NEWS UNO OPINIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21630, 27 January 1934, Page 2

NEWS UNO OPINIONS

RETURN OF THE CHARLESTON. The Charleston has reappeared ill .England—a chastened ami rather cautious Charleston, as different as only near -relatives ' can be Ironi its •lightly reprobate elder brother ot v seven years ago. This new dunce, which conies Irom America, ,maae its first appearance at the end of) Novemher at the Savoy Hotel, says the, ‘ ManJ Chester Guardian,’ where it was clearly ■i demonstrated in front of a large audience. The “ Charleston Glues ’ is extremely simple. has an engaging rhythm, and is excellently suited to dancing on a crowded floor, as the basic ' steps lend themselves perfectly to the • find of hovering motion that is necessary in a small space. It will be in- . teresting to see whether this dance has ; the instant success that greeted the Charleston in 192(5, and the Blues in 1923. It is not as languorous as the latter, or as hectic as the former, and its easy steps will, appearto large numbers of people who like the dance but . cannot be bothered to learu complicated movements. On the other hand, it is not associated with any strikingly new form of dance music; it is danced to the ordinary slow fox trot. Still,, it has charm and individuality, and it was danced with enthusiasm by a large crowd as soon as the demonstration was over. Perhaps its destiny will be to rescue us from the swamps of sentimental reminiscences which have settled m the ballroom lately, and made waltzin" almost a duty and ‘ The Blue Danube • burden to the ear. STUTTERING. Dr G. Seth, of Edinburgh, read a paper before section J (psychology) of the British Association at life recent Leicester meeting on some clinical aspect.? of stuttering, and recorded observations based on the study of about 100 cases. ' The percentage ot stutterers in five edncatjonal areas ranges from 0.72 to 1.30, with an average in the region of 0.95 per cent. This agrees with the’ general finding that about 1 per cent, of the British school population are stutterers. The proportion of stuttering boys to stuttering girls is 6 to 1 in one area, and 3 to 1 in another area. It isk practically impossible to trace a connection between the speech disorder and any immediate causative factor. It seems, therefore, gays ‘ Nature,’ that stuttering must be regarded as a developmental disorder most commonly of gradual onset, in which the predisposition; .whether it be the result of inheritance or of fixation, becomes effective in most cases under the conditions and within the circa instances of development itself. The state of the mother before the birth ol the child, difficult birth, and., difficult ies in weaning, may' all play a part in the causation of stuttering. . WHAT’S IN A NAME? “ Diplogen ’’ is Lord RutherfordV name for what is already' known as heavy hydrogen. Could not science make one little concession to the average man whom its discoveries bewilder so, and let him keep the name he understands? Heavy hydrogen may be , double-barrelled, but it has the great advantage of saying just what - it meaons.—‘ Observer.’ STARTLING, IF TRUE. According to an official booklet just published in Washington, a considerable part ol the present plight of the Arne rican farmers is due to the wholesale replacement of horses by motor vehicles (says the ‘Manchester Guardian’). When the war ended fifteen years ago there were about 25,000,000 horses and mules in the United States: to-day there are about 17.000,000. The land that was formerly devoted to the raising of food for the vanished B,ooo*ooo horses, estimated at 18,000,000 acres, has been turned to the raising of other crops. That has .increased the production of such crops, and is an important contributory cause of the present overproduction and of depressed market values for agricultural products. I he acreage that has been turned from the raising of horse fodder is sufficient to raise 6,000,000 bales of cotton (half the usual crop), 250,000.000 bushels of ' wheat (one-third the average emp" or .1-37 ( ’) 11). 1 ! o• luishcl-s ‘ ol maize lorn '■ f He n ml yield of the country), it is easy to see how

surpluses o] agricultural products have thus occurred, and the booklet . says that “ the acreage released by the displacement of work animals represents what is probably the greatest change in American agriculture. In effect,. it is so far-reaching a's to influence the entire economic fabric.” ” JOHN PEEL ”,MEMORIAL. A conference of affiliated Lakeland societies, numbering twenty-fouj- in Great Britain and eight overseas, has decided.to erect a “John Peel” memorial at Caldbeck. in Cumberland. It will commemorate, in addition to the famous huntsman. John Woodcock Graves, author of the well-known hunting song, and William Metcalfe, composer of the tune, and will he in the form of a public shelter. Mr J. Leslie MacCallum. solicitor, Oakleigh, Boswall road, Leith, as repfesentative of the Edinburgh Lakeland Association, is secretary to the fund, and an effort is being made to raise £3OO before April 30 by means of small subscriptions from all natives of the two counties and other lovers of the hunting song. Mr R. Scaife, Midland Bank, Wallsend, Northumberland, is the hon. treasurer. TRUE TO TRADITION. It is an amazing story, Elizabethan in its daring, that Captain Liddell Han has disclosed in the ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ If air bombing is to be practised at all, the art of hitting the target must be acquired. To this end, the Admiralty has provided itself with unsinkable speed-boats. The vital parts are protected by bomb-proof armour; the vulnerable parts are so thin that the bombs go through them These boats carry crews. While under bombfire the men shelter under the armour; after the exercise they plug the holes the bombs have made. They volunteer for the job and had been it for nearly eighteen months before the public heard of it. Such is the spirit of our Navy.—‘ Observer.’ DEFENCE—-AGAINST WHOM? Whether Lord Londonderry and Mr Baldwin, meant the same thing or different" thifig's (personally 1 saw little discrepancy between their statements) in the air debates in the two Houses, one question leaps inevitably out of both their speeches—against whom are we needing more air defence? There are only two countries of any consequence capable geographically of attacking us by air. lliese two are France and Germany. Of them trance certainly enters at present into no one s calculation, and Germany, whatever mav be believed about her secret 1 rearmament, can be in no position to menace us seriously till she can build military aeroplanes openly on an extensive scale. If " - e do need to bund against her we shall start. some oou machines to the good. This is by no means the last word on the aviation problem, but.it does suggest that anything like panic measures are premature. —“ Janus,” in the ‘ Spectator. THE 24-HOUR CLOCK. We are a pig-headed • lot when it comes to a question like the 24-hour clock. Nearly every foreign country has adopted it. Its practical advantages are manifest and great. It lays no strain on the meanest intelligence. No one need use the 24-hour system in Jiis private calculations if he likes the 12-hoifr better. But just because we are accustomed to the 12-hour method, and, perhaps, just because foreigners prefer the other, we are going to stick to the 12-hour method to qll eternity. It took a war to give us daylight snvino-. The 24-hour clock hardly quite needs that, for the railways, with the heirs, executors, and assigns ot the late Mr Bradshaw co-operatmg, could achieve the revolution, even if the Postmaster-General still hung back. Conservatism need not always triumph over common sense. —“ Janus,’ in the ‘ Spectator.’ ANOTHER VIEW. Gro\yn people never bother to look at the figures on the dial of a clock or watch; they know how the hands point at any given time. The given time is to them merely a name for a definite position of the hands. They do not require two names; one is enough. They expect printers and writers to say which half of the day is meant, when there is any doubt, by adding a.m. or p.ra. If the given time is 12 o’clock they expect noon or midnight to be added when necessary. To save printers and writers this small trouble the suggestion is that the public must subtract 12 from every printed or written time for nearly three-quarters of one’s working day.—Brigadier-general D. Brady, in ‘ The Times.’ ANTHEM SINGING. The. issue of a new Church Anthem Book authorised by the. General Assembly of the Church of Scotland should mark a definite advance in the services of worship. In certain churches the anthem, is a regvdar feature in the order of the service, and it may be said with little tear of contradiction that these are the churches which most readily draw good congregations. The anthem has the virtue not onlv of making a pleasing addition to the hymns and psalms, but the necessity it imposes on the choir of meeting 'for practice, it results in an all-round improvement of the singing. With Dr W. Greenhouse Allt and Mr Herbert Wiseman as the musical advisers it goes without saying that the Anthem Book is an admirable anthology of beautiful and dignified music, admirably arranged for both vocal and instrumental purposes. Some very useful hints are also given on enunciation, which may be epitomised in the phrases: “Time every consonant; tone every vowel; tune every note. ’ — ‘ Weekly Scotsman.’