CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 192, 15 July 1939, Page 8

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer.”) Paul: “Can any of you school girls tell me’ what a mandate isP Jane; “Yes, sir, an appointment with a gentleman.”

When we look into the long avenue of the future and see the good there is for each one ot us to do, we realise alter all what a beautiful thing it is to work, and to live, and be happy.— R. L. Stevenson. t #

The new AYaterloo Bridge being built in London is to span not only the broad bosom of the Thames River, hut also an unknown gap of years. For its northern abutment has been made the repository for certain clues to posterity regarding the way tilings aie in Britain to-day. Jho things m question being some coins, stamps, newspapers and periodicals, all sealed ,up in a copper cylinder and placed m 11io foundation stone of the new bndge. The ceremony of placing them there was conducted 40 feet below the Thames ..Embankment level, in the presence of Airs Eveline Lone, ehaiinian of the London County Council's Supplies Committee. Imagine the surprised delight in eyes of the future when the interred antiquities-to-bo next see the light of day, remarks a correspondent. Especially the L'JJ copies of Vogue and the Tailor and Cutter, with illustrations of those q,uaint Twentieth Century fashions lr.nn the late thirties. When John Rennie built AYaterloo Bridge there was no such thing as tho Tailor and Cutter, which was first published in 1866, but if there had been such a periodical and a copy of it had been enshrined in AVaterloo bridge prior to the completion of that edific in 1817. modern beholders would undoubtedly have marvelled at the styles in the transitional- period of men’s dress between knee ' breeches wjtli buckled shoes and the frock coat with the first version of modern trousers. At this very moment, many relics of the past lie intentionally buried in various parts of London. Beneath Cloepatra’s Needle on the Embankment opposite the Adelphi, for example is a collection from Victorian times. Planted in 1877, it includes plans and details of the transporting from Egypt and erecting of the ancient monolith, a portrait of Queen A’ictorin. Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, and various other items calculated to intrigue anyone who sees them —if anyone ever docs.

As the cablegrams indicated at the time, the Royal visit to the United States was indirectly responsible lor (he elevation of the frankfurter or “hot dog” to a new dignit.v. The occasion of the national dish being served at the President’s Hyde Park picnic was accepted by the National Sausage Casing Dealers’ Association to enumerate some interesting facts about it. ‘ r The frankfurter sausage,” the association reveals, “received its name from Frankfort-on-Alain, Germany.” “But this,” it says, “is actually a misnomer. A 7 ienna was the home of the finest sausages, so that weenie or weiner, a corruption of iveinerwurst was more technically correct. The origin of the term ‘hot dog’ is apocryphal,” it goes on to explain. “The first story ascribes its use to T. A. Dorgan, a cartoonist, who employed it in his comics. The second relates that the nickname of ‘dog’ for frankfurter goes back to the ißCiO's. but was popularised by Harry Mosely Stevens, bail park caterer, of the early 1900’s, who instructed his vendors to shout, ‘hot dogs’.” The regulation “hot dog.” according to the association, is “composed of an outer casing stuffed with a combination of loan beef chucks and lean pork well chopped. To this mixture is added enough pork fats for juiciness and savour. The mixture is seasoned with pepper, salt, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, paprika and corcandes —a spice from Ceylon. After the casing is stuffed. to its 13-foot length, it is divided up into the sj-i nch franks. The easing is', as many people have long suspected. the small intestine of a sheep, rigorously inspected by the Government before use. As to eating “liot dogs,” the association gives throe ways: (I) Standard or American method, on split finger roll —far the most popular. (2) Crude or pioneer method, without a roll in the bare hand. Very rare in the United States. (3) AA'nldorf-Astoria or snob method—“hot dogs” on a platter, eaten with knife and fork.

At the moment “all is quiet” on the North-West Frontier and in other parts of India, hut it is safe to assume that the duties of the Indian Police Force arc little the less arduous on that account. Shaped out of the co-operative effort and abilities of Indians and British, it has been designed to meet demands made in no other country. The police service, as if is now, was instituted by Act of Parliament in 1801. Its constitutents are the fully-developed forces of eleven provinces: Bengal, Madras, Bombay, the United Provinces, the Punjab, Assam. Bihar, Orissa, the Central Provinces and Berar, the North-West Frontier Province, and Sind. Each lias an inspector-general its head, and the total strength, officers and constables,, is about 170,000. The lower ranks are wliollv Indian; of the 600 officers about ISO are Indians—and more are entering the service of their country each year. Officers, always appointed by the British Secretary ol State for liuka, are recruited in that country and in England by competitive examination. Each provincial force is responsible to the Legislature of its province, though conditions of service, as iar as officers are concerned, are the responsibility of the Secretary for India. However remote or inaccessible, there is no village in India iinvisite’d by the police. And the suppression of crime many of the offences with which they have to deal are unknown elsewhere—is only half their job. They help to fight plague, famine, drought, flood, fire, earthquakes; practically every detail of Indian village life is their concern : the state of the' crops, feasts, and fairs, the condition of the roads, even private jealousies and quarrels.

All the various Forces have huge areas of country to cover —many European countries are smaller—and •scores of dialects to master. They are called on to work at freezing heights and in burning deserts, with populations varying in density from near a thousand to under a hundred to the square mile. And they must be the friendly guides of members of primitive communities no less than the guardians of the citizens of big centres. Wherever the Indian Police go, whatever they do, they press still deeper,- as one authority has said, the hall-mark of a great idea ; equal freedom for every man on his lawful occasions.