NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13746, 11 May 1908, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE LACK OF GREAT MEN. •Do we lack great men? This is the interesting problem which Mr. Arthur C. Benson analyses in the Cornhill. Here are some of the points lie makes:—-" It is often mournfully reiterated that the present age is not an-age of great, men. and I have sometimes wondered if it is true. In the first place I do not feel sure that an age is the best judge of its own greatness; a great age is generally more interested in doing the tilings .which afterwards cause it to be considered great than in Wondering whether it is great. . Perhaps the fact that we are on the look-out for great men, mid complaining because we cannot find them, is the best proof of our second-rater ness: 1 do not imagine that the Elizabethan writers were much concerned with thinking whether they were great- or not; they were much move occupied in having a splendid time, and in saying as eagerly as they could all the delightful thoughts which came crowding to the utterance than in pondering whether they were worthy of admiration. To go about searching for somebody to inspire one testifies, no doubt, to a certain lack of ire and initiative. But, on the other hand, there have been many great' men whose greatness their contemporaries did not recognise. We tend at the present time. to honour achievements when they have begun to grow a little mouldy; we seldom accord ungrudging admiration to a prophet when he is at liis*<best. Moreover, in an age like the present, when the general average of accomplishment is remarkably high, it is more difficult to delect greatness. It is easier to see big trees .when they stand out over a copse than when they are lost in the depths of the forest." A RAILWAY INVENTOR. Mr. Edward T. Hill lias just died at St. Leonards. He was a brother of Mr. Vincent Hill, of the S.E. and C. Railways. " His . inventing proclivities soon displayed themselves," says the London Times. "A heavy bundle of newspapers had ' every morning to be dropped at Battersea Park Road station from a train which did not- stop, but the expedient of simply throwing it from the moving train was not found to produce good results either for the papers or for the platform. To meet the difficulty Hill devised , a form of fastening which remained closed so long .as it was under strain, but opened when the strain was removed and, by attaching the parcel to a piece of "rope by means of one of these fastenings, enabled the guard to deposit the papers gently, on any desired part of the platform. Subsequently he developed this device into a safety appliance for releasing the boats of a ship when swung out from the davits, which has been used to a considerable extent in the mercantile marine. He devoted special attention to appliances connected with railways, and. served on the jury of that section of the Milan Exhibition which was concerned with them. His inventions in this field included contrivances for opening and closing the windows of carriages, various forms of coupling intended to improve on or do,away with the coupling pole now in use, and thus to diminish the dangers to which shunters are exposed."