228 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Oct. 12, 1883. 



theory of the comet's motion is still not sufficiently perfect 

 for this purpose. It cannot be pretended that this method 

 •would give the sun's distance to within a thousandth part, 

 and accordingly this method must give place to those 

 which have more claims to accuracy. 



(To be continued.) 



€liitoriaI (ioe(s(ip. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown the scientific aspect 

 of systems of government, so I need not apologise for 

 touching on the subject here. Now our Constitution 

 is our pride, the glory of our British hearts. Never did 

 man so offend our race as when Prince Albert told 

 us that the British Constitution was on its trial. In 

 theory how beautiful it is. Each man has power, if he 

 but earn decent wages, to take a part in the manage- 

 ment of matters — a little part but still a part. Then the 

 management of matters by the State is so providently 

 extending itself to matters with which the State might be 

 supposed to have nothing or little to do ! The State 

 has been awfully unlucky (let us put it that way) in 

 the management of matters it might have left alone. 

 But still our people have a touching confidence in 

 the perfect wisdom of the legislature, its power to arrange 

 just right such things as hitherto it has singularly mis- 

 managed. Yet it is a little odd, slightly perplexing to 

 those who look at matters from without, to find that indi- 

 \idual members of the elected body of lawmakers, are for the 

 most part, when standing in the position of candidates, con- 

 sidered no wiser or better than their fellows — nay, strangely 

 enough, these embodiments of national wisdom, are usually 

 denounced in the roundest (but by no means the rosiest) 

 terms before election. Somehow the elected body differs 

 utterly in kind from the same set of men when as yet 

 unelected. 



But this is not all that perplexes the student of the 

 matter. Among the elect, we see rather more than one- 

 half starting off at a pace which the rest tind rather too 

 fast or rather too slow, and that as a result of this diversity of 

 .-lews, each section finds the other section contemptible and 

 hateful, — the more pronounced on either side being more 

 hated and despised, despising also and hating more in- 

 tensely, than their fellows, but every representative of the 

 collective wisdom regarding much more than half of his 

 fellows as exceedingly unwise. Our daily papers so care- 

 fully teach us that whole sections of our collective wisdom 

 are hateful and despicable, while they so completely 

 represent (among them) everT/ section, that the general 

 effect to outsiders is depressing — one might almost 

 say (not using the word in any offensive sense) distressing. 

 How other nations are impressed one may guess by con- 

 sidering how we ourselves, after steady daily reading of 

 American papers for a few months, learn to revere the 

 Congress, Senate, and Legislature of our cousins over 

 the water. An Englishman by keeping close to one party 

 paper may learn to believe that among a section of the 

 representatives of his people there is a little honesty and 

 a little sense. But if by chance he should take up the 

 wrong paper he will find even that one section vilified so 

 unsparingly that he will not know what to think 

 (though foreigners may). But perhaps, he may think, 

 among the real leaders of the two chief sections, or of their 

 sub-divisions, there may bs none of this feeling of hatred 

 and contempt. Even this hope is denied the thoughtful 



Briton however, when, reading the words of one who is 

 supposed to be a chief leader of the section which as it 

 chances is not now having its innings, he comes on such 

 words as these, " There is work for us all and a place in the 

 ranks for each of us, in face of the common enemy," — the 

 " common enemy" being simply the other section of the col- 

 lective wisdom which the nation asks so confidingly to manage 

 its business. The masts of the State ship may be perhaps 

 made firm and strong by stays tautened well on opposite 

 sides ; but to tell the crew that all the port shrouds are 

 rotten (or all the starboard ones, as the case may be), is not 

 encouraging ; while to go further and to tell the starboard 

 watch that the best thing they can do is for each to help 

 in cutting the port shrouds, is beyond measure mischievous 

 if those shrouds are sound and as good as gi^^ng up the ship 

 if they are really as rotten as asserted. If each of the 

 chief sections of our Houses of Parley is really regarded by 

 the other as the "common enemy," one should be rather 

 disposed to wonder that constitutional government still 

 remains " on its trial." 



The amusing confidence with which Mr. Charles i\Iackay, 

 in the PaU J/all Gazette, asserts that the word Masher is 

 derived from the Irish maise, similarly sounded (!), and 

 meaning an " exquisite " or petit-maltre, would seem to 

 suggest that he was present when the word was first used, 

 and had carefully traced its subseqent spread in America. 

 It was " introduced by the Irish immigration," he tells us. 

 If so, the case is an interesting one ; for the Irish who speak 

 the old language have not been able to introduce many of their 

 words into common use among Americans, and their talk 

 would not be very commonly about dandies. " In strange 

 contrast with the Dandiacal Body," says Carlisle, "stands" 

 that other sect, "originally of Ireland," and there known 

 " by a perplexing multiplicity of designations such as Bog- 

 Trotlers, Redslianks, Rihhonmen, Cottiers, Peep-of-Day 

 Boys," kc. That members of this sect should have brought 

 into use an American slang word for dandies is so unlikely 

 that one could hardly believe it, even if there were no 

 other probable derivation of the word. 



But while, to begin with, the word " maise " is not pro- 

 nounced like " masher " (except to rather dull and un- 

 critical hearing) and while, to go on with, the word 

 " masher " as first used in America did not signify dandy, 

 the derivation of the word is so obviously American that 

 it would be as absurd to go to a foreign language for it as 

 it would be to seek some Norse or Arabic origin for the 

 familiar term "Crusher." The word "masher "was first 

 used in America, and in 1879 (when I first noticed 

 it in American papers) was constantly used as 

 almost the equivalent of our term a "lady-killer," 

 and was applied especially to a class of fellows who 

 made themselves obnoxiously obtrusive to ladies travelling 

 alone. It was only later that it was used to indicate the 

 general style of costume employed by these offensive per- 

 sons, and gradually lost a portion (only) of its originaUy 

 contemptuous meaning. As the word " mash " is used in 

 America to signify crushing, hurting (something between 

 pinching and smashing), the suitability of the word 

 "masher" is obvious. Just as we speak of a " lady killer," 

 a " killing dress," a " crushing costume," and so forth, a 

 dandy dressed to kill and going about like a braying 

 jackass scekmg whom he may molest with impertinent 

 addresses, is (or rather was) called contemptuously a 

 " masher." There was more bitterness than fun in the 

 early use of the term. It does not appear in Bartlett's 



