TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14668, 17 May 1913, Page 10

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

It may be a comfort "Gold Bricks" to people who lose for money by unsucMillionaires. cessful enterprises

to know - that even great captains of finance are not immune from this kind of loss. There is a popular' idea, that men like Rockefeller and Morgan are modern Midases, whoso touch, turns everything to gold. However, the New York "Post" draws attention to the fact that threo of tho wealthiest men in America left behind Ihem a mass of worthless securities. Harriman, tho great railway magnate, left an estate worth seventy millions dollars. Included in the estate was stock worth twenty millions on its face value, but really worth only six millions, and among the millionaire's papers wcro worthless securities representing over four millions. It may be objected that as Harriman was a plunger it is not fair to take him as a representative case, but the "Post r, shows that Russell Sage, a close-fisted man who btiilt up a huge fortune by "safe" methods, also lost a great deal of money \tt unprofitable undertakings. Iu some cases tho official appraiser put no valuo on securities, for tho reason that they represented undertakings "so strange and wild that there was no way of finding out anything about them." "Nα records of this company aro to bo found," he reported, in more than one instance. "Or, a company of somewhat similar name existed at one time, but went into the hands of receivers." In some cases lie came across vague records of sales years before, with no trace of any subsequent activity. Of over a dozen of these ghests of iuvestments lie stated under oath, "Wβ submit zero as its value."' Then there was the case of Jay Gould, one of tho shrewdest business men who ever lived. He left scventy-fcur million dollars, and worthless paper representing nearly two million dollars. The "Pest" says that many of these securities probably came to Gould, Harriman, and Sage in defaulted loans, and others represented investments made out of charity to friends, but "all three lists must inclndo a largo number of investments which tho men made deliberately as speculations, and in which they wcto led astray, just like the man in the street." To use a metaphor of the world of fraud, these great business men were- handed "gold bricks."

An amusing article Hymn-Singing. —if it is proper so - to describe any article in "The Quiver" —has been compiled by Vincent C. Feesey on "Controversy about Hymn-singing." It was in 1612 that Henry Ainsworth startled tho ancient Church of Amsterdam by

publishing "The Book of Psalms, Englished in Proso and Metre," with musical notes, directly inciting people to sing in church. John Smyth, who later becarno the founder of tho English Baptists, objected to singing, but still more to tho use of books. ' Ho held that worship, being spiritual, could not exist during tho use of printed signs; therefore, though singing a Psalm might bo true -worship, it was "unlawful to havo the book before j the eye in timo of singing." The question was taken up in England, and in 1673 Richard Baxter was still protesting against interference with the "noble work of praise," putting his own view in the pithy sentence: "As it is law-fur to use the comfortable help of spectacles in reading tho Bible, so it is of music to exhilarate tho soul towards God." Tho greatest pamphleteers on tho subject, however, were Benjamin Keach and Isaac Marlow, tho first a Baptist minister, and tho second a very strongly dissentient member of his flock. Keach, being niusical, induced his peoplo to sing a hymn after the sermon. Marlow was deeply shocked that his pastor could countenance a "prestinted form of words made in artificial Rhimes," and sing them with "a promiscuous Assembly of Professors and profane Men and Women, with united voices together." Without resentins this unkind cut at his congregation, tho pastor took a show of hanus at a church meeting. All but nine of the "professors and profane" resolved to sing on—the nine withdrew from membership, and formed a select and songless Church all of their own. Then Mr Keach, in tho intervals of controversial pamphlets, triumphantly wrote hymns, and from his book, "A Feast of Fat Tilings full of Marrow," the congregaJ tipn wero supplied with "Scripture Songs" for- either before or after sermon, and on all proper occasions beside. As late as 1786, still doubts aroso hero and there in English Churches on this vexed question of tho hymn. One dispute was notable for an enquiry, if words gained so much by being set to music, why sermons should not bo sung? Considerate pastors often allowed, after preaching and prayer, "a little space for those -who aro not for singing to go out of the meeting," and "Tho Quiver's" artist gives a delightful picture of brethren and sisters stopping thoir ears as they go, lest they should bo profaned by hearing the first .notes. Then crops of pamphlets concern tho right position for singing, whether sitting or standing—and, of course, there is a whole literature on tho great organ controversy.

In his artido that

The appears on our All-Important Literary Page, Mr Present. Alfred Noves refers

to certain "advimced" English people who are astonished, to find that Americans have not relegated Tennyson and Br&wning t<i the scrap-heap. The craze for tho new, of which this is an instance, has its amusing as well as its regrettable sido. An English writer has satirised it by coining the phraso "Edwardian" as tho equivalent cf the hopelessly obsolete. One commonly hears ..people speaking of a thing as Mid-Victorian, to indicate that in their opinion it is something to bo regarded with contempt as quite out-of-date, but it seems that according to a certain coterie, ,to bo progressive, to be alive- in fact, one must, so to speak, bo "Georgian." The past is merely Old Fogoyism, fit only to potter about in. its own company. Those weird people, tho ulfcra-Post-Impressionists, Futurists, and Cubists, shout this doctrine at the top3 of their voices. American papers contain reproductions of some of the serious freak pictures exhibited in New York by these schools, and we are,not exaggerating when we say that in some cases it is quite impossible to tell what the pictures arc about without the help of the titles. The sensation, of tho show, a painting called "Tho Nude Descending A Staircase," is so much of a puzalo that if it were submitted to any dozen people of average intelligence, not oao" would givo its subject correctly. A small boy to whom it was shown pronounced it to be a picture of machinei-y, and then, asked to guess again, exclaimed in triumph, "I know, its the New Zealand colliding with an iceberg!" The Now York "Post," commenting on the craze for what is new to which we refer, says that a group of youns women were standing before one of the most freakish of the pictures at this exhibition, indulging in undisguised laughter. Upon them advanced a severo lady with the reproving demand, "What right have you to come here and blaspheme?" These extraordinary people will have their little day, but it will not have' been entirely in vain, for they will have contributed to the gaiety of nations.

The Australasian at Home,

The if ho bo an enthusiastic English eurf-bather, finds himself Seaside, disappointed when ho

makea a trip to tho English seaside. Tho great popular places on the Channel are highly artificial and ■excessively civilised, says the London correspondent of tho Sydney "Daily Telegraph" comparing them with Coogeo and Manly as

the Canterbury man would compare them with Sumner and New Brighton. Looking for a generous expanse of sand, the colonial sees only a narrow str:x> of shingle between the sea-wall and tho water, and has to compensate himself with miles of asphalt paths and flagstones. "There is nothing wild or natural, as there is with our Australian seaside," remarks the writer, who goes on to say, rather pityingly: "Tho bather, on the shingles, picks his way precariously on tender feet over tho flooring of stones, and tells himself that his dip is enjoyablo and healthful." But there is some consolation. These Northern waters are a great boon to tho swimmer, and it is immensely satisfying to tho. Australian, used to the sbarkinfoi.ted waters cf the South, "to realise that he may strike out for half-a-milo without fear into these placid English seas. The feeling of safety docs not come at once; not until you have had a number of 3wi ms in the deep water do you lose that .haunting thought that close behind you is, or might be, a pair of powerful, merciless jaws. The sense of safety is the one compensation of the English and Continental , beaches." Tho visitor from Christchurch would- miss all of tho exhilaration of ocean-swimming at New Brigh-

ton, for ho would eoein to be in a sea almost without life, whero no long, white-crested Pacific breakers roll in thunderingly on tho shore." "There is nothing bjut the deep, quiet pleasuro of a long swim in a quiet expanse of sea water. Of course, it can bo rough enough, often too rough to swim at all; but it is a choppy, petty, spiteful roughness, lacking the majesty and tho grand scale of Pacific seas." Tae> authorities at tho English resorts do not subsidise organisations of experienced bathers, armed -with rods and life-lines, but take even greater caro of tho lives of the unwary. Close to the swimming areas, boatmen row up and down, and warn tho overdaring of tho risk of venturing beyond their depth. But behind these fashionable, unsatisfying resorts in tho Old Country the visitor can wander through tho beautiful English countryside. To tho noblo Sussex Downs from Brighton is only half-on-hour's walk, and tho wise holiday-maker spends his days wandering on the Downs, and his nights idling among the crowds along tho promenade.