NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 225, 20 September 1913, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

I The ■American campaign against the I doßC6 tic house-fly is being waged just C Z n Z' with a ferocious zeal which - excites the wonder of the European * an- entails daily enormous losses iTtrc'ranks of the winged pests. Educational work amongst the children is . b ? m .r enlarged, and in many of the _ schools photographs of the fly, greatly _ ma<miiied, are shown by means of the _ dncmatograph, and the fly's wanderings , froxn the garbage-heap, where typhoid ( larks, to the family's roast joint, where be is shown wiping his feet realistically. Tlie idiotic nursery-rhymes which failed j to appreciate the dii.ease-breeding char- ( acter of the fly, and conjured the chilore- to treat him with respectful con- J sideration, have been banished from the _ American nursery these five years. In j place of such rhyme., the Board of , Health instructions telling you how to . ? "swat the fly" are now circulated, and public opinion is being aroused everywhere, so that the great work of ex- ; termination now proceeds apace. As a res_lt of the campaign, scientifically jonducted, American houses to-day are asually as destitute of Hie? A3 mosqui- '. toes. AD fly-breeding matter in th-_ . gardens, front or rear, is removed, and : each window screened with wire-netting of the smallest mesh. In a few years it I is believed that flies in American cities will be practically extinct. To-dny in the streets of New York 100,000 picture ! cards bearing the inscription, '"If you love your home, swat that fly," have been gratuitously distributed, with the request that they ■ shall be framed and fiisplayed. Ten million pounds sterling on tar is a tall order, but it stands for hospitality and enterprise. It is the sum that France proposes to expend in the next ten years on her highways, but probably as much again is to go in the direction I of overhauling her hotels and general X accommodation. She is bent on capturing the tourists of the world, and looks like winning. The motor has been tearing up her roads, but she is buckling | to = the job of repairs, but when France decides to mend her ways, she does it I thoroughly. There is talk of a graduBated tax on cars, mais que voulez-vous 1 \\\ one cannot make omelettes without incurring a little heat, I Turtles have provided a fresh field of I employment. ' Through long generations, combs have been constructed from their hacks and soup from other parts of their composition. A Pennsylvania turtle, however, has risen, as it were, on stepping stones of his live self to nobler things. Forty-five years ago two persons carved their initials on his shell. A few days since the grand old turtle was discovered about 50 feet away from the spot where the ceremony had been performed, still carrying on his shoulders the original engraving. Sandwichmen have hitherto had a goodish time in their own particular sphere, but the! turtle as a permanent and inexpensive advertisement boa.d will take a deal of ...eating. Does the quality and the effect of tropical heat, vary in different par±s_ of the tropics? Bishop Tro_-_am raises this interesting question in his article on "Tropical Australia" in this month's "Nineteenth Century and After." He points out that while in India no white i man goes without his sun helmet, even S in the cold .weather, white dwellers in I Northern Queensland never seem to reI quire the special protection of this form | of headgear. The same problem has H been noted in British Guiana and in I Singapore, where straw hats or soft B terai felts are often worn at hours and '] under conditions which in India would J mean a sunstroke. Neither fashion nor ' the result of habit suffices to explain _\ this curious variation. There seems to H he some peculiar quality about solar I heat in India which is not noticeable ! elsewhere. We may be told that at the !itime of the Mutiny our troops did not "wear helmets, but the question cannot be thus easily disposed ot As a dose observer of the way the Wind blows, the Rev. E. Lyttelton, Headmaster of Eton, possesses the courage to be thankful for mercies thoughtfully disguised. "One of the blessings of having a railway close by," says he, "is •that it stimulates clear articulation." What a happy thought! The roar of the locomotive, the clatter of the signals, ithe rumble of the train, the pungent ejaculations of the passengers who have just missed it, may each boast a use and 7 bearing in our social economy. At public • meetings, and sometimes in the theatre, we hear frenzied appeals from the audience, "Why don't you speak up?" The Tailway makes the youth of England do that, and, .provided the occupants of the nursery of statesmen do not go to the length of imitating the bull of Bashan they will feel highly grateful in years to come that the Great Western ran so near to the scene of their studies. This is a point that Auckland University students, who compl—in of the proximity _M of the engine and goods yards, should bear in mind. If i Laloy, who appears to have scientifically investigated the matter, assures us that not only does one not see himrelf as others see him, but that he does not B hear himself as others hear him. Some j interesting experiments were made by the French savant in this connection. In 111 order to ascertain whether a man really j.J knew the sound of his own voice, Laloy has been at some pains to determine the I facts. His experiments show that if a [f person record on a phonograph disc a few Sentences pronounced by himself, together j| with others recorded by friends, and I rauses the machine to reproduce these, __ it most frequently happens that the man !i_ore easily recognises the voices of his friends than he does his own. It appears that the difference lies in the quality of the tone. One hears his own voice not only through the air, as do his auditors, -lit across the solid parts between the organs of speech and those of hearing. The sound thus produced has a different fr-nbre from that conducted to the ear by the air above. If one entertain any doubt as to this, let him try the following Oxperiments. Take the end of a wooden lod between the teeth and pronounce a vowel continuously. Let the other end be taken alternately between the teeth and released by anlother person who at the game time stops his ears. The latter will find that every time he seizes the [ rod in a his teeth the sound will be stronger than when it reaches the eai through the air above, and that it has a tsilTereiit quality. The passage of sound U through a solid body augments its inV';| tensity and modifies its qualitj'-

The most burdensome name ever be-. stowed on a child was that given by Arthur Pepper, a laundryman. of West Derby, Liverpool, to his daughter, bom in December, 1882. It comprised one name for every letter of the alphabet, and was certainly ingenious in its way, running: Anna Bertha Cecilia Diana.Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louise. Maud Nora Ophelia Quince Rebecca Starkey Teresa Ulysis Venus Winifred Xenophon Yetty Zeno. P, of course, was provided in the surname Pepper. Hundreds of examples of this poor form of parental wit occurred in- the entries 1 for the past few years. Noah's Ark Smith, Sardine Box, Jolly Death, Judas Iscariot Brown, One-too-Many Johnson, NotWanted Smith, Bovril Simpson, Merry Christmas Figgitt, Odious Heaton, Anno Domini Davis, are the names of children probably living who will have to beai, them through life, unless they wash themselves clean with subterfuge. How can such children observe the Fifth Commandment? There was for a long time a cm -jity in nomenclature on the Aus; tralian pension list. His name was '' Through-much tribulation-we-enter-the-Kingdom-of-Heaven Smith." The officials of the Peusion Department very pardonably abbreviated him into "Tribby Smith." It is not surprising that the names of Dickens' characters—odd though they are —should be found in real life, for it was from life that many of them were taken. Some, as -we know, were copied from the names over shop doors, etc., but this was not the novelist's only source of selection. Among his papers John Forster found carefully-drawn-hp lists of names, with the source from which he obtained them, and the longest lists were those drawn from the "Privy Council Education Lists." Some of the names thus noted are too extravagant for anything but I reality—Jolly Stick, Bill Marigold, George Muzzle, William Why, Robert Gospel, Robin Scrubbacu, Sarah Goldsacks, Catherine Two, Sophia Doomsday, Rosetta Dust, Sally Gimbetl The statue of the Goddess of Freedom on the top of the dome of the Capitol at Washington has been undergoing a cleansing process. Miss Freedom, who stands 19 feet 6 inches in her bare feet, is anything but a dainty maiden, judging by the cost of her bath, for which Congress has appropriated £3,200, and nearly a carload of soap. Freedom, whose crown contains numerous costly platinum tips, frequently-' takes electric treatment, and hardly a summer passes that some of these tips are not melted off by the lightning, but •- that does not serve to keep her clean, and from time to time it is necessary to erect - a scaffolding around her and send up a • gang of steeplejacks to scrub her with soap and water. r American tailors, meeting at Sandasky, " Ohio, last month, discussed the prospects w of slit trousers for men during the next 3 summer season. "The convention did not » decide the point finally, but admitted " that the same arguments which had »'fW 3 used in favour of slit skirts for wom_-l 1 might be claimed, from the sartorial n standpoint, for either sex, if serge or 3 flannel legs, which were slit outside and c inside to a point about midway between 'i the ankle and the knee, were worn with hosiery of a delicate hue. In debating the slit trousere, one delegate raised an uproar by declaring that the convention £ was 'being- made the stalking horse of the hosiery trust, and for .that reason, s and no other, American men next c summer were being asked to "dress" as 3 ridiculou-ly and immodestly as many c American women." c . a . n. Lieutenant Colonel William L, Kenly, >- supervisor of the United States Army ren cruiting service and president of the Field s Artillery Examining Board, promises to n make lean men fat if they will join the t army. In an interview, the officer exd plained that he had in his possession the d recipe for the first "anti-thin" emulsion r ever introduced by the United States n Government. Its purpose, he said, was to 0 get into the army the thousands of men •r who, otherwise fit, are barred by reason c of their light weight. "In recent c months," Lieutenant Colonel Kenly ret marked, "every recruiting district in the >t country, except Chicago, has fallen off seriously in its work of bringing new men into the army, chiefly because so many candidates were under weight. So I c have evolved this solution. Its ingredi--1 ents are held secret by the Government, 0 but under test it will add several pounds y a day to the weight of every user." T- . is According to details published in New >f York, Colebrook, New Hampshire, s, deserves the name of the "Appendixless it Town." Over 200 of the 3,000 mc habitants have been operated on fori d appendicitis, and the operations continue I ie at the rate of two per week. Colebrook c, challenges any five towns with a similar •i- population to show a similar proud se record. Most of those people who have o undergone the operation in Colebrook ie are fairly wealthy, and their expense ences in hospital have apparently conn ferred upon them a sort of social rs prestige of which they are proud. In ro striking contrast with Colebrook's false is glory, there is a summer correspondence y proceeding in New York, attacking the y prevalent fashion for operations as ._ "reverting to barbarism," and this attitude is strongly supported by many medical schools outside the ranks of the -allopathic and homoeopathic organisai- tions. It is declared that most of the is operations for appendicitis are altogether If unnece3sa?y, and in a great number of st eases the real trouble has been in no ie way related to the appendix, se ——— n y It would seem that M.. Pegoud's ih.y tentional somersaults in the air on a ie Bleriot monoplane were not the first a aerial exhibitions of the sort, Captain w Aubry, in "Science Sittings," doing an :r unintentional feat of the kind when d flying a Deperdussin for the purpose of c effecting a reconnaissance over the n region of Villerupt. "I was returning is after a 35-minute flight," the Captain rs assures us, "facing a wind of about )f twenty-two miles per hour. My altitude >t was about 2500 feet. At the moment of s, descent a series of violent gusts struck ie the machine, and on throttling down g. and switching off, I was obliged to dive it in order to make the controls effective, ir As I dipped the nose of the machine, iy a couple of quick successive gusts struck ig the top of the main planes and placed •n mc in a vertical position. While endeava ourin<* to manipulate the elevator, I id found the machine had taken mc in a ;h perfectly vertical chute to less than .t 1500 feet. It here adopted a horizontal sr I attitude upside down and proceeded to ie! effect a tail-first volplane." Somehow be ! the pilot retained his seat. Continuing, %r ; he said, "The machine then gradually a took up the vertical position again, id describing a gigantic 'S' while doing so. n- Flattening out, I flew to a spot about two miles distant,'"-