FROM THE MAGAZINES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 287, 2 December 1911, Page 15

FROM THE MAGAZINES.

SUITABILITY. Though fashions change I notice that You never purchase a new Sat; Unmoved you pass the "bee-hiTes byDisplayed to catch, the shopper's eye, The hats extinguishing the face, . And also toques beflounced -with lace. But in a bonnel small and neat You sally down the crowded street, And yet among that modest throng I notice as we go along. That ycrn're the smartest there by far — So here's to you, my little oar: LIFE'S SUMMER. Dear little love, is it so long ago That you and" I by murmuring rivet strayed, Where whispering sedges swayed with faintest breer.e. And quivering aspens cast a welcome shade? Under the azure of the summer sky. Id the soft shimmering haze of glowiug heat. Soothed by the drowsy humming of the bees, We strolled on banks all fringed with meadow-sweet. Now only in lny dreams I sec your faro, For summer elra-nped to winter Ion*? ago: The frozen liver makes no murmur now, The banks are hidden 'nealh their veil of enow. Gaunt ixiplars bend bare branches to the blast. And only withered learns nriunrt are seen. The sad wind finds an echo lv my heart, Ami tells mi» of those Joys that might have been. Yet eouWl I meet you coming o'er the snow. Though grey my hair and youth, a 1:18! lone passed, How filiniild i greet you? With my heart a prion-, Afire with love, life's summer come 111 last. —A. Rolton In the 'Gram! JlCcslzino." Tire DREADNOUGHT CON T - TROVKKSV: A STRIKING PROPHECY. Yet a change in coming—and here 1 harp back to my opening remarks. Ship? prior to the Dreadnought's appearance ! displaced 1:2,000 to 10.500 tons—now I they are being built of nigh on liO.flllO ■ 'tons. Then they cost £1,000.000 to 1 £1.300,000—n0w they run from £1,900,- ---' 000 to as high as £3,200,000 apiece! To- ' day we concentrate in the Orion a broad side, the discharge, of which many sa\ Ino human system can withstand; yet jwe must go on, for the 13.5 in /run has called forth already a 11 in, and this has • invoked a 15in, and so higher in calibre. I and with the increase mightier ships will i come. A reaction., it is true, is setting ] in; the Orion is tar more ahead of the I D-eadnought than is this ship in advance lon the Lord Nelson. Has man over- ; rated his physical endurance? Think on i this —SUO.OOOi't tons of energy in a single I broadside! i No; there will be no limit. There may 'be setbacks; then ahead again to the ' 00,000-ton mastodon, flying at -15 knots , over the waves, and belching steelen death from ISm guns or larger. Thi= is not prophecyit is betting on certainties. In this race of Dreadnoughts we arc well ahead—ahead in numbers, well ahead' in design, leading by an amount past commutation in our personnel, and supreme in the grand and noble traditions of a glorious naval past. But a great and serious warning will shortly be spread through the whole land; aye. and one that must call for action. * Nor will it be of battleships. It will be of too few cruisers and of the shortage of. our food supply in. time of war ..hat the tongues will wag; these arc the real and pressing dangers, th<> neglected items of national policy. See to your stomachs, say I; the starving man is no fighter. For this, at least, I thank Heaven devoutly; the hegemony of the wider seas is vested as always in ships of the line, and when I note our position to-day (a greater radio of superiority as against other nations than ever known before), ! and review our position in the future, I why, I sleep right soundly in my bed. Which, for a hardened Tory, an enthusiastic Navy Leaguer, and an ardent, ii imperfect, advocate of an all powerful and ultra efficient Fleet, is a situation of not a little blessedness.—Alan H. Burgoyne (Editor of the "Navy League Annual"), in the "Oxford and Cambridge I Review" lor October. TAMING A TIGER. The girl looked sharply at the attendants that were in readiness outside the cage with forks and hot —the theory that wild beasts can be tamed by kindness is little more than theory and deftly sliding back the catch of the inner door of the cage, stepped in to Walang Shah. He greeted her with a snarl that brought Monson's rifle to his shoulder in an instant. The girl approached him quietly, Tic staled uneasily, and shifted his position, crouching hack with flattened ears. At about three yards a.way, the girl stopped, and began to talk softly to him. That was all she intended doing for some time, to accustom the + iger to her presence in the cage with him. The time for learning tricks would come later, when she had schooled him to endure the company of other tigers in the same cage. But Malang Shah meant to make it difficult. In his heart he was afraid of her, .but he could not realise it. He hesitated no more than a second, then dropped, and sprang, with a short ugly roar. The girl shifted slightly to one side, firing two blank cartridges ful! in the mad, furious face coming at her. Malang Shah stopped again in midspring, uttering a strangled snarl of surprise. The sudden flashes had confused him, and the smoke made his eyes smart. He crouched again. A lean and snake-like thong hissed swiftly through the thin smoko and lashed him over the eyes; it came again and again, with sharp cracks almost as loud as the reports of the •pistol. A quicl, authoritative voice followed the cracks, and the whip curled round' his hindquarters stinging'.y. He roared, leaping sideways, leaving the way back to the door clear. He gathered himself to spring again, but he saw that the girl was thrusting towards him that small glittering thing which had emitted those two bright, burning jets of fire, and he hesitated. Even as he hesitated the inner door of his cage clashed to again., and his chance—for the time— was gone. The girt "was out of the cage again. S'aney smiled across at Monson, who was very pale under his sunburn. Not once hall the sight of the rifle expert been a fraction of an inch off the neck of the tiger. A bullet in the neck will stop any animal living— the pachyderms—on the instant. It is the heart-shot that is uncertain for a. few minutes. "She's all right." said Slaney. "In a month's time she'll have him quiet like a calf."—From "The Taming of MaJajig Shah" in the "Harmsworti Red Magazine" of October UL ■■--•