NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15132, 24 October 1912, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE MODERN NEWSPAPER AND • ■\ : : ,:-' :: : : : ADVBB'nSING. , THELondon Tunes, in a leading article on its forty thousandth issue, touches-on' a remarkable '• feature of* the^modern*; newspaper, namely, the: -". advantage -which" so many now, take of: it to secure" publicity. The essential firist step of commerce .since the world says the Times, has been the bringing together of buyer and seller. In ; primitive, times the; most popular and the : most nofysy. way was by , the bell-man or the town-crier; then came tha hand-bill, distributed'or posted : on the walls . and then; . even* in the infancy of newspapers,/; the " advice." 'Chit of-such " advices" as -* the delightful; puff of:V-the' j drink "called coffee V.which is a r very wholesome and ■■' physical', - drink," which a,: merchant v.in -Bartholomew Lime insetted in* the Publick Adviser -of May .26, 1657, : has "grown' the -vast system /advertisements which is the cornerstone of modern business, and, it- would useless to deny, of -the modern ■.newspaper also, v It is not surprising that,,whea once newspapers had got fairly started, and when their: circulation was beginning to , be wide, the trader should ~havet- Been that < they could give him what be .wanted most'..of ' allpublicity. : He was willing to pay for this advantage, and. he paid to such : an extent that -the coffee-housekeepers in 4728', thinking their own trade injured, issued ai warm protest against the monstrous profits made by\the Daily Post, charged.With printing : 30 advertisements which.yield to the proprietors. £315s -at least!" The protest was in vain,.'. and' the enormity only 'grew..*Men\.of business, intent on " proclamation and 5 .persuasion,'* used. the . newspapers more and shore ;\ and, as the • habit becan»-a' necessitymore newspapers; Same into existence,>atid those ; already in' I existence doubled their size, improved their quality, spent money ■ recklessly ; in purveyi ing; news,;:and looked, for the'most . .part : notiunsueojisarully, to' fresh advertisements to repay them for their fresh 'expenditure.; : J.tSiie*bg, 'tfet'-tiiib ; barest ;• ou'-ihliaei" ia the" - «acplftaqta;T- : Illlilliilli

'•■ '_ .1 ~ ~ l' tion of the various branches of that truly. , marvellous industry, the modern .new*- j : paper press; an industry which in "every j --, civilised coxkitry employs miiliona of. J ' j capital «d thousands of the keenest j I minds an industry which has become a. $ first necessity of modern lifo. • f ■ air,. i "I. .■ ,i I* i THE' 'BEAUTY OP ENGINEERING. ■AM** *. •# , _ i, Professor Archibald Barr gave an uter- , csting address to the engineering section of . the' British Association upon- the-duty, of 1 the- engineer to -'the- community. He , m "' *; Bisted that the engineer fail? - in his.duty^ j. "in so far as Ms works^areidetrhnentaj. to the health or destructiv'ejo;the property j: of' the community, or. in. jl . * * as they are , unnecessarily ©ifoosife.; v to ,■: fev-s' ■•senses'" of those who have to live with '. them." -, It is strangearid welcome ;to-find ■an engi-: '- ne'er even' admitting that he haft any jeathe-, - tic duty to 'the Community. Moat engi;i neers would say probably that they were ' riot artists, and were concerned only with i the efficiency of their works, not with their- " beauty of ugliness. Thai;is true, enough;.; v but Professor'Barr insists that efficiency: i in engineering is seldom ;or never incom- , paiiole with beauty. Ugliness and incon- '■-' vehience '.'.-are"• due'.'.-to': engineering "..-failure-;, v rather than, to engineering' success, when ' they are not due to some mistaken attempt l at " incongruous "ornament, The engineer 5 and the public with, bind usually fail 1 ; fa . understand that nearly all .'great works cf" ':' engineering have a beauty' of their own " which' is not artistic beauty, bat) rather 5 the.beauty which arises, in natural things » arid in the works of man alike, from the 5 perfect performance of some function. Thus [ the more perfectly theV function ,^.:' performed, * the ' greater is' tins beauty; _ and " ugliness means failure of some kind, 'in 5 engineering' as in : natural -things. Weave ' all aware that Eiotor-car s ;' are much : more - beautiful than they used to be,- and the . reason is thai they afle much better i; adapted to their purpose. rThe same is true of bicycles and titeam-erigineß and steam--1 boats. Indeed,; the : most. beautiful thinijr, I which 'are > made:-ri<rte : are not; works of > art, but objects perfectly adapted to their . purpose, whatever it may be, arid free ' from all ornament whatsoever; The miia " ■ purpose of a work of art, even when ; it ' la also a work'of utility; is expression. A 5 great Gothic cathedral tool'r. its .particular. I form not merely so that it, might shelter worshippers from the stjn and rain, but so that it might' express their religious 1 ticn. But a great work ■ of; engineering l takes its. particular fpnniQrily, in the effort * to perform its purely useful function. It i : has no' expressive purpose whatever; and ; so ornament, being- artistic^ .must r have' an; expressive purpose or -none at all, 'is as incongruous, to it as. the 1 skirt * i ballet dancer .would be.Wa : riawy.. Pro- » feasor - Barr insists upon; *. this point -arid ■■ upon,-, the relations: beauty to common- . sense, a relation which vs. constantly ;ig- ' riored by people with artistic ambitions. l - They think that-there can be no beauty/ in anything made -by man. unle&r it is ' a work of art; arid so, if .it-is hot; a^work; '. of. art by .nature, they lay violent harids onj it'and attempt -to turn if into a work ;of art-: by,.the -addition °i incongruous ornament. It .would -be ; just as 'sensible to ; I turn aco^>keiy-bc^ ! 'iri J^vb^ veras. ■ ■ ;•• ' ■;••:■:■;'■::