A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 255, 24 July 1936, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Lord Lonsdale

Lord Lonsdale is reported to have joined the Imperial Policy Group. Nearly 80 years of age, Lord Lonsdale is known throughout the world as England’s sporting peer. His family name is Hugh Cecil Lowther. He shoots, rides, races, never misses a good fight, presides at horse shows, officiates at sporting functions, judges costers’ turnouts. opens circuses, and occasionally attends the House of Lords. Boxing in England owes more to him than to any other man living. He can do almost anything with animals, having learned all about them by once having worked in a circus and seen how the circus men handle and train animals. As a youth he was 18 months with a circus in Switzerland and became au accomplished trick rider and acrobat. He rode the longest face' ever held in England—six miles over huge jumps—and won. He fought John L. Sullivan five rounds under an assumed name and beat him. For a wager he walked 100 miles in 18 hours. He has taken his place in hunting, flat-racing, stceplechasiug, shooting, deer-stalk-lug, yachting, boxing, coursing, cricket ana football. Ancestral Spirits. The Emperor of Japan, in the presence of Princes and Ministers, reported to his ancestral spirits that the February mutiny had closed. The preamble of the Japanese Constitution refers to the Emperor as: “Having by virtue of the glories of Our Ancestors, ascended the throne of a lineal succession unbroken for ages eternal.” Article one of the Constitution says: “The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal.” Article three says: “The Emperor is sacred and inviolable.” The real religion of Japan is ancestor-worship. The three forms of the Shinto worship of ancestors are the Domestic Cult, the Communal Cult, and the State Cult; — or, in other words, the worship of family ancestors, the worship of clan or tribal ancestors, and the worship of Imperial ancestors. The first is the religion of the home; the second is the religion of the local divinity or tutelar god; the third is the national religion. The Japanese believe the dead remain in this “world, haunting: their tombs, and also their former homes, and sharing invisibly in the life of their living descendants. All the dead become gods in the sense of acquiring supernatural power; but they retain the characters which distinguished them during life. The happiness of the dead depends upon the respectful service rendered them by the living; and the happiness of the living depends upon the fulfilment of pious duty to the dead. Thus to the Japanese every event in the world, good, or evil, is the work of tlie dead. All human actions, good or bad, are controlled by the dead. Kattegat and Elsinore.

The body of the Bishop of Woolwich, whose death from heart failure occurred in the Kattegat, when a yacht which he was ou board grounded iu a heavy storm, was taken to Elsinore before being shipped to England before burial. The Kattegat is an arm of the North Sea lying between the east coast of Jutland and the west coast of 'Sweden, the islands of Fuueu : Zealand and Laaland lying to the south. Between these are passage; called The Sound, Great Belt ami Little Belt, leading to the Baltic Sea The length of the Kattegat is about 150 miles from north to south, its breadth from 50 to 90 miles. Shoals and sandbanks make navigation difficult. Elsinore, on the island of Zealand, is a seaport of Denmark. It stands on The Sound, and. has ferry communication with, Helsingborg on the Swedish coast, and is connected by rail with Copenhagen. Shipbuilding is the principal occupation, and iron-founding, engineering and agriculture are carried on. The population is aibout 20,000.

Imbros and Tenedos. A Turkish flotilla, headed, by cue battle-cruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim, formerly the G-oOben, left the Dardanelles to reoccupy the islands of Imbros and Tenedos. Although belonging to Turkey, to whom the Greeks returned ih in 1923 under the Treaty of Lausanne, imibros is the seat of a Greek bishopric. The island, about 100 square miles in area, is extremely fertile. During the. Dardanelles campaign in the Great War, Sir lan Hamilton made Imbros a headquarters. It was here also that the 11th. Division was concentrated before its attack at Anzac. When the withdrawal of the British forces took place from the Gallipoli Peninsula, 'it was to Imbros that they first went. The population is about 10,000, mostly Greeks. Teneidos, near tthe entrance to the Dardanelles, is six miles long and two broad, and has an area of about 10 square miles. It was occupied by Greece during the Great War, but handed back to Turkey in 1920 under the Treaty of Sevres. The population is about itmo. nearly all Greeks. Goeben.

The Goeben was built at Hamburg in 1911. Her length was 610 feet, beam 96 feet, and displacement 22.610 tons. Engines of 70,000 horsepower gave a speed of 28 knots. Her armour was a lOin. belt with 10 inches on her conning tower and a 2Jin. protective deck. Gnus were eight Ilin., 12 6in.. 12 12-ponnders. When the Great Mar broke out the Goeben and her sistership the Breslau were in the Aegean Sea. On August 6, 1914, the British Mediterranean fleet got into touch with them off Messina and gave chase, but they escaped into the Dardanelles. Later the Goeben became very active in the Dardanelles, and for some time led the Turkish fleet. On January 20. 1918, in company with the Breslau, she made a dash from the Dardanelles and attacked the British ships off Mudros. Both enemy vessels were driven into minefields, where the Breslau sank and the Goeben sustained much injury. While ashore in the Dardanelles the Goeben was bombed by British aircraft but again escaped. , Next she joined the enemy fleet in the BlackSea, and was then injured by running upon enemy mines. When the British Fleet entered the Sea of Marmora, after the Armistice, it found the Goeben lying crippled at Ismid and took her over. Eastbourne. 1

Eastbourne, which suffered from a severe storm, is a watering-place of Sussex, England. It stands on the English Channel, 66 miles south-east of London. It.ik noted for a line parade three miles long running along the sea-front and its gardens, known as the Meads. Nearby are the South Downs. Much of the ground in and about Eastbourne belongs to the Duke of Devonshire. Early in the nineteenth century Eastbourne consisted of oniv three hamlets, but the discovery of ’its advantages as a seaside resbrt quickly brought fame and, size to it. The population exceeds 62,000.