AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 246, 17 October 1928, Page 12

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST

(Bv SHIRLEY.)

Two items of some interest to us Xew Zealanders have appeared in Home raa"a•zines. One states that a sea chestT belonging to Captain Cook, left in 1775. has just been found in Birmingham. This shows that if one is patient lost luggage Will always turn up. Another mentions reward of 100,000 francs offered by the French Academie to the first person who communicates with one of the planets—if such person can prove that an answer has been received. For some reasons. Mars is definitely left out of the scheme. Evidently the French have had enough of Mars.

The New Zealand milkman is rather a brigM person. He is the one who discovers tilings — burglars- coming out of 1 jrindow§, and so- as he begins his daily career at abHut 2 a,m. this lis not t-jo be wondered'at. A Christchurch worker of this type lately traced isome •*anied-by-the-police persons through recognising their billycan outride the ttflor- Qf the house to whieh they had movetfc Ev«n milk cans have their rindividualife'. \ In Southern India, i among a wibe. called the Teidas, milkmen are possibly not intelligent in this ;way, but I they are obliged to be Jioiy. A Todas milkman is obtfgpd, for ope thing, to keep much to 'his Quarters in the Sacred Dairy, and bachelor. Except on Mondays and Thursdays, must n<rt be .spoken to. In no pleasures or political life is he; permitted to take part,; in : fact, he miist lead as dull a life as some people wot&d like our teaehera to dpi

| The" talkie movie will never oast the silent one, unlesa the actors become such expert linguists as to speak all the languages of the countries in which the films appear. Even as it is, the trans - ! lation on tho screen gives rise to mirth. ! There was a good picture the other day in which the actors, like tho story itself, were probably Swiss or Germans, and the translator evidently was anxious to render their speech into perfect English. To begin with, he gave the characters names which he evidently presumed to be characteristically English. So one was surnamed Wheeler, and another had fori Christian name Gardener. As regards their style of speech, the translator evi- j dently supposed that we are still using i the thee and thou idioms, which he mingled nicely with up-to-date expressions. "Right-o, Gardener, I will be with thee presently." "Thou art a good chap, Wheeler, and I forgive thee therefore thy poaching." "I am not glad to see thee here," said the fair maiden when the villain started the usual wearisome tussle of which film actors must be so tired. However, whenever captions are "difficile," no one reads them out loud, so good comes out of evil. Curious to note how a film sometimes improves on the truthfulness of the book. The scenario writer of the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" did good work when he eliminated the absurd Cardinal, while "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is mot;e the southern idyll than Mrs. Stowe's amiable masterpiece. For one thing, we didn't get so much, of Uncle Tom — not one hymn — the film concentrating on George Harris, who is, of course, the real hero of the book. I, for one, never did believe that he and Eliza and little Harry all escaped so neatly to Canada; if it was as easy as that, why were any slaves left behind? They would just need to walk off like a New Zealand farmer from his farm when .he gets tired of it not paying. I believe, ' with the film, that two of them, anyway, got caught again, and never found themselves till George marched in under the victorious Stars and Stripes. There are ! going to be scores of Uncle Tom's Cabins filmed during the centuries ahead of us; and I hope our descendants will some day see one in which this same George Harris, when free, saves up money to pay Mr. and Mrs. Shelby back the "great sum" which they put out on Eliza originally in order to give her a much better time than the free working girls of England were. having at this period. Of course, I admit they weren't in danger of being sold "down the river." They were "down the river" already. • • • •

It is in our suburban picture shows that you can sometimes get a small local newspaper for nothing, and also, at its cheapest, ice cream. Whatever the season, the boy comes round, and is patronised. There is much in a name, however. Who would ever desire it were it ealled, as in former days, butter ict, or even cream ice? It was the Due de Chartres who is said to have christened the delicacy when he was shown his own arms engraved on a frozen mould. "Oh, it is ice cream." It is said that the idea was not known in mediaeval times. Yet I doubt this. Children who never heard of the delicacy were wout to put saucers of sweetened milk on the window sill on hopefully frosty nights, and then, i£ the cat had not been beforehatfd, enjoy fairly solid slabs next morning. Water ices are saidjto have been known first. Catherine de Medici introduced them—and that may have led to the idea that they were bad for one.