CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 111, 11 April 1936, Page 8

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer.”) 11 Duce has demonstrated to Italian the police had an easy job l burg lar had absentmindedly left ins tools behind in a box which bore his name and address! . .

Bois Blanc Island, in the Straits of Mackinac, Scotland, might be regarded as a Utopia for everyone except newspapermen, for it holds the. distinction of being the- place where nothing happened in 1935. During the year there were no births and no deaths the one hundred inhabitants of the island. There were also no accidents, no fires - no marriages, divorces, criminal or civil law cases, reports the township clerk, Mr Charles Plaunt. Utopia f Well, it might suit people^

The revolution in German music by which Wagner’s operas are to be “civilised” at-the behest of the Nazis will entail much work. The entire “Ring” is to be changed: With “The Ring of the Nibelungs Wagner devoted himself to a story which the .ordinary man would have found most unwieldy. The huge structure of the poem grew, as. it were, backwards, and developed out of \» agner’s original idea of an opera on the death of Germany’s mythical hero, Siegfried. This, he soon found, needed a preliminary drama tx> convey its antecedents, and this in its turn required another to explain it. Finally; the plan of the Ring was completed . by. a short introductory drama. _The Ring, therefore, consists of four parts, a prologue “Das- Rheingold” (“The Rlunegold ) and “Die Walkure” (“Tlie Vfilxynes ) “Siegfried” and “Gotterdammerung (“Twilight of the #

On Good Friday, a service was relayed to the Empire from St. Sepulchre’s Church, Holborn, London, at which the address was delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury. St. Sepulchre’s is one of the finest of the Wren churches. It is situated on the corner of Giltspur Street and Holborn Viaduct. There has been .a church on. this site .from the- Twelfth Century, but the present building waa erected between 1666 and 1670 to take the place of the previous church, which, except for a Fifteenth Century tower which was saved and incorporated. in the new church, was destroyed by the Great Fire of London. Roger Ascham, the tutor- of Queen Elizabeth, and author of “The Schoolmaster,” was buried here. One of the vicars, John Rogers, was the first of the Protestant martyrs. Readers of Dickens will remember that it was the tower clock of St.- Sepulchre s which Bill Sykes heard when he was hurrying across Smitbfield with OliverTwist, whom he had captured. Many overseas visitors include this church in their itinerary of London.

Edward the Eighth has seven Christian names, and it is interesting to see the meaning of each. . Edward and Albert are Teutonic names meaning “rich guard* and “nobly bright” respectively. Christian is a Greek name meaning “follower of Christ.” Other names derived from the Greek are George, the name of the patron saint of England, meaning “husbandman,’.’ and Andrew, the name of the patron saint of Scotland, which stands for “man” (says the London Daily Telegraph). Patrick, the name of the patron saint of Ireland, comes from a Latin word for “noble.” David, the name of the patron saint of Wales, is a' Hebrew word meaning “beloved.” It was a happy idea to give the Prince the names of the patron saints of the four peoples of the British Isles. While the King’s designation is Edward the Eighth lie is really the eleventh King Edward who has reigned over England. There were three Saxon kings of the name before the Norman Conquest—Edward the Elder, Edward the Martyr, and Edward the Confessor. • * » «

A report from Budapest states that beggars there are issuing plaques to householders who contribute to a central alms fund. These plaques are hung in windows arid on doors, and guarantee immunity from further appeals from the begging fraternity. The news is hardly symptomatic of present-day social progress, and, says a Home correspondent, in any case, it is unlikely that in this country, with , its high standard of government and municipal relief, we shall see anything in ithe nature of an organised Beggars’ Union. It Vas not always so, as we are reminded in a book, “The Beggar’s Broby Ronald Fuller, published the other day. According to this author, charity was organised through the monasteries and Merchant Guilds until, in the Seventeenth Century, radical social changes altered everything. A new monied class sprang up with different views on charity to the needy, and the closing down of the monasteries is said to have thrown over 80,000 people into a state of destitution. It was about this time that a vast army of beggaars overran England. They had their “king” and other leaders, and were ruled by a series of complicated laws. Specialisation was then the order of the “Brotherhood,” as it is among beggars to-day. There were for instance, the counterfeit cranks, who simulated epilepsy by chewing soap, and the “clapperdugeons, who made an art of disfiguring themselves with artificial sores to excite sympathy. When a “king” was elected there were elaborate initiation ceremonies, held in a lonely place, and speeches were delivered in the beagars’ own jargon.