A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 157, 31 March 1937, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Germany and Religion Both Protestants and Roman Catholics in Germany, during Easter, protested against the Nazification of religion. Reichsbishop Muller, the nominal head of the German Protestant Church, recently wrote a Germanised version of the Sermon on the Mount. Extracts from the Germanised version of St. Matthew, chapter v, arc: Happy is he who bears his sufferings manfully. lie will firn! the strength never to despair.

Happy is he who always acts as a gooJ comrade. He will get on well in the world.

Happy arc they who keep the peace with their fellow-nationals; they do God’s will. Do not bo unforgiving to your fellow-nationals w’ith whom you are at enmity. Do not push your quarrel so far that it is impossible to come again to any understanding or agreement. ... If your comrade in

excitement strikes you in the face, it is not always right immediately to strike him in return. It is more manly to maintain a. quiet bearing. Probably your comrade will then feel ashamed.

In the Germanised version all references to the Jewish Old Testament are omitted, and at every possible opportunity references to blood, comradeship, honour and fellow-nationals are put inte Christ’s mouth. Forgiveness and humility find no place in Dr. Muller’s version of the Sermon on the Mount The purpose of the Germanisation is to remove every reference to the Old Testament. The name Jerusalem may no longer be mentioned nor that of Solomon. Instead of the “scribes and pharisees” there are “teachers and preachers.” Instead of the “law of the prophets” there is “the divine truths and demands which you have inherited from your forbears.” Certain phrases have even been interpolated by Dr. Muller without reference to the original. Women and Olympic Games. The question is being considered of banning women competitors in the 1940 Olympic Games. It is pointed out that women did not compete in the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. The origin of the Olympic Games is buried in obscurity. But it is known they were considered of such importance throughout Greece that during their celebration a sacred armistice was declared. No one was allowed to contend except those of pure Hellenic blood; barbarians (foreigners) might be spectators, but slaves were entirely excluded. But after the conquest of Greece by the Romans the latter were allowed to contend.

Not only were women not allowed to contend, but they were not even allowed to witness the contests under penalty of being hurled down from the Typaean rock. Only one instance is recorded of a woman having ventured to be present, and she, although detected, was pardoned in consideration of her father, brothers, and son, who had been victors in the Games. An exception to the rule was made in favour of the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, who sat on an altar of white marble. Women were, however, allowed to send chariots to the races. There were in all 24 contests, 18 in which men took part, and six in which boys engaged. They contested naked, and the only prize was a garland of wild olive cut from a sacred olive tree which grew in the sacred grove of Altis in Olympia, near the altars of Aphrodite and the Hours. The most powerful States considered an Olympic victory gained by one of their citizens to confer honour upon the State to which he belonged, and a conqueror usually had immunities and privileges conferred upon him by the gratitude of his fellow-citizens. On his return home the victor entered the city in a triumphal procession in which his praises were celebrated frequently in the loftiest strains of poetry. The George of Southwark. A famous old London coaching inn, The George of Southwark, has been handed over to the National Trust by the London and North-Eastern Railway Company for preservation. It will be continued as an inn. The “George Inn” was one of 2-3 iuns which faced "Long Southwark,” a thoroughfare which led southward to Kent and the coast. It is London’s only galleried coaching inn. There is, in fact, only one inn of its type in England, the New Inn at Gloucester, which is older.

The George Inn was, in the days of Henry VIII, known as the St. George. The historian Stow speaks of having seen it in 1598. This was destroyed by lire in 1670. It was at once rebuilt by the innkeeper on a new lease at “£BO per annum and one sugar loaf.” Again it was burnt down in the great Southwark lire of 1676. The innkeeper rebuilt it, this time at a reduced rental of £5O and one sugar loaf. The two tiers of galleries with their wooden pillars show some resemblance to the Elizabethan Theatre, “The Fortune”: and, indeed, the courtyard is now used once a year, on Shakespeare’s birthday, as the setting of some such play as the nobles must have looked down upon in the early days of its existence. In medieval days the sign was of St. George and the Dragon. In 1720 the inn was reported to be “very large with a considerable trade.” “Tin Can Mail.”

Letters endorsed “Tin Can Mail” are reported to be continuing to attract stamp collectors in all parts of the world. Niuafoou, the island of the "Tin Can Mail,” is on the outskirts of the Tongan Group, nearly 400 miles from Tongatabu. It is one of the loneliest outposts of the British Empire, and is about three and a half miles long by three miles wide, with a population of approximately 1200. It is ot volcanic origin and has a long record of serious eruptions, in which parts of the island were devastated. Disas irons hurricanes sometimes occur.

Because of the unique method of mail delivery, the island has been nick named “Tin Can Island.” The inward mail from the steamer is sealed by the ship’s carpenter in 401 b. biseuit-tins. The outward mail is made up ashore into several parcels and tied to the ends of sticks about three feet in length. Two or three natives, sometimes accompanied by a white man, usually swim out, each with a stick topped by its parcel of mail supported by poles six to seven feet in length. These poles are very buoyant, and easily carry the recumbent body. The parcels are placed in buckets lowered from the deck of the ship and the tins containing inward mail are then thrown overboard and towed ashore by the waiting "postmen.”