here is an example of the kind of thing that our Postmaster-General says is « very desirable »: And modest lovers will have to enclose their tender epistles in this style of envelope: It is not yet too late to put a stop to this abominable proposal. ؟Is there not a man in the House who will protest against such a prostitution of a public department?

An East Coast journalist, suing a defaulting subscriber, was met by the plea that a written order of discontinuance had been ignored. Whereupon the newspaper-man maintained that such order was of no page 116avail unless the subscription were paid up to date, and in support of his contention produced a newspaper-clipping entitled « The Law Relating to Newspapers. » ! O sancta simplicitas! The court gave judgment for amount due at the time the notice of discontinuance was given. We long since pointed out that the so-called « law » is all moonshine. It is from an unknown American source—probably got up by some country editor to « bluff » his dilatory subscribers.

Few tricks of oratory are more irritating, either to the ordinary hearer or to the reporter, than the inverted elocution that pauses and drops the voice just at the climax of the sentence, concluding with a diminuendo in which the last and most important word is inaudible to all but the keenest ears. Yet we know of one-only one—instance in which it was used with thrilling effect, in what was literally an awakening discourse.

Bright was the summer sabbath morn, and fair,
Heavy with perfume was the drowsy air.
The preacher prosed—the congregation dozed.
(!How sad that sinners, from the House of God,
Should straightway migrate to the Land of Nod,
Or pastors, by interminable oration,
Should ever bring about such emigration!)
« Eleventhly » begins.
Sudden—in tone of horrified surprise—
« ! Look! Look!! at that black Cat!!! » the preacher cries.
All eyes are opened—every head is turned—
But no intrusive Puss can be discerned.
A startled pause, an awful hush succeeds.
—In low and measured accents he proceeds:
« alogue of sins. »

The Queensland shearers' revolt, now happily over, has afforded an example on a large scale, of the ancient game of Fox and Goose. Fox, with the salary of a cabinet minister, lives in ease, directing the movement. Goose, who finds the salary, obeys orders. He trails a firebrand through pasture-land and standing grain, or cuts the timbers of a railway-bridge, and goes to jail for seven years. Fox gets up a joint-stock labor organ, secures a snug post as editor and manager, and runs the concern with the cheapest labor in the market. Goose takes up the shares and pays the calls. Fox, knowing that he has not left a shot in the locker, brags that he has funds to keep up the warfare for two years longer. Goose, when the game is up, has to appeal as a pauper to the State he has tried to overthrow and whose treasury he has depleted. If Goose feels the pinch at last, he deserves little sympathy; but it is hard on Mrs G., whose labor has to support her lord and master and her hungry little goslings.

Here, in brief, is a summary of a recent controversy in the world of art:—

« ! Indecent artist! » angry clerics cry—
Confounding Facts with Figures! We abhor you! »
« Not so, my friends, » is Calderon's reply:
« The Figure—and the Fact—are both before you. »