TIMELY TOPICS

Northern Advocate, 30 May 1936, Page 6

TIMELY TOPICS

JUST LIKE LIFE.

On the day following the running of the Grand National, the London “News Chronicle” printed the following leading article: The people who like comparing things to Life (generally with the object of supporting by irrelevant analogies conclusions which they have already formed) should certainly turn their attention to the Grand National. It really is rather like Life. Yesterday’s race is quite a good illustration of the fact. Of the field of 35, only 10 horses finished the gruelling course at all. And on other courses than Aintree it is unfortunately true that the number who finish the race is a very small proportion of those who start.

But yesterday’s race was full of very human figures. There is the horse who ought to have won and broke his neck instead. And long before the end of the race many a hot human favourite is not only dead but forgotten. There is the horse who might have won had he had a mind to do so, but fell at the first fence. Why Golden Miller, the wonder horse, did not win, Golden Miller perhaps knows. His backers have been taught once more the ancient lesson that the race is not always to. the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Then there is the horse that nearly did win, and would have won but that the reins broke at the critical moment. One meets those horses every day on the human racecourse; Finally, there is the horse that did win; and here surely the moralist may take heart. For Reynoldstown is no outsider, but a fine steady racehorse; not flashy, perhaps, but well-behaved. Merit wins; and there can be no accident about it, for has not this modest paragon performed a feat unparalleled for 66 years (ignoring the War years) by winning the Grand National twice running? There, then, is the moral. Let us not spoil it by the untimely recollection that the great race has upon occasion been won by the rankest of rank outsiders and was once won by a horse which threw its rider in the first round and went on to win riderless.

And yet there might be a moral in that, too. II H El El The Week’s Quotation.

(A quotation from Shakespeare’s plays will appear every Saturday.) Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar; The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried. Grapple them to thy soul vnih hoops of steel; But do not dtill thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy. But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the men. Neither a borrower nor u lender be. For loan oft loses both itself cnd_ friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, ns the night the day. Thou can’t not then be false to any man.

The source of the above quotation is given on Page 3. El El El IS Words That Tell A Story. MORE KICKS THAN HA’PENCE.— The allusion is to the monkeys carried about for show. They pick up the halfpence, but carry them to the master, who keep “kicking” or ill-treating the poor creature to urge them to incessant tricks. ■ El m si ® Do You Know —? (1.) What and where is Point de Galle? (2.) Of what event is today, May 30, the 505th anniversary? (3.) Who was the second President of the United States? (4.) What is the height of Mt. Tasman in the Southern Alps? (5.) What was the nickname of Richard III? (6.) What is the New Zealand Cross? Answers to the above will be found on Page 3. 11 0 El IS Words of Wisdom. Ah, how skillful grows the hand That obeyeth love’s command. It is the heart and not the brain That to the highest doth attain. And he who followeth love’s behest Far exceedeth all the rest. —Longfellow,

m h ia ii