NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18773, 29 July 1924, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

MODERN HIGHWAYS.

In 1 the course of an address recently in England, Professor S. D. Adshead, the town-planning authority, deplored the great number of roads that were beizig laid down all over the country without any reference to art in their construction. He said the country was being cut into pieces by great, broad, black roads that were too wide, and had poor connections. There were those who scoffed at the old roads as picturesque avenues, where artists planted trees, but the great need at present was for the services and advice of artists in tho construction of roads.

ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSES. . One of the most marked symptoms of change in tho contemporary life of rural England is the passing of the big country house, says the London. Times. Day after day the back page of the Times is filled with, descriptive advertisements of " desirablo" Tudor or Jacobean mansions, and " attractive " Queen Anne or Georgian residences of every sort and size. Many of them will in all probability bo homes no longer. . The t famili{i3 that they havo sheltered, often for generations, are compelled to get rid of .them—not from any motives of commercial gain, as though they wore purveyors of boots or butter, but from the mere instinct or selfpreservation. For years past they have been white elephants. To-day thoy are mill-stones, from which," to avoid being dragged down to ruin, their unfortunate owners must at all costs cut„ themselves free. In 1919, in the case of a number of large estates with an average nominal revenue of £20,300, it was found that the expenditure on income-tax, tithe, rates and other similar outgoings, left a free income of oxdy 4s 6d in the pound. When this had been further reduced by such charges as mortgages, rent charges, jointuies —and especially instalments of death duties—the sum that remained was often less than nothing. To-day the position is still worse. In all parts of the country the story is the same. On any day in the week—from Norfolk to the New Forest, from Sussex to Yorkshire, and Durham and the Berwick border, on the upper reaches of tho Thames, and in the Cotswolds — prospective purchasers can take their pick of homes and estates of the most alluring charms, because their present owners can no longer afford to live in them. \ SPORT AND CRUELTY. Correspondents of the London Spectator havo recently been discussing the degree and tho justification of tho cruelty inyolved in sport. A statement of the caso fer the defence has been made by Mr. Stephen Gwynn, who, in the course of an article, sayslf you are going to cut out sport to avoid cruelty, you cut out some of the most vivid moments in existence. Let us admit that one is causing pain whenever one hooks a fish. Is there no caso to be made for tho right to inflict pain to heighten the joy of living? On these lines, and on these only, can a caso be made for sport. The thrill that comes when you bring down your game—that comes when you Kook your salmon —that is in tho rush of the fox hunt —it is adventure and it is medicine to man's spirit. At the cost of the quarry ? No doubt. You cannot eat beefsteak without killing beef, and the human world, as we all know,' can live without beefsteak. Adventure ' is worth as much to man as meat, and sport is one of tho least harmful ways of attaining adveDture. Most of us hold that ib is healthy to keep our imagination so disciplined that we can eat roast chicken without thinking of the fowl's death struggles; .and if it be conceded that certain 'forms of excitement and of adventure are health-giving, then it is well to be able to play a salmon without bearing in qnind his emotions as well as yours. To kill for the sake of killing is disgusting, and there are instincts in humanity which prompt that way and should bo flogged out* But nobody catches salmon for the lust of killing and many would rather get two fish in a day on a free river than ten in a fishing like Galway, which is to ordinary waters as the butts in a drive to a stretch of moor. Many of us also are a little inclined to regard some of this driving as rather too near the/shambles. But if a bad shot is behind butts or at a hot corner where pheasants aro rocketing thero will not bo much butchery; and if a good shot is shooting while his loader at the butts is kept busy, at least all his faculties are strung up for that timo to their pitch. It is perhaps the highest point of. being tluit some sportsmen get to.