TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14759, 1 September 1913, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Chicago Fair was a A "Whito Cty." When Colour San Francisco opens' its Festival, Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, it will be found all aglow with colour. The latest "Scribncr's" quotes, from Mr Jules Guerin, artist in charge, his reasons for choosing this richness of tint. "When I went to California to study the problem of colour," he says, I saw the vibrant tints of tho native wild flowers, the soft browns of the surrounding hills, tho sold of tho orangeries, the blue of the sea, and I determined that, just as a musician builds his symphony around a motif or a chord, so must I striko a chord of colour and build my symphony on this." Even the roofs will bo harmo- I niously coloured. Thoso who look down ou them from afar, will see a great parti-coloured area of red tiles, golden domes, and copper-green minarets, all emphasised and enhanced by the rich hues of intervening courts filled with greenery and gorgeous masses of bloom. ,- Preparations have long beenj going on for the planting of the gardens and other decorative portions of tho grounds, greenhouses are already sheltering sixty thousand plants and shrubs, and many thousand more will soon be grown. Millions of cuttings and seedlings will be ready for transplanting as soon as the Fair grounds are ready for them. Twenty thousandveronica wilt supply beautiful blues and amaranths; every possible brightly flowered plant, 6uch as the geranium, clematis, fuchsia, salvia, bigonia,' muehlenbeckia, will afford to tho Exposition "such a wealth of colour as could not bo obtained by any other open-air garden outside of California.'' To protect the gardens from the dust of tbo main avenue, a great hedge, sixty feet high, will bo grown. Flower boxes, built up one upon another, aro to form the substance of this hedge, and trailing plants will cover it with one continuous veil of greenery. Five acres of Japanese garden is an interesting contribution offered by Japan. Hero the colour sense may again rejoice on the bloom of the plum trees. And the pillars, statues, fountains, walls, and even flag poles, contrasting with the more gaily-tinted decorations, will be ivory-yellow, rich and soft in tone. "Imagine," says Mr Guerin, "a gigantic Persian rug of soft, melting hues, with brilliant splashes hero and there, spread down for a milo or more, and you may get some idea of what tho PanamaPacific Exposition will look like when viewed, say, from tho Sansalito Heights, across the Golden Gate." To make the group of buildings a veritable blaze of colour, while avoiding tho garish or barbaric, is the great salient feature in his mind. "The one point 1 havo insisted upon is no white, save, perhaps, a man visitor's shirt front or a woman's summer frock." The story of the lady who said that she liked seeing Hamlet, becauso the play so full of quotations, illustrates the fact that most people use proverbs, idiomatic expressions, and tho like without knowing their origin. It is very often surprising to learn what long histories somo of these pieces of current conversational coin possess. Many of them date back before the present era, as, for instance, the expression "While there's life there's hope," which occurs in a letter written by Cicero to Atticus. "We are in the same boat" sounds a piece of quite modern slang, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is found as early as the hrst century in a letter written by Clement 1.. Bishop of Home, to the Church of Corinth. These and other instances are quoted by a writer in the New York "Tribune." "I never put off till tomorrow what I can do to-day" was Lord Chesterfield's explanation of how he managed to do so much work. "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," he wrote in one of his famous letters to his son. "New brooms sweep clean" is founded on a pun. Lord Eldon, Lord Chancellor of England in the early part of tbe nineteenth century, used to mispronounce Henry Brougham's name as Broffam, much to Brougham's annoyance. Once, after the latter had made an excellent speech, Elden, by way of apology, pronounced the name correctly and uttered the

Famous Phrases.

phrase referred to. Some expressions have been coined over and over again by different people. The fact that "no man is a hero to his valet," was stated by several from Madame dv Cor'nuel. a witty Frenchwoman of the seventeenth century, to Dr. Johnson and Napoleon. The first record of it, however, is found in Plutarch when Antigonous 1.. Kinc; of Sparta, remarked to a poet who had addressed a too flattering ode to him, "My bodyservant sings to mc no such song." It was Diogenes, tho cynic, who declared that "habit is second nature." Tho phrase "circumstances over which one has no control" was first used by the Duko of Wellington, "conspicuous by their absence," occurs in Tacitus, referring to the non-attendance of Cassius and Brutus at the funeral of Julia, the hitter's sister, while one of the most interesting derivations is that of "mind your PYs and Q's," "P" aud "Q" being the French words "pieds" and "queues" respectively. In tho timo of Louis XIV. a very low bow was in fashion, and dancing-masters warned their pupils to mind the position of their feet and the movements of their heads, lest their queue wigs should become disarranged. Tho name of Sir Clements Markham, who celebrated liis eightythird year in July last, is celebrated through his valuablo contributions to geographical science. Tho public owes him a debt of gratitude, however, on a different score. For it was partly through him that the prico of that most useful drug, quinine, was reduced, so that from being an expensive luxury it was placed within reach of the neediest. After his retirement from the Navy in 1852, Sir Clements Markham went on a voyage of exploration to Peru, where he became interested in tho cultivation of chinchona. from tho hark of which quinine is obtained. Later, on his getting an appointment on tho Board of Control, ho was entrusted by the Secretary of State for India, at his own suggestion, with tho arrangements for collecting plants and seeds of the different species of quinine-yielding chinchona trees in South America, and introducing; their cultivation into British India. One of tho difficulties which confronted him at tho outset was tliat among the many varieties of chinchona growing between the latitudes of 20 degrees North and 20 degrees South of the Equator, it was difficult to select tho particular ono which would be best suited to the Indian climato. Various scientific men were conferred with on tho subject, some of whom wore favourable, and others unfavourable towards the project. Sir Clements Markham recalls that just beforo his departure for India ho dined at Sir Roderick Murchison's house, wliere ho met Professor, Huxley and Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. Huxley said that before Markham returned science -would have mado quinine. To which Sir Alexander Cockburn replied: "You will never succeed in making anything organic out of inorganic matter. You philosophers can pull a body to pieces, but you cannot put it together again, and you never will bo able to." The artificial product has yet to bo discovered, but in the meantime, thanks to the cultivation of the chinchona treo in India, the prico of quinine has fallen from 10s per ounco in London, and £1 in Calcutta, to ls an ounce in London and a penny or a halfpenny in Calcutta., The latter is the prico at which it is supplied to natives. The medicinal properties of chinchona bark were, it is well-known, discovered by Josuits, after whom it was called Jesuits' bark. Thereby hangs a curious tale. Oliver Cromwell, says Admiral Markham, died of tertian ague, which quinine could have saved. In tho very newspaper in which his death was announced, the "Mercurius Politicus," thero was an advertisement of Jesuits' bark for sale. But the name of Jesuit was abhorrent to the Puritan, and hence Cromwell's medical advisers would havo nothing to do with it.

A Benefactor of Mankind.