Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 26 June 1937, Page 4

Timely Topics

RUSSIANS CLASSLESS SOCIETY. Deep disappointment at what he found in Russia is recorded by M. Andre Gide, the eminent Frenchman, in his book, “Back from the U.S.S.R.” He admits he went to Russia to praise, but found it ■ “like an ant-hill of scurrying, happy, self-satisfied, ignorant ants hidden from Europe by long tufts of rank grass.” During the summer months, he* writes, almost everyone is dressed in white. Everyone is like everyone else.'

“In no other place is the result of social levelling so obvious as in the streets of Moscow —a classless society of which every member seems to have the same needs as every other. I exaggerate a little, but not much,” he says. “There is an extraordinary uniformity in people’s dress; no doubt it would be equally apparent in their 'minds, if one could see them. I visited several dwellings in this highly prosperous kolkhose. I wish I could convey the queer and depressing impression produced by each one of these ‘ homes,’ the imagination of complete depersohalisation. | “In each, the same Ugly furniture, the same portrait of Stalin, and absolutely nothing else, not the smallest i object; not the smallest personal I souvenir: Every time you talk to one [Russian you feel as if you were talking* to them all. I doubt whether in any other country in the world, even in Hitler’s Germany, thought be less free, more bowed down, more fearful (terrorised), more vassalised.”

" B B S' B, Words That Tell A Story LAID UP IN LAVENDER. Taken, great care of; laid away, as a .-. woman puts things away in . lavender to keep off moths. Persons who are in hiding are said to be in lavender. ■ m h ®; §§ n.o You Know —r —? (1.) When was the British and Foreign Bible Society formed?* v (2.) What was Cade’s Rebellion? (3.) Who was Agnes Strickland? ■ (4.) Who wrote, “It’s Never Too Late To Mend”? * (5.) Who was Leda? (6.) Who were the Brethren of the Free Spirit? ■V. Answers to the above Questions will he found on Page 3. • . P '■ B . M- B Words Of Wisdom Wit > loses its respect with' the, good when seen in company with malice; and to 'Smile at the jest which places a thorn in another’s breast is to become a principal in the mischief.- — Sheridan. B P 05 ® Tale Of The Day

“Bobby, will you have some more ice cream?” “No, thanks. Mother says I don’t want any more.”