NEWS AND OPINIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21784, 28 July 1934, Page 2

NEWS AND OPINIONS

' looking Backward,’ Emma S. Bellamy, 73 years old, a resident of Springfield, Massachusetts, is the widow of Edward Bellamy, whose book, 1 Looking Backward,’ was regarded as visionary toward the close of the last century. Emerging from lief retirement of recent years, to devote herself to furthering her late husband’s doctrines,- she now is finding renewed stimulus from her large correspondence with Bellamy Clubs in every quarter of the globe. ‘ Looking Backward,’ first published _in 1887, predicted an American for the year 2,000 A.D.—New York ‘ Literary Digest.’ • V;, ' ! ' PLAYS AND FILMS. The most astonishing truth to be dug up out of a survey of Stage and films and their power over public, good taste is that a good play, whether clean or suggestive, will do good business, while a badly written and produced play, whether clean of suggestive, has no chance whatsoever for success. A suggestive film, even before the crusade against erotic pictures began. invariably did less business than a clean picture,, and its quality as a piece of dramatic manufacture had nothing to do with it. j: ‘ Little Women ’ was a recordbreaker only recently. Currently, the clean pictures, in which a newly-dis-covered five-year-old. girl star is making sensational performances, have jammed the theatres. The average theatre audience doesn’t care if a play is dirty, so long as it is entertaining and well-acted. The average film audience will laugh embarrassedly and superficially at a dirty picture, but it will react with profound emotion to a clean - one.—New York ‘ Literary Digest.’ '

MOTORS SUPPLANT CAVALRY. One of the results of the recent reorganisation of the French cavalry (writes the Paris correspondent of the London ‘ Observer ’), is that the 4th Cavalry Division will in future hot include a single mounted unit,: but will be entirely motorised, while an important proportion of each of the other four cavalry divisions will consist of motorised units. Among the _ famous battalions to- be deprived entirely of their horses : ate the 4th Dragoohs, the 18th Dragoons, and the 6th Cuirassiers. NEW HEAD OF SCIENTIST CHURCH. More than 6,000 delegates attended the annual meeting of the Mother Church, .The First Church of Christ Scientist;' in Boston, and elected Dr (John M. Brewer president. Doctor .Brewer is associate ptofessor of education and director of the bureau of vocational guidance at . Harvard University. He euceeds Miss Mary G. Ewing. Edward L. RiplCy and Ezra W; Palmer, of Brookline, Massachusetts, were elected treasurer and clerk, respectively. • The addition of thirty-two churches, v fifty-«i'uc societies and five university organisations during the past year was reported, bringing the number of branches of the Mother Church to £,673 and the number of university organisations to forty-eight. BIRDS AND EARLY RISING. It would seem that the skylark has established its reputation for early nsing simply by persistent advertising .(writes’ the London correspondent of, ■'the Melbouriie ‘Age’). In fact—as. recent observations have- made clear—,tbo humble and modest, hedge sparrow is the first-up; . He beats the lark by several l minutes, and about .a couple of early worms. But the Jark ; '.—thus resembling so many human -belings—likes the world to know when he rises, and rushes off, so that all may. see arid hear, to aimoimce hiswakefulness at heaven’s gales. Hence all the inaccurate poetry about hiiri in pteference to the lively little sparrow, which is, of course,; further hampered in the literary sense by a name that rhymes uuromantically with iriarfow and wheelbarrow. Naturalists, en masse, have been staying up, all flight to time 'these bird songs at dawn and to test the theory—fairly .well established—that a wave of melhdy spreads across the land from east to west. They have done something to repair,:in the sparrow’s interest, the inaccurate nature notes of the poets. They put the lark second on the list. After him the redleg show a leg, and then the blackbird, followed by the thrush, joiris the morning chorus, with the pheasant, robin, and, rook running .them- close. The chaffinch seems, to _he the laziest among the common birds. He is .nfjt heard- until 4.42' ■ British' sumpier time. Or perhaps he has the decency not to sjng until after breakfast. THE SMALLEST BlfiO. t At the end of May the sniallOsh bird known to exist was placed on exmlrition at the London *O6 fdr themrst time. It is known (says the-‘ Manchester Guardian’), as the pigmy hermit humming bird, and is to be seen .in a separate cage, glass-fronted,' m the lesser of the two hummingbird gardens,. The separate cage .is . not so much a concession'to the solitary habit that gives the bird one part <?f its name as a measure of protection. Hummlng birds arc notoriously quarrelsome and fight with great fierceness. This tiny bird is too small to hold its own against tho other inmates of the garden, although they are some of. the smallest of trie collection. The piginy, if you exclude its tail and its beak, which are of approximately equal length, is just ahorit as large as one of the greater bumble bees. It has a thin, warbling note much louder than you would think could issue from so small a body, and when, it hovers iri Higlit the hum,of-its wings very Closely resembles the drone of the bee. It is a marvel that it should have bgen possihle to transport so diminutive a bird in safety all the way from the tropical forests of Brazil to the Zoological bardens in London. • A YEAR OF JUBILEE.

For Canada, 1934 is a year of jubilee. The dominion is celebrating a series of important anniversaries, and many countries have joined in sending; expressions of good will.. - The' latent example (says the London ‘ Daily Telegraph ’), is provided by President floosevelt. He proposes giving Xoronlo a singularly appropriate “ birthday present.” This is the. Speaker s mace, which in 1813 lay on . the table of Ontario’s Parliament House and » now in the U.S. Naval Academv at Annapolis. Jn that year General .1 ike', with 2,500 men,- ; ferried »cro»B Lake Ontario, captured the village of._iorJt (capital of Ontario, and site or t (10 now great city of Toronto), and raided the Parliament - buildings. When the Americans loft they took with . them the mace, the wooden figure or the British lion which surmounted the Chair, thq Sneaker’s wig, and the Royal standard which . flew over the Governor’s house. Since 1814 the pence between the two countries has never been, disturbed. • Yet the York episode had left one unfortunate memory, which- is. now,, to be erased by mutual consent. General Pike was Killed in the town by a flying stone from an

exploding magazine. 'The incident wai treated by. Pike’s men as justification for breaking the pledge not to sack York, arid a year later the British retaliated by burning Washington. On. July 4 the mayor of Toronto unveiled an ’American memorial in Tork_ to the memory of General Pike, Dtjnnja; dog summer President Roosevelt will reopen Fort Niagara, the only place m the world where the British, french, and American flags fly daily side by side. GOLD BOOM. The Stocfe Exchange of Adelaide ha« just witnessed a ftenii&J btMira recalling tbe hectic days when the Golden kn© was at ‘ its fame (states the /Australian News Letter ’ for July)one day a record of 330,000. shares changed hands, while for tbc week-the total was 1,490,000, nearly four times ipore than the normal figure.; Sine# the boom began threeweeks ago three million shares have been sold, a figure equal to the business for three too nth* under ordinary circritostances. in* feverish activity is attributable, not to the discovery of new fields, but, to the high price of gold, and the conviction Of operators that it will remain for aj considerable time. Tbe price in Australian currency (25tb June) IS £8 12s 7id per ounce. West Australia s gold s’told Joi the first five months of 1934 was 2(p0,110oz» worth ' £2,212,000 in Australian currency, an, increase of _ 13,7580 z compared with the production fpr the corresponding period of the previous year. The May output was 52.5540 z, worth £446,927, a reduction 1 of 2,2000 z on that for the previous month, and <4ooa less than for May, 1933.