NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16026, 18 September 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

To educate the intelligence is to enlarge the horizon of its desires and wants.— Lowell.

When death, the great- reconciler, has come it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our. severity.George Eliot.

Chivalry means far more than reverence of men for women. It means reverence of strength for weakness, wheresoever found.Gannett.

True courage is not incompatible with nervousness, and heroism does not mean the absence of fear, but the conquest of it.—H. Van Dvke.

Indirectly, every man forms the character of others; for he helps or hinders them, in its* formation. This is the most solemn fact in human existence.—Dr. Momerie.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, says the Sheffield Telegraph, has been entrusted with the writing of the official history of the war— task which will occupy his energies for some years. He proved his fitness for this 'undertaking by his history of the . South African campaign. - Mr. Filson Young, who is now on service with the grand fleet, under Admiral Jellicoe, will write the official story of the naval campaign." '

In the World's Work a volunteer in a munitions • factory recites, his experiences.. He says that while the tremendous work in organisation receives no % appreciation from the ordinary labouring man, who takes the providing of employment for him as a matter of course, too great a tribute cannot be paid to the business men who have grappled with a new industry and have scoured the markets of the- world for the ' necessary machinery. ~ Another readable article, on " Weird Implements War," by Mr. i. A. Talbot, emphasises the extent to which the strange new; conditions have minimised the importance of the rifle."

New words are coming in, to the confusion of the ' common speech. But one might surely simplify, when an aeroplane is as common as aerated bread. Both have shared the linguistic vagaries of England ; for the bread . has been cajled " airated,"' " airiated," and even by the most laborious " airiorated." But why invite the same difficulty with the aeroplane, which ,is now flying through the mouths of men! No need to tempt the man in the street to talk of a " hairy plane." ' Let us cut it down to' an " airplane," and let the aviators be simple "airmen."

The Navy League Annual was not published last year because of the outbreak of war. It has, however, been decided to issue it this year, and it will, therefore, be published by Mr. Murray on or about Trafalgar Day, with its customary features of a general summary of the position of the navies of the world, comparative tables of ships, tonnage, etc. The general editor will be Mr. Robert Yerburgh, M. P. assisted by Mr. Archibald Hurd and Mr. Gerald Fiennes, whose names argue sufficiently that the • annual this year will lose none of its customary thoroughness and authority.

The little towns of Belgium are like the soul of old wine, and their ruins as though asphyxiating gas had exhausted the very body of homely virtue amd simple .beauty. So that we must be thankful for those that live in the woodcuts of Albert Delstanche, whose book, " The Little Towns of Flanders" (Chatto and Windus), contains a prefatory letter from Verhaeren, who stalks through the London book world like an avenging angel, recording the need for a wrath to come. The book is a work of art, and shows how the Florence Press can make of the drawings and the author's notes a book of lasting value. It is a triumph of British printing as well as of Flemish artistry. There is a pathos in one dark drawing of Bruges of the canals, now reeking with Gtrman tobacco and dirt, beside which even a . hot day on the waterways was fragrant. Perhaps there is symbolic intention in a fine picture of the Belfry, behind which the dawn springs to gild the casket of her carillon. For the Belgian artist is. not a realist of the Netherlandish sort, but a man who sees the possibility of dawn in what some people regard as the dour medium of woodcut. But the Hotel de Ville at Louvain provides him with an opportunity of proving the lacery of his craft.

Sir James Murray, who recently died at his residence, Oxford, at the age of 78, published the first volume of his famous New English Dictionary in 1888, and it had been his ambition to complete its publication by his 80th year. Hie tenth and last volume— to —however, has not been completed. Sir James Murray was! .Scottish borderer, born at a village near. Hawick. He beaan life as foreign correspondent of tho Oriental Bank in London. I afterwards becoming a master at Mill Hill i School. W hen the Oxford University | Press took over from the Philological So- ! ciety the project of an English Dictionary | on a grand scale they invited Mr. Murray, ' as he then was. to take charge of the work'. Gifted wit!) the faculty for organisation, the new editor shortly gathered together assistants and collaborators to the number o' over a thousand. A new building was h 1 up known affectionately in Oxford by the high-sounding name of "Scriptorium," and in it the masses of information thered by those amateur detectives, all over to le tr?,U P'' Wh ° m j Mr. Murray employed to track down words for him were collated h ? the editor-in-chief and his assistants. In recent years Mr Murthl'(W %V ' 1S f w . ard « d a "knighthood bv the Government m 1915—28 vears aftoiarv ' omn,enced h 's work on the diction"iitoi nT" Br-'dl more }° canon,, V r - Bradley and Dr. William ( raigie; but be naturally remained ik« driving force of the enterprise.'