CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 183, 4 July 1936, Page 8

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer.”)

Home Training: “If your children become unmanageable, quickly switch their attention.” Baffled Mother; “Their what.' • * * » * Someone, says a witty American, is trying to determine what is the oldest joke in the - world. We don’t know, but “Elect me and I’ll reduce taxes dates a long way back. » * • • • A proposal to erect a memorial cairn over the ruins of the humble cottage at Drumlaighart, Glenorchy, where Duncan Ban Maclntyre (Fair-liair-ed Duncan of the Songs), was born in 1724, is being considered in Scottish Gaelic circles. Duncan Ban is considered the greatest Gaelic bard and song writer of ali time, and his anniversary is observed by Highlanders all over the world, hut his home is almost forgotten. The ruined “but-and-ben ’ where the bard was born lies high on the mountain side above Inveroran. It is now used for penning sheep and is fast crumbling to decay. In a few years the stones will probably be scattered over the hillside and the exact place of his birth lost for ever. The proposaL is to gather together the remaining stones and build with them a fitting and lasting memorial. It is a remarkable fact that Duncan Ban could neither read nor write. • « • • • Among important celebrations on the way, including the Coronation of King iijdward, none can hope to achieve the lavish magnificence of the ceremonies attending the silver jubilee of the Nizam of Hyderabad, postponed from February on account of the death of King George. The various festivities will cost over a million pounds, it is said, and half a mil- ! lion of the Nizam’s subjects will attend | free banquets, at which 10,000 oxen will be consumed. The chief event, the jubilee procession, will be three miles long, and include hundreds of gorgeously caparisoned elephants and batteries of cannon in solid silver. The Nizam himself will ride in a coach of pure gold. The Nizam may be the world ■ richest man; in private life no one could be more modest in his wants. Unless when State functions demand his presence elsewhere, he lives in a small house, and he has a great affection for old clothes. So much so, in fact, that on one occasion, going to inspect his new palace in Delhi, he was turned away brusquely by the lodge-keeper, who mistook him for some itinerant beggar. A great lover of children, the Nizam adores his little grandson, whoso mother is the Princess Durru Shevar, the beautiful daughter of the ex-Sultan of Turkey. This very valuable baby will be visiting Europe shortl}', and will have a picked bodyguard of twenty-four detectives.

The passing years have enshrined in many of England’s famous buildings, particularly those with ecclesiastical associations, and many an interesting story is revealed from time to time. A case in point is Winchester Cathedral, which, though not of surpassing beauty, has the distinction of being the longest cathedral in England. St. Switliun, who is associated in the public mind with a prophecy regarding weather, is the patron saint of the cathedral. It is extremely difficult to sift the few grains of fact from the vast masses of legend concerning St. Swithun, who, from all accounts, was a truly spiritual mau, and used his great position not for the furtherance of his own position and glory but for the advantage of Christianity. He journeyed through his see on foot, and when he gave a banquet he invited the poor and needy and not the wealthy and influential. It is a further tribute to the humility of St. Swithun that when he died he gave orders that he was to be buried outside the church in a “vile and unworthy place,” which orders were duly carried out. It was felt, however, that so good and great a man should reecive more honourable interment, and his remains were transferred to the basilica of the cathedral on July 15, 971 A.D. It is said that the saint marked his displeasure of this disregard of his wishes by sending a sharp shower of rain during the transference. This may be the origin of the legend regarding St. Swithun which is a part of the common traditions of the 'British people : “St. Swithun’s Day, if thou dost rain, For forty days it will remain, St. Swithun’s days, if thou be fair, For forty days will rain no mair.”

The cables recently announced the opening performance of the Royal Opera at Covent Garden and the commencement of the London “season.” A correspondent of an overseas paper has asked how many habitual operagoers to-day are familiar with the origin of Covent Garden. l\>w many realise that in the days of the “Merry Monarch” the present site of the Royal Opera House was part of the “convent” kitchen garden belonging to the Abbot of Westminster? As the. Merry Monarch coveted this bit of fertile land he obtained posession of it as a grazing field for his Royal sheep. Later, this ground was ceded by the Crown to one John Russell at the yearly rent of £6 6s 8d !■—thus began the Bedford Estate. In Queen Elizabeth's time it was fashionable to have town houses with gardens and orchards in this part of “growing” London. History tells us that “gentry” followed the “nobility” and so the “taverns” had to come, too, and set up their swinging signs in the neighbourhood. “Gaming” or gambling houses followed the taverns, gone the days of grazing sheep and bee-buzzing orchards; Covent Garden had become a residential centre. It was at Covent Garden that the first “gangsters” appeared. A famous one was “Tiger Roach,” whose heyday was in 1769. He was the master mind of a gang as well organised ns any “Chicago Racket.” A contemporary wrote: “London is really dangerous nowadays; the pickpockets, formerly content with pilfering, make no , scruple to knock people down. In the Piazzas of Covent Garden they come in largo bodies armed with couteaus (knives) and attack whole parties, so that the danger of coming out of the playhouses is of some weight.” The present Opera House was built in 1858 —had it been erected 11 years sooner it would have witnessed the unparalleled success of the biggest opera “star” of the Victorian Era. When Jenny Li Vi— nicknamed “The Swedish Nightingale”—sang in London the carriages attending her performances were innumerable. Jenny Lind was born in Stockholm in 1820 and made her debut at Covent Garden on May 4, 1847.