CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 210, 4 August 1934, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer.”) The bride was shopping for a vaouum clcuner, «» hibitinir several different- makes. “What is the name of that one f she inquired, indicating a machine. b “That is the Belvidere,” replied tha Sa Tlxe a bride gave him a withering glance. “And can you recommend the Belva?” she inquired icily.

In a small country town a learned nrnfessor of convivial habits vas brought before the local magistrate. “Vto’re charged with bein’ drunk and disorderly,” snapped the magistrate. “Have ye anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn, began the professor. “I am not so neuro ic as Poe, so profligate as Byron, so intemperate as Burns, so vulgar as Sh “ThaUU r dof°thatTl do,” interrupted the magistrate. “Seven days. And, officer, take down that list of names he mentioned and round up. think thy’re as bad as he^is.

The more extensive the service one renders the greater the disruption when that service is withdrawn. in a very real way, apparently, the whole of the South of England this week had the truth brought home when Battersea power station -Britain’s “Cathedral of Light”—for about two hours failed to feed the extensive grid that traverses the contiguous counties. Pylons at regular vals bearing the sturdy cables are the only evidence of the 66-000 volts of electricity superseding the previous supplies, and in this immense station, with its two 3ooft. chimneys, it is simplicity that creates wonderment rather than does the immensity. Two thousand tons of coal are consumed everv 24 hours, but it is the boast or the whole of Britain that not a wisp of smoke leaves the great chimneys—— it is only steam ! The gases from the 18 furnaces are washed clean of all their sulphuric elements by being passed through screens down which water is passing. Grit arresters are also used, and when the /‘scrubbing has been completed it is said that a person could place his head in the discharge without fear, for . electric “eyes” in the chimneys have indicated to" the engineers below the course to be taken to ensure absolute pureness of the atmosphere. This giant unit is fed by automatic stokers and every portion is under expert care of tlie engineers merely by the observation ol meter readings. The men do not even handle the great switches —for safety’s sake —but an overhead crane does the job when the load is cut off, and only then, for huge voltages command respect, even in a “Cathedral of Light”—a cognomen not out of place when one considers the quiet simplicity of the factory of controlled lightning. .....

Few generals express themselves in the free and frank manner of Sir lan Hamilton. Addressing the doughty pensioners of the Chelsea Hospital*. London, at the Founders’ Day parade, the otfier day, he made some amusing comments on London’s heroes in bronze and stone. After he had taken the salute, he described the parade as a stately picture —soldiers decorated with many war medals—“good war medals with clasps, not those foreign decorations they ladled out so freeiy in the Great AVar.” By now, he went on, most of the war commanders had become statues. “Oiten,” he said, “I respectfully raise my hat to the biggest military figure of my youth, the Luke of Cambridge, who was always served with pork chops and green peas after his inspections so that a pleasant impression should be left on his mind. There he sits bang in the middle of Whitehall fairway, reviewing buses instead of Dragoons. “In a corner of the Hors 6 Guards Parade ground, on his fiat feet stands Lord K. I don’t quite understand why they have dismounted him. Perhaps we have no one now who can make a horse of metal, for you remember that lialf-hippopotamus, half giraffe which seemed to be the best they could sculpt for Lord Haig. I hope they had not taken K.’s spurs off, but I’ve never felt cold-blooded enough to look. Then, hard by, we had Lord Napier of Magdala. But he has been chivvied off his pitch in Waterloo Place by the statue of King Edward the Seventh, and was never allowed to draw rein till he got to Queen’s Gate. He is far away from the sound of the drums. So, too, I feel, the chivalrous Sir George White, defender of Ladysmith, must feel a bit lonesome in the sombre milieu of Portland Place.”

All things considered, lie thought the pensioners of Chelsea most fortunate persons. The only one of their number who was likely to ornament the street* after death was the Governor 1

- The inauguration by the King of the Belgians of the reconstructed belfry at Y'pres recalls the terrific bombardment which that city suffered in the AVar. “The Y’pres salient,” it was often said, “is never quiet,” and one corner of the town itself was generally held to be “the most dangerous corner in Europe.” The famous Cloth Hall, the belfry of which is now restored, was once the finest Gothic public building in Belguim, but the War rendered it a scarcely recognisable ruin. The main facade was surmounted in the centre by a superb square belfry 230 ft high, flanked with turrets. Though the town itself was saved it became badly battered.

Reference to the Jacques Cartier celebrations in this week’s cables brings to mind the fact that he was the discoverer of the St. Lawrence River in Canada. A French navigator, he set out to look for a north west passage to the East in 1534 with two snips and 61 men. Starting in April he reached Newfoundland after some 20 days’ sail and entered the strait of Belle Isle. He followed the coast northward after being driven towards the mainland, and found the passage between Acosti and Quebec. He decided to leave its exploration until tlie next year. In May, 1506, he left St. Malo with three ships and anchored on August 9 in Pillage Bay, opposite Anticosti, which he named the Bay of St. Lawrence, which name afterwards spread to include the gulf and finally the river. Leaving liis two smaller vessels in the St. Charles, where it enters the St. Lawrence, ho ■set off westward with a barque and longboats. The former grounded in Lake St. Peter but in the latter he reached an Indian village on the present site of Montreal. The Lachine Rapids checked any progress beyond that point. To convince Francis I and to give him authentic information Cartier seized the chief and 11 men of one. Indian tribe and took them back to France. He entered the Atlantic again in July, 1537 In 1841 Cartier again left France, with five vessels, under the seigneur de Roberval, and in waiting for the seigneur to arrive he further inspected the Lachine Rapids. On his way back to France he met the seigneur going to Canada and the next year he commanded an expedition to' bring the seigneur back, he having made a futile attempt to make his way up to Ottawa.