WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 97, 19 January 1924, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Ireland is so quite it seems to hav» fallen off the map sinoe they locked Mr. de Valera up. “Tempo” writes asking what is the best way to go about constructing * sun-dial. T.D.H. does not profess to ■ be an authority on sun-dials, and can. only say that as a small boy he onoe drove a nail in the top of the post and; marked on a oriole where shadows fell at the hours—but unfortunately he lost interest in sun-dials ' before he found out whether his was keeping good time or not. Apparently it was not soundly constructed. According to Mr. Hugh Godfray, in tho “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” the chief, and in fact the only, difficulty is the accurate fixing of the style,’ which casts the shadow, and on its accuracy the value of the instrument depends. The style must be in the meridian plane, that is, due north and south, ana must make an angle with the horizon equal to the latitude of the place. For mv correspondent’s information, I may add that the latitude of Wellington General Post Office is 41deg. 17min. It is also important that the dial should be perfectly horizontal.

A sun-dial is a pleasant ornament, for a garden, and if “Tempo” wishes for some appropriate motto to adorn his proposed counter of the sunny hours, Dr. Bumpus is open to consider any reasonable offer for a bookful of sun-dial mottos that reached him at Christmas. I think I have forgotten to tell “Tempo” that having got the dial in correct position at midday, he should take a good watch and mark off the other hours as they fall. If he wishes to mark off the whole dial complete before setting it up, hb should take a course in the higher mathematics from Major Fitzurse.

It seems to have been by shadow! that humanity first began to tell the time. The ancient Egyptians. Chaldeans, and Hebrews all had their sun-dials. Greece and Rome brought in the water-clock, a clepsydra, on the hour-glass principle. Tutankhamen had his twenty-four hours a day just as we have, but the Greeks divided the day into twelve equals hours, and the n'ght also into twelve equal hours. Their hours of the night were thus only twice a year of the same length as their hours of the day. This system of unequal hours seems to have prevailed largely over Europe until the clock was invented some 650 or 700 years back

King Alfred the Great is said to have been the inventor of marked candles as a means of measuring time, luit, the. method is probably older than that. Time is still measured in China bv burning joss st : cks of fixed length, especially at ceremonials. Gung heung, or time incense fire sticks of Pressed wood dust are used by the~ Chinese to mark the passing of the five watches of the night, and these sticks are short or long according to the season and the duration of darkness. Chinese messengers who have a short time to sleep regulate their slumbers bv fixing a piece of lighted i"”-stick between their toes —a method said to be more effective even than the modern alarm clock. Rush lights, which burned for thirty minutes, wore in regular use bv cottagers Britain up to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

What has always struck T.D.H. as peculiar is that few races of mankind seem ever to have placed much reliance on their own sense of time, but cling always to time measuring devices. In an argument recently T.D.H upheld the view that human beings are all endowed by nature with an accurate perception of the passage of time, and that the trouble with them is that they lack the confidence to rely on it. Think what the time is and then look at your watch, and you will usually be right—that is, if you stick fo the time"that first occurs to you. If yon try to reason out what the time ought to be you will probably bo wrong. This view cf T. I).H.’s was disputed, and he was told that while some few people had a good time sense most Imd net. His opinion, however, remains that the time sense >s universal, thxt jx is only confidence in it that is lacking, and that a man without a watch only from sheer lack of faith makes himself believe the time is what it isn’t.

T.D.H’s contention is borne out by that great American psychologist, the late Professor William James, who says “the great improvement in time perception during sleep and trance is a mystery not as yet cleared up.” Professor James also remarks that idiots are supposed to possess tho time sense in a marked degree, and he instances the case of an idiot girl who screamed to the minute if her dinner was not ready at precisely 12.30 n.m. Possibly, of course) T.D.JT.’s own mental capacity inclines in the same direction, but, even allowing for this, it points to the fact that sleeping parsons and idiots ba -e not their conscious reasoning minds setting to work to make them disbelieve in their time sense. It is a genoral experience that if one sets an alarm clock, and really want to get up at the time it is set for— an important proviso—one wakes just before thp alarm goes off.

From Air. Elsdon Best’s pamphlet on the Maori division of time it appears that the Maori in the leisurely pre-pakeha davs troubled not at all about such things as hours. His expressions to denote the time of day seem to have been merely:—Sunrise, the morning; the period of the heat ’of the sun'; the evening; the night; 1 and midnight. It is said that the cry of the pakura, or swamp hen, marked tho passing. hours of the night, but Air. Best regards as doubtful the statement that this bird utters its cries three times at regular intervals during tlie night. The little riroriro bird is said to have acted as Nature’s alarm clock, and called the Maori to work in the season for planting crops. In some parts of Polynesia, according to Air. Percy Collins, in the “Scientific American,” the natives mark the passing of time in the night bv skewering on the mid-rib of a palm leaf n number of kernels off the candle-nut tree, which each take about ten minutes to smoulder. A paradox of time is that the limit-s and days that seem longest in passing seem shortest in remembrance, and the hours that go most quickly seem longest when remembered. “Which weeds are the easiest weeds to kill?” asked a city man of the farmer. “Widows’ weeds,” replied the farmer • “you- have only to say ‘wilt thou’ and. they wilt.” BUGLE SONC—'“TAPS.” ' Fades the light, And afar Goeth day, cometh night; And a star Leadetb all. Speedeth all To their rest! Love, good night! AJ.u st thou go When the day And the light Neec thee so— Needeth all, Heeds th all That is best. —Brete Harte.