THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15349, 9 July 1913, Page 12

THINGS IN GENERAL.

THE NEW WAYS OF ART. " I ain't had the education I might have done," said the. barber sadly. "My old man. done what lie thought was a fair thing, and I rooted through the public school till I'd got as far as the first proposition of algebra. I ain't got the faintest idea why x equals y now; but when I did know I felt a sort of nobility encompass mo about, as you might say: and I s'pose I ought to be grateful. '• Sometimes I've felt a sort of longin' come over me for a bit of higher learnin', but it ain't never been serious, because I've got a decent trade. Same time, not bavin' had an elaborate fund of knowledge rammed into you does handicap a man, doesn't it':" "I suppose so. I should say, yes, itdoes. But what does this lead to?" "I been readin' in a magazine about the cubics. Them artists. There's been new-fangled artists that I could have argued with good-oh, if they'd been here— them impressionists, paiutin' without form and void, but array in' their pictures like the rainbow. But now we've got past them to the cubics and the trianglists and so on, till you can't hardly stir, and I'm findin myself at sea. " They haven't made much headway out here yet, as far as I know; but it wouldn't surprise me to see some long-haired youth come out in baggy trousers and a wan look, earn-in' a ten-colour problem in trigogeometry under his arm and callin' it ' \enus ChaUengin' Jason to Ten Bounds.' and stickin' it up in a window. I want to I bo able to argue with people about things liko that, and I can't, because my education has been neglected. They've got as far as the post-futurists alreaciy, and hero I am only a presentist. The time 1 went | to school the painter fellows used to talk about soul and all that, and used to think it pretty good if they could put a bit of j soul into & job. But nowadays they don't j paint anything else, and consequently we j old-timers don't know how to get at 'em. | My ideas of soul be in' a sort of hazy J business with wings and a dicotyledenous j diapin' seem to have got busted. The only souls these chaps paint are full of j angles and corners, and that intricate i

that if you miss your footin* on 'em you're apt to land in. the middle of next -week. It's very sad that the Government didn't j see a bit farther ahead and put soul-study j in the- school books. I'd be sorry to f - think children of mine'll ever be up against a situation like this in the hereafter." ICE. The cost of living is no new affair. Every; now and then meat makes a little I jump,' and milk seems to have developed | a pleasant habit of being sold at a j steadily increasing price. But meat has j been dear before, and milk. too. The irksome figure at -which the Auckland butcher j felt constrained to dispose of the flesh j of sheep and beeves fifty years ago was a j subject of comment. On July 6, 1863, the i Southern Cross, whose entity was subse- | quently absorbed by this journal, published j a paragraph as follows:—' New"Zea-j land (a friendly rival in journalism) has j the following very original suggestion with reference to the high price of meat:— vessel proceeding from Auckland with cargo to Dunedin might there or at Inver- . cargill take "a- cargo of ice and proceed to New •. South Wales, where meat could

he bought at Id to l£d per pound, and brought here and sold at a large profit, even though at only two-thirds of present .prices. We throw oat this hint to the speculative owners and captains of trading craft.'- Will this sapient authority inform us: where the big cargo of ice may be obtained in this neighbourhood?" Perhaps the "sapient authority" was poking a little fun at the far South, appro-priate-to .the winter season, and had it in mind that Dunedin or Invercargill would gladly spare a load, or even seven loads i of ice for the purpose of meat transport, or for any other purpose one could name, so! long 3as the ice was taken well away. But now that we are so much wiser by j virtue of our fifty years, it is pleasant to notice how far both the New Zealand and the Southern Cross -were out of it. For even in the height of summer Auckland could export ice if it liked; and all the year round New Zealand does not bring in chilled meat, but studiously sends it away, and adds much to the content of the public purse thereby. DREADNOUGHT HOSPITALS. The turning over of ancient file* of newspapers is always an occupation which, if dusty, is productive of many interesting surprises. In the Illustrated London News of January 23, 1875, there is a fine illustration of the breaking-up of the hosp.lal ship Dreadnought at Chatham Dockyard. It i* a wood-cut of the characteristically high quality of press illustrations of the day; but, more than .that, it brings us. back to the first ship that carried the now famous and even commonplace name. The ship illustrated wae an old three-decker, carrying 120 guns, and earlier named Caledonia. She had been preceded in the hospital ship moorings by the original Dreadnought, and on retiring to the same honourable service took her predecessor's name. The first hospital fihip at the Deptford moorings was the Grampus., a 50-gun, frigate, which, lay there from 1821 till 1830. : Then came the old, original Dreadnought, which was broken up, and gave place to the Caledonia, or Dreadnought 11. It is a little curious that the first ship of the name should have been placed " on the station of charity," and ' that the second should have acquired the name only when she became a hospital ship, considering that to-day the fighting power of navies is calculated in terms in which a Dreadnought id the unit.

A NEW IDEA WANTED. { Speaking of naval matters in any way, | brings up at once the thought of the new ; contest that has arisen,, the balancing of i air-navies by rival countries. Even now J has begun the fashion of making national j gifts'of aeroplanes. These flimsy machines, : lull of possibilities lor unexpected disas- j ters, and of promise for sensational doings, ' rank among the achievements which i startle the world, in spite of a great in- j completeness. In these days sensible j men are loth to say that anything is im- ! possible; but the aeroplane kicks a tea- i ture which, as far as the imagination will . take us, it seems it will be impossible to | supply. Ships at sea, may navigate by I dead reckoning; but compass and log j alone will never give the exact position | of a vessel if she has been moving in j waters traversed by ocean currents. 1 Similarly an aviator, flying in the mobile j air, knows how fast his machine goes ! through the air itself, and knows by a j compass. in what direction he is travelling. But whether it blows or not, he cannot judge the direction of the wind or his j actual speed without landmarks to guide j him. and he cannot tell whether, when j he is heading due north , or south, or in any other direction, he is being drifted sideways. He ha* no leeway gauge. So lar there is no device that will tell him this very desirable matter. And a moment's thought will ; show what a great problem it presents. Flying, say, over an ocean, by what ' means is the pilot to know where his i course will end? Flying in the dark or in j a fog, how can he "find a landing place j I which was a 100 miles due weal of his ' jumping-off? It is idle to say it can ; never bo <Jme; but it is a thing upon »:

which the inventive heads of the race may well puzzle, in the faint hope that some day a leg will be slapped and a voice will cry "Eureka!" or some equivalent exclamation. And then we will all say, '* Why, it's as simple as falling off a log. I could have thought of that myself."

THE ART OF SHOPPING. It is the custom of some of the English papers to .conduct little enquiries into small psychological problems of the what-land-of-man-do-woman-admire type, when the bomb epidemic dies down and the stage-beauty to blue-Wood engagements fall off in frequency. Such a one resulted in an investigation of shoppingnot the ethics of shopping, or the comparative degree of national ruin caused by drapers' shops when put in parallel colums with the hotels, but the more burning question whether men or women knew best how to "shop." The verdict was overwhelmingly in favour of the men. A "man's sale" gave the opportunity. From it, it was argued, women, who notoriously block pavements and become hot and dishevelled at the mere view of a ticket with one price in blue and another in red, could learn how to do it. "As they watch the streams of quiet, leisurely men in the sale-rooms they should remember that, in tho opinion of the most experienced salesmen, men are much belter shoppers than women, as they know exactly what they want and women never do they do not fight their way to a crowded counter where goods are being sold exceptionally cheap. They wait " their turn philosophically ; a man is not influenced by the mode of the moment, but has his own individual taste. He never haggles over a price; greatest point of all for tho sake of business makes up his mind very quickly. Where a woman takes ten minutes to buy something a man will decide in ten seconds." PATIENCE AT THE COUNTER. This men's sale is being held at Messrs. Peter Robinson's, Oxford Street. The morning opened quietly. There was no queue of anxious shoppers waiting for the doors to open —as there generally is when a women's sale is announced. During the morning, men shoppers of all ages •strolled into the shop, quickly bought what they wanted and strolled out again. Between one o'clock and 2.50 p.m. there was something of a rush of men shoppers. In every case, however, the . customers knew what they wanted—summer shirts, underclothes, socks or pyjamas. At 4 p.m. and onwards until closing time the number of men increased, many of them buying such simple things as handkerchiefs or collars, and refusing to be tempted by the sight of beautiful shirts or dressing gowns offered at reduced prices. This was a sale without excitement. There was never any excitement during the whole day—just calm, N cool buying. There was, however, as much money and more taken. than is the rule at a woman's sale of the same size. How long the average man takes to buy things is indicated here —Buying collars and ties, five minutes socks and underclothes, three minutes shirts, three minutes; pyjamas, two minutes. "It is a curious thing that a man takes far less time in. buying pyjamas than collars and ties," said the buyer of the department. "He is very particular over the shade of his tie and the shape of his collar. On the other hand, pyjamas are often selected in a few seconds. "A number of pyjamas are shown. 'I'll have that one,* says the purchaser, often without any hesitation, selecting some shade which pleases him." All of which is - interesting and illuminating, though the devil whisper between the leaves, "It's clever, but is it news?" is Kipling might have added. The women know why it is all so. Men don't care how they look, do they? The General. =====