RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 54, 27 November 1929, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (Dy Cosmos.) Tha modern child is one who doesn’t believe a thing is so unless he’s seen it in the movies. • • * “Some quite mediocre singers in America," writes a musical critic, “are literally coining money.” And there are probably some who are also uttering false notes. • • * “The Latest Thing in Clothes f” reads a newspaper headline. We presume they mean a woman keeping an appointment ' • • * The grant of £250 from the Rhodes Scholarship Trust to J. H. Lascelles, head prefect of Christ’s College, serves to recall the conditions under which Cecil John Rhodes founded his famous scholarships. “Whereas,” said Rhodes in his will, “I consider that the education of young colonists at one of the universities of the United Kingdom is of great advantage to them for giving breadth to their views, for their instruction in life and manners, and for instilling into their minds the advantage to the colonies as well as to the ULlted Kingdom of the retention of the unity of the Empire; and whereas, in the casi. of young colonists studying at a university of the United Kingdom, I attach very great importance to the university having a residential system such as is in force at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, for without it those students are, at the most critical period of their lives, left without any supervision. . . Whereas there are at the present time fifty or more students from South Africa studying at the University of Edinburgh, many of whom are attracted there by its excellent medical school, I should like to establish some of the scholarships hereinafter mentioned in that university; but, owing to its not having such a residential system as aforesaid, I feel obliged to refrain from doing so; and, whereas my own university—the University of Oxford —has such a system, and I suggest that it should try and extend its scope, so as, if possible, to make its medical school as least as good as that of the University •

of Edinburgh; and whereas, I also desire to encourage and foster an appreciation of the advantages which I implicitly believe will result from the union of the English-speaking people throughout the world, and to encourage in the students from the United States of North America, who will benefit from the American scholarships to be established for the reason above given at the University of Oxford, under this, my will, an attachment to the country from which they have sprung, but without, I hope, withdrawing them or their sympathies from,the land of their adoption or birth.”

Rhodes then directed his trustees to establish for male students the following scholarships, each of which was to be of the yearly value of £3OO, and tenable at any college in the University of Oxford for three consecutive academical years. Rhodesia 3 scholarships ; the South African College School in the colony of the Cape of Good Hope; the Stellenbosch College School in the same colony, 1; the Diocesan College School of Rondebosch, in the same colony, 1; the St. Andrews College School, Grahamtown, 1; the colony of Natal, 1; New South Wales, 1; Victoria, 1; South Australia, 1; Queensland, 1; Western Australia, 1; Tasmania, 1; New Zealand, 1; Province of Ontario, Canada, 1; Newfoundland and its dependencies, 1; islands of Bermuda, 1; island of Jamaica, 1. AU these Rhodes referred to as “the colonial scholarships.”

•“I further direct my trustees," he said, “to establish additional scholarships,” which he called “the American scholarships.” “I appropriate two of the American scholarships,” he said, “to each of the present States and territories of the United States of North America. My desire being that the students who shall be elected to the scholarships shall not be merely bookworms, I direct that in the election of a student to a scholarship regard shall be had to-(l) his literary and scholastic attainments; (2) his fondness of and success in manly outdoor sports, such as cricket, football, and the like; (3) his qualities of manhood, truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for the protection of the weak; kindliness, unselfishness, and fellowship; (4) his exhibition during school days of moral force of character and of instincts to lead and to take an interest in his school mates.”

The famous Cathedral of St. Mark, Venice, one of the architectural wonders of the vyorld, has been in grave danger, ominous cracks having appeared in the north-west section of the great Basilica. Thanks to prompt action by Signor Mussolini and the Italian Government, the menace is now being checkmated, Signor Marangoni, chief architect to the great building, having initiated a scheme of repair by which the famous mosaics and paintings which adorn the walls will be saved from the destruction which threatens them. St. Mark’s has always needed care owing to the material employed in its construction not having always been of the best, and some of it having been hastily put together. Amongst the earlier restorations the most important were those undertaken between 1527 and 1570 by Jacopo Sansovino. . AU through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Procuratia employed architects to .study the safety of the building. It was in the nineteenth century, however, that the work of restoration was more fully developed, not in a very satisfactory manner at first, but, after 1880, with scrupulous care for the artistic value of the Basilica. After the fall of the campanile the building was even more carefully examined. Ever since its present architect, Luigi Marangoni, has looked after it, the church has become a model of what careful restoration can accomplish.

“P.D.” writes: —“Can you tell me if there are inhabitants in all the big islands at the top of Canada—Baffin Land, Banks Land, Prince Albert Land, etc.—and, if so, are they Eskimos or North American Indians?” The people who inhabit the Arctic coast of America, from Greenland to Alaska, and the small portion of the Asiatic shore of Bering Strait are a North American Indian people, who are collectively referred to as Esquimaux, meaning eaters of raw flesh. They extend as far south as about 50 degrees N. lat., and are found in broken tribes throughout the whole of this area—never far inland, or south of the region where winter ice allows seals to congregate. Hunting expeditions sometimes cover extensive areas, but never travel more than 30 miles from the coast