SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

Northern Advocate, 2 August 1924, Page 9 (Supplement)

SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

BEAUTY AT A.NY COST. Speaking at the social hygiene conference in London on the psychology of adolescence, Sir Frederick Mott said (the "Daily Telegraph" reports) that from the most humble to the most elevated conditions of life, at all times and among all peoples, young women did not recoil fi'om any means, and would submit to any form of physical discomfort or suffering to increase their attractiveness. "She pinches her feet in tight shoes," he said. "shf> wears short dresses and thin stockings in winter, pierces the ears, and even the lips and nose, in order to attach ornaments, and brings to her aid besides jewels and ornaments, emotional reactions which, make her more interesting and attractive." He urged the encouragement of early marriages among people healthy in mind and body.

Addressing the congress on "Education and Social Hygiene, ,, Professor J. A. Thomson said the problem was how education must help social hygiene. The solution must be found by experiments. "It is probable that love has suffered considerable materialisation," he said. "It is probable that the ideals of chastity, faithfulness, control, and clenr-mindedness have been weakened, and that men in particular— even in a country with our traditions— like pleasure more and endure hardness less than their forefathers did. ,, He strongly suspected that some devotees of psycho-analysis were doing harm by bringing intc everyday life and conversation a method appropriate to the laboratory and hospital.

THE "COPPER HORSE." STATESMAN'S FAUX PAS. Eecent allusions to Windsor have brought to mind a story which has always appeared worth quoting. It seems that a statesman of the period of Queen Victoria was staying , on a visit at Windsor Castle, as frequently happens nowadays. One afternoon he walked as far as Cumberland Lodge :ui(l paid lijp respects to Prince and Princess Christian. At dinner that evening ;>.n illustrious personage said: "I hope you were not tired by your long wnlk." "Oh! no, thank you, ma'am; Prince Christian kindly gave me a lift as far as the Copper Horse. , " "As far as what?" "The Copper Horse." It's my grandfather." Tho statesman who had been using the colloquialism of Windsor fly-drivers and Eton boys, was conscious that he might well have expressed himself differently. Under the circumstances the more magniloquent description, "the equestrian statue of George III," would have been much more suited to the occasion. • • * ♦

A MUSIC PUZZLE. THE BOTTOM NOTE. It is often a puzzle to people why the piano should .start at the bottom with A and finish at the top with A, and to explain it fully would require a whole chapter of history. It goes back right to the times when music was only beginning to exist in its present state, and when there were two scales each of four notes, one of them rising from B to E, $nd the other from E to A. Pythagoras, who was known as the father of musical science, joined these two scales together and made them one, and then, noticing that when they were sung or played downwards there was on unfinished feeling about them, he added another note at the bottom, called by the long name of "Proslnmbanomenoj-," or additional note. This, of course, was A, probably the now A of a bass or baritone voice; and since his time—that is, for about twenty-five centuries—A has been the bottom note of the scale for keyed instruments.

MATJRBTANIA'S SPEED. The Cunard liner Mauretania, which was sent to Cherbourg to be refitted because of the shipyard strike at Southampton, returned to Southampton with the work completed. Off the Isle of Wight she had a trial over a course of twenty-eight miles, fourteen with the tide and fourteen against. Her average speed was 26.4 knots for the twenty-eight miles, thus beating the record she established in 1910, when she steamed from Daunt Rock to New York in 4 days 10 hours 48 minutes, at an average speed of 26.06 knots. Running with the tide, the Mauretania touched thirty-one knots, and an official on board said it was thought that she would do even better under favourable conditions.