THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13262, 22 August 1906, Page 9

THINGS IN GENERAL.

GREY LYNN TRAMWAY. Thb Grey Lynn councillors and the repre- •:' sentatives of the .Richmond residents arc said to bo very satisfied with the result of • their recent interview with Mr. Raul Han- . " sen regarding their tramway extension proM posals. The inarch round the locality end- ? Ed in a nice little banquet, and the banquet '> elided in a few complimentary speeches' §f:'' No one, of course, wanted the tramway to '■'■- be extended for personal convenience or any other selfish reason. All with one accord "}' repudiated such an idea with indignation. and one man declared that if anyone could "/'prove that ho was actuated by such mo- ■ ' tives he would—well, I forget exactly what he would do, but it was something terrible. "Why did 1 come, to the district?" this man ' asked, and as no one appeared to be able to answer the conundrum lie informed the little company that his family bad so rapidly increased in stature and number that his old home became too small, and '. so he migrated into Grey Lynn. Every member of that exemplary Grey Lynn de- .">'■ putation only thought of the good of his 'neighbour, and of the district in general. , They were all out-and-out altruists at that ,' interesting little gathering, though Mr. Hansen did frankly admit that his company was run on business lines, and that his first 1 % consideration was whether the extension' ;■;.' would pay. His company, of course, fully "I ' recognised that it was to their interest to §| meet the wishes of the people in every possible way. and to carefully study the ¥£ public convenience. Tie believed the ex- ■ tension was needed, and would pay, and therefore the residents might take it for granted that the work would be done as soon ■--'" as possible. However, he would explain it all to them in one of those letters for which "he has become so fatuous. It will be the ' "Epistle of Paul to the Grey Lyunians." DRIVERS AND CONDUCTORS. I* It is stated that in the course- of his l interview with the representatives of Grey Lrnn Mr. Hansen made some very sensible remarks regarding the drivers and conduc- ;■'•'■■ tors. Someone had remarked that the men employed on Hie Grey Lynn section ' -were an exceptionally tine lot, and were iff most obliging, especially to the ladies and babies, and even went so far as to treat i mere man with civility. Mr. Hansen stated ■■;■: that people should not expect too much \* 'from the conductors. They were not quite :■ 'angels. They had their little troubles like i other men, and if now and then one of them seemed to be a. bit curt and snappy some ;». family trouble might be responsible for the IU fit of temper. Ho may have received a 1 . severe lecture from bis wife that morning, ;V or he may have had to do " sentry go" with H the baby the previous night. The travel- . '• ling public ought to take these things into ::' consideration, and certainly should not add 7 to'the poor man's troubles by wanting to H change a half-sovereign at the busiest time |or by causing unnecessary irritation in other 1 ..> ways. Sometimes a passenger on a crowd--1 ed car, when asked for his fare, will leiH surely feci in every pocket he possesses, and |si; then come back to the pocket he commenced i.' with, and produce the money. This is a poor sort of fun, and it speaks well for the ?•. conductors that in most cases they are able H'.to bear *t in silence. However. 1 believe H that on the whole the driver, conducts, and ,': passengers in an Auckland tramcar make a :; very happy family. The average man is a decent sorb of fellow, and if he expects civility he is also prepared to give it. HI Courtesy costs nothing, and it does a great ■ deal to niako life run smoothly, whether on )Vtne tramcar or anywhere else. A GOOD SUGGESTION. f"*?-The Dunedin Council of the Churches has ;, decided to ask the Government to obtain |B from time to time famous pictures from • England for exhibition in the colony. The Pi idea is a good one, and it is to be. hoped ;; ; : that the Government will take the matter h' tip. The recent exhibition of " The Light I of the World" has whetted our artistic appetites, and, like Oliver Twist, we want : ; more. It is true that wo were told rei? * cently that statues are out of date, and II there may be some who will declare that gfpte cost of . bringing out world-famed pic- | tures by the greatest masters is money ' wasted; but I think the majority of people will think otherwise. One Cling that such .; ; pictures will teach us in this very up-to-v: date colony is humility, and the lesson is ■■;:'" surely needed. Wo are inclined to be so |■'■.;'.- self-sufficient and cocksure, that we are in H danger of losing that teachable spirit with- ;' out which true progress is impossible. m Standing before a really great work of art S;V.we'are compelled to admit that there are v .- things in which we do not lead the world, and that we have much to learn from other races and bygone ages. No nation has a mono- -;; poly of genius, and there seems to be no v way of cultivating it. It, simply appears '/...■ just as it listeth. It is bom not made. Once or twice in a nation's history a Homer, a Dante, a Michel Angelo, a Giotto, a .', ,'Shakespere, or a Newton, appear. In the ..."presence of the works of sue!) men the ordi- ; nary individual, if he has sufficient wisdom V to recognise true greatness when ho sees '•jit, must feel humble, and humility of this V .kind is altogether good. ; fc '' . GENIUS. .-.', Where does genius spring from'.' This is One of the mysteries of life which science H• bai not yet solved. It does not seem to <be inherited, nor is it in the air. Take Giotto, for instance. His father was a simple husbandman, and he was born at a ~ time when good methods in art had long been entombed beneath the ruins of war. We'.are told that ho Mas led by Nature herself to the arts of design. "He was perpetually drawing on the stones, the M rtb, the sand, some, natural object, or fantasy that presented itself to his ■ thoughts. It chanced one day that the ■ affairs of Cimabuc took him from Florence ;■; ' to /Vespignano, and there he saw the young i v' : v Giotto, who, while his sheep fed around | him, was occupied in drawing one of then) j ■ from the life upon a smooth, clean piece ci ■ :.'.,;|ock--aiid that without any teaching what- j e hut such as Nature herself had imparted, j Citnabue became Giotto's teacher, and we ; a re told that, the latter "succeeded in re- I , suscitating art, and restoring her to a path j that may be called the true one." He became greater than his teacher, and, as I .Danto - puts it— to painting Cimabne thought that he - Hnould hold the field, now Giotto lias the cry. 00 "tat the other's fame is growing dim. J* is said that Giotto, when he was still a. i ™7» once painted a fly on the nose of a I '- ogure on which Cimabue was employed, and woi4.it so naturally that when the master returned to continue his work he believed l»ir\i be vcd , ant liftod his hand ,ore than »?S^ to drive it away before going on with ""painting. No one knows where genius T Sf.^ t dwell, and the sight of one of the great Pictures from\he Old World, which may be SSnibited in the colony, may be'the means bringing out the latent powers of some ping New Zealander destined to take a " ">g place among the world's painters. Incase, the exhibition of such art treats must have a wholesome influence, if p"y as an antidote to that wretched maoism which tells us that the only real sure of worth is L. s. d. One effect of Jtt'i- idea is that many people think that «» Sbakesiwre's works can be bough'- |£* Shilling they are only worth twelve ? m. ■■■- :;;■•-.;.: . ..v.; : .-.,..: .-■ L .J. . •■-.-. '■•'■'',■■'' : ■■. -■■ ' ■

LAUGH AND GROW FAT.

New Zealand's chief health officer (Dr. Mason) has no time for patent medicines, judging by his recent lecture in Wellington on the subject. However, I:, admits that they are not all worthless, but states that they may be divided into three classes —good, bad, and indifferent. But even doctor's medicines are not always certain to cure. Christian scientists tells us that, all medicines, if not- actually harmful, are at any rate useless, and the advocates of mental healing also declare that we take far too many pills and' potions. Oue of the cheapest remedies for human ills is laughter. I have medical authority for this statement, and there certainly seems to be a good deal in it. It undoubtedly has the merit of being harmless. The effect of mere cheerfulness as a health promoter is well known, but an occasional outburst of downright laughter is the heroic remedy. It is a I matter of everyday experience that one feels j the better for a good laugh, an explosion j of laughter being in truth a " nerve storm, comparable in its effect to a thunderstorm in nature, doing good by dissipating those oppressive clouds,"of care which sometimes darken the mental horizon." The old adage, "Laugh and mow fat." rests on a sound philosophical basis. Portly people are not given to laughter because they are tat: they are fat because they laugh.' The laugh remedy is an instance of a return to nature in the best sense, and patent and all other kinds of artificial medicine* are ail best necessary evils. QUEER DISHES. It is not only patent medicines that the doctors and experts would deprive us of, they are also setting us against much of the ordinary food which our fathers ate with relish. Of recent yeairs they have been warning us against this, that, and the other, and oue of the latest medical suggestions is t.iat vegetables are responsible for appendicitis. Do they want us to live on pills and prescriptions? Now that, so many foods have been barred by the medical profession, civilised man \a being driven in desperation to seek satisfaction for the appetite in new directions. Theie is just now a movement in England in favour of making snails a regular article ,of diet, and there arc many other curious dishes which we may yet, be compelled to adopt. In England 'horseflesh is occasionally sold surreptitiously, masquerading as beef. In the markets of most Continental cities horse and mule flesh is sold openly, in some cases, however, being under the surveillance of the police. " The Greeks ate donkeys, - they say, "and if donkeys were edib'.e. why not horses to-day'" Frogs are dearly prized by gourmets the world over. Snails are. of course, largely devoured in France, and help to tickle the jaded palate that has become cloyed with swollen goose liver and decayed salmon roes. The snails that aro eaten are the everyday, slimy little mollusks that are to be found by thousands in the gardens, vineyards, and woods of the provinces of Burgundy and Provence, and in Switzerland. Australian uatives are fond of butterflies, and declare them to bo more nourishing than the flesh of kangaroos or fowls. The butterflies are- pounded into a sort of cake. The aborigines of South America'and Africa, consider the guana, a large lizard, a great delicacy. These lizards are not unlike a small crocodile, but are more unsightly than that creature. In Australia several kinds of snakes are eaten roasted. They aro said to be equal in delicacy and flavour to the fllest stewed eels. SHORT WEIGHT. A Wellington councillor declared the other day that the short weight evil is far too prevalent, and if' this is so it forms another factor in that high cost of living which the unionists are so anxious that the Arbitration Court should carefully consider in making future awards. Weights occupy such an important place in our' commercial and domestic life that the greatest ca.ro should be taken to ensure that they are true and correct. Some people tell us that we can always protect ourselves by having -things weighed before j our eyes, but. such a process would take ' up too much time, and even then we 1 would have to call in the aid of authoriI ties, in order to make sure that the weights and measurements used are in accordance with the standards. Now, our present weights and measures are very strange things, and abound in curious anomalies. If we were a logical people, we would wipe them all out of existence, and start- afresh upon a more sensible and scientific plan. Here arc a few of the anomalies referred to:—A stone weight is 141b of a living man, eight of a, slaughtered bullock, 16 of cheese, five of glass. 32 of hemp, 16? of flax at Belfast, and 24 of flax at Downpatrick. It. is 141b of wool as sold by growers, and 15 as sold by the voolstaplers to each other. A hundredweight may contain lOOlb. 1121b, or 1201b. A hundredweight, of pork is 81b heavier at Belfast than at Cork. A man may live by selling coal at a less price per ton than he paid for it at the pit's mouth. A ton of coal at the pit's mouth varies from 22c to 23c\vt of 1121b each. A gallon is a wine gallon, or one of three different sorts of ale gallon, or a corn gallon, or a gallon of oil, and the gallon of oil means 7-ilb for train oil and 81b for some other oils. If you buy a pipe of wine, how much do vou get? Ninety-three .gallons if Marsala, 92 if Madeira, 117 if Bucellas, 103 if port, and 100 if Teneriffe. HAPPY WOMAN. "John Oliver Hobbes" (Mrs. Craigie), the famous novelist, whose death was announced in the Herald last week, did not share the popular opinion that men have a better time than women. "Men." s'we said, on one occasion, " have to go out into (he world and struggle for an existence. They j are spurred till they tight ; trampled oil when thev fall; overworked when they work." .Women make the loneliness of the home one of their greatest sorrows, and it is that very loneliness which leads- them to brood over their real and imaginary troubles. If the trials, hardships, and indignities to which the average man is subjected could be weighed against all the woes of the average woman, it would he found that ho lias a fat worse time than she has. j But he has no leisure to stop and think j about his troubles. He has to >ct his teeth at every new vexation, and pass on to the next task. It is because he generously grants that his wife has more than enough to bear that he listens patiently to the recital of her wrongs, and says not a word about bis own. And that, again, supplies th* reason why wonioii lielieve that men have a very comfortable life. The Gknerai.. i