Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 21 February 1939, Page 4

Timely Topics

“At the last census, according to the “Economist's” calculations, Germany had 140 inhabitants per square kilometre. Britain

SURPRISING FACTS.

(said Mr Noel Baker, in the House of ComUnn o£/! 1C

mons) has 264, that is, there is nearly twice 'as great a pressure in Britain in spite of the colo- | nies which we possess. Moreover, only one-tenth of Germany is uncul|livable land, whereas one-fifth of our , land cannot-be 'Cultivated.

“In spite of all our colonies, we have a net annual increment of population, due to the return of emigrants from Dominions overseas. Before the War, Germany had an annual increase in population of 730,000. She had a i total emigration of 25,000, but, of I these, according to the “Economist,” the average emigration to the colo' nies in the last pre-War years was 33.. In 1913.. the total number of all | the Germans in the colonies, after 30 | years of Empire, was 19,700, of- whom more than - 3000 • were Germfen' soldiers and police. The result was 4 , that | they had transplanted / one jtfylriy' seventh of the' annual in [their population.” |HI Ei H■■ «B ■.« ■ f [lt would appear from - recent coi v [respondence in “The Times," of Lonjdon, that the early history of the hail I Vvvi i r>Vi TTholon/t ici

:‘ • ■ j THE HAIR I BRUSH. t,

brush in England 1 3 wrapped in - obscurity The surprising fact

| emerges, however, that, Iso far as can be gathered, the brush I did not come into general use before I the nineteenth century; Until then | the comb reigned supreme. * Yet if one gives credit for the vogue of the brush to the men, the fact is not so surprising. For the'comb is by no means such a suave instrument as the, brush, and the Early Victorian gentleman, so fashionably hirsute, had reason to shrink, from thus arming himself to the teeth. The-' Elizabethans were close cropped, and might wield the comb with impunity; the men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were usually “Periwig-pated”; but the Victorian’s trouble was upon his own head.

Nor*is it astonishing that women who had always worn their hair long, had been content to endure the comb; for with them the inducement to 'Jake added pains was greater. Their effort was not made only to satisfy a transitory convention —if they were martyrs, they had, by a long-main-tained and unanimous verdict, the' reward for a “crowning glory.” '