April 18, 1908.]
19
or
"
discovery, beyond a doubt, when a young man first sees the Light of the World in a maiden's eyes. He thinks no one else ever found it in just the same way, and he | carries on about it, getting quite as much excited as our Massachusetts benefactor seems to have done about the waist measure- ment of " our planet. To some of us bored know-it-alls, this seems ridiculous; we say there is nothing more novel in that than in a baby's first tooth. Well, Mr. CHARLES EVERS HOLMES of Brookline Mass, has shown us the foolishness of that point of view. It is possible still to be a COLUMBUS. Let those of us who need the reminder take heart of grace, and thank our correspondent in all humbleness, resolving to profit by his example. For is it not stupid to be always trying to give credit to whom credit is not due? It is quite certain that SHERIDAN, say, never uttered all the bright things attributed to him. As for JOE MILLER, perhaps there never was "
no sich person." This is not mere chaff, please. It is pro bouo publico, for the satisfaction of Society. In dining out, who is the most popular person? Not assuredly, the pain- fully honest person who prefaces some appropriate remark with the formula, "As DAN LENO says," as the learned GROTIUS remarks." That sort of misguided bonesty casts a damper over any decent dinner party. It sounds so pedantic. The popular conversationalist koows how useless it is to quote and cite. He boldly utters, and personally accepts responsibility for, some remark of TACITUS or TWAIN, and for his moral courage is rewarded with a reputation for wisdom or for wit. There is no unfairness, for he is only doing what TACITUS and TWAIN did before him. Their originalities were about as original as a new blade of grass.
Metempsychosis is true, but originality isn't. Ouly the other day at dinner a man quoted an awfully smart saying" from the Overseas Daily Mail. If he had been sensibly dishonest, and given it as his own, (which he could have done, as he misquoted, anyway) we should have enjoyed it and been satisfied. Under the circumstances, it was imperative to point out that the late JOHN HAY wrote it before ever the Daily Mail was heard of. Even then, JOHN HAY merely adapted MARCUS AURELIUS, or KOHALETH, or KUNG FU-TSZE, or somebody similarly remote. We admit we are inconsistent in giving Mr. CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES credit for statements we might have presented as our own, but there is no mention of inconsistency in the Decalogue. To condense an Emersonian essay into a phrase like that is as near au approach to originality as we ever hope to get, even with the help of Mr. CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE BEFORT.
88
TOPICS.
(Daily Press, April 16th,)
258
ад
For many days Hongkong may be hard put to it for subjects of conversation, and since thought and speech demand exercise, we descend as a community to the pettiness of a rural village. The mischief proverbially at the disposal of idle hands tempts also mind and tongue. Then events crowd upon the heels of evente, and we are lifted for awhile out of the rut, and called upon to consider matters for which we are ill- prepared. A disastrous
typhoon, administrative crisis, or a commercial boom or slump, keys us up to a pitch that gradually flattens when the normal tedium returns. Just now tragedy fills the picture, and rights of the Sanitary Board shrinks in the the struggle for the constitutional
perspective to a temporary insignificance. The anti-Japanese boycott looks more threadbare; the threatened public right to walk on the hillsides of the Colony is not at the moment attracting the champions otherwise forthcoming; and even the pleasurable business of suggesting altern- ative sites for the new typhoon refuge is deserted; while we all stare with some awe at the vivid illustration of a sudden cessa- tion of a previously much observed energy -at the transformation of a quick and dominating personality-at, in short, the perception of the nearness of that mystery we call Death to the very hive of throbbing life. We do not propose here to moralise. Events like the drowning of this prominent member of our business community make every observer do that for himself. On the tenth day the blessed Lethe that meanders continually through the souls of men will have washed away all thought of it, and only a ripple-perhaps the effect upon the Hong- kong University enterprise, for instance- will revive the memory of what was, and the melancholy of the might-have-been.
chances, and we suppose by this time it is causing shrieksome headlines on the Pacific Const. Strange what tricks of humour geographical names perform in the course of events the Coast Pacific! In reality, to an unbiassed witness, the Mukden incident has no more importance than a fight in Seven Dials. The nationality of the rowdies, and the nationality of the Consulate, has nothing to do with the significance of the case. A Chinese messenger employed by the Consul began it, by objecting to Japanese postman going into the compound with letters for the Consulate through a private gate, instead of the usual public entrance. The postman seems to have discovered a "short cut," And a short temper well, because when the Chinaman opposed his use of the former, the postman demonstrated the latter by giving him a beating. From an international point of view, no harm had been done.
The Chinese coolie had probably deserved what he get by being rudely officious. Perhaps he had heard of the "Tatau Maru " case. The Japanese post- man's honour might have been satisfied if he had not been interrupted while teaching the coolie his place, but unfortunately the Consul heard the noise, and, white-man-like, separated the two, before either bad had enough. The postman went his round, and the office coolie dusted the knees of his pants. Unfortunately, the Japanese post man passed the Consulate on his return, talking with four friends, and saw the coolie again. The coolie also saw him, and it is most probable that both sides expressed their still ruffled feelings. Some taunt seems to have pricked the postman's friends as much as it pricked him. All fiye ran at the coolie, who fled into the Consulate, pursued by the angry Japanese. The deserving coolie, screaming and yelling, found safety in the Consul's private quarters, and his pursuers meanly voided their vengeful feelings on other coolies whose only offence was that they too wore the pigtail. They defended themselves, and the result was a lively melée. The Consul could not disentangle his own retainers till assistance cams. When the Chinese police had overwhelmed the units of the scuffling. group, the Consul sent for the Japanese police, and meanwhile beld four Japanese prisoners. Naturally a crowd gathered, and the Consul seems to have lost his head, as we hear of him pro- ducing a revolver, and himself acting as armed escort over the Japanese prisoners, who were ultimately handed over to his Japanese colleague. He protested to the Japanese Consul against trespass on ground covered by the Stars and Stripes, and against the assaulting of his servants, and it is also alleged that he invited an immediate expression of regret and apology, which naturally could not be offered till the Ja panese Consul had ascertained all the facts. The American Consul, quite naturally, The nation that sends pioneers usually thought his personal evidence should out includes a few samples of hooliganism. The weigh the concerted statement of the four good men go to the front, and the bad Japanese, but, also quite naturally, the follow. It cannot be helped, and all nations Japanese Consul, acting judicially, could have had to blush at times because of the not so high-handedly disregard the affir- misbehaviour of some of their represent-mations of the quartette. He wanted all atives. It is not just to blame a Government the depositions, in due form, and was not for the misdoings of its ungovernables, not to be hustled into the summary justice even though a lively prejudice or cherished expected by the American Consul, who was antipathy makes the opportunity too
now evidently a little excited, and full of tempting. Lately Japau has come in for a the idea of the enormity of the insult to his great deal of adverse criticism, some of fag. A dignified patience would have which may be justifiable, but of which much improved his position, for the Japanese undoubtedly is not. The thrilling story of undoubtedly had no right to trespass as the "Japanese assault on the American they did in their private feud with his Consulate at Mukden" has provided another servants, but the whole business was chance to enhance the badness of Japan's scarcely worth writing diplomatic letters bad name, for those who welcome such about.
"
A TEACUP STORM.
(Daily Press, April 15th.)
+
It is profitable, as a check on extrava gance, to bave these reminders of evanes- cence, mutability, and fickleness.
We care very much for a little while; and then we do not care. There is no happy mean between fervour and callousness, excitement and indifference, and this want of balance affects Hongkong as much as any place. At the time of "the" typhoon, and at intervals afterwards, we were all saying, or endorsing and applauding the saying, that no matter what it might cost, we must have an adequate typhoon anchorage. Slowly the official machine got in motion; presently out came a scheme intended to meet the popular demand. But by this time the thrill of tragedy had passed away; we are saying the details of the scheme are not satisfactory; we are saying the cost is too high. Outsiders might think of the bloated corpses that haunted our harbour two Octobers past, might endure any thought save the percep tion of a possible recurrence of those grisly scenes. They might say that the provision of a more accessible shelter for all the native craft that minister to the shipping trade were a necessity for which our shipping should ungrudgingly contribute.
A body like the Chamber of Commerce is not swayed by sentiment. With the business prosperity of the shipping
in its care, it turns a coldly calculating business-like eye upon the subject. Its advice to the Go- vernment must weigh, for it has more in it of permanence than an emotional popular clamour. The Government is moved in both ways; what it would depended on what it .could. Ways and means must modify its wishes. One way, apparently, was to suddenly increase the charge for lighter licences, and this must eventually affect the
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.