What Others Are Saying

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

What Others Are Saying

Lifting Clouds THE war-clouds seem to be lifting a 1 little —anyway, it's now light enough to recognise Franco. —Punch, London. " He Should Worry "

IVTAJORrGENERiL SMEDLEY BUTLER the most outspoken American critic of President Roosevelt's foreign policy, said in an interview: 111 see ( to it that James:Rooseveltx(one of the i President's sons)' fights in the front c JiM his father starts another war. !; . "If we are going to send boys out to'fight''every twenty years for democracy," he added, "what is the use of keeping democracy?" Mr. James Roosevelt,: when he was told "of General " Butler's declaration, saidi "Butler needn't worry himself. In the front line is exactly where I should be." -rSninday Chronicle, London.

Memel - '

"MO great fuss has been caused by the -*-* Geraan reoccupation of Memel. • It obviously was bound to come, and nothing- could stop it. As a matter of fact, the Germans have a pretty good case- there. Otily 13 per cent of the population was Lithuanian and Jew. The remainder are Teutonic. Memel was founded in 1252 by the Livonian Order/ who gave it afterwards to the Teutonic Knights. Naturally one detests diplomacy by ultimatum, but at least in the case of Memel, Germany is on firmer ground than in certain places elsewhere. —A. G. Macdonell, in the Bystander. _ "Form Threes!" < ■ "TNFANTItY TRAINING," that delicious manual, hasn't been our favourite'red-book for so many yearß that we were quite prepared to believe the newly-published- 1939 edition was full of French pictures, with a crossword puzzle, a serial story, and a comic-strip thrown in. Actually, we gather from a chap who has perused it, the big human feature is the Form Three evolution, which the whole An")' is officially adopting in the place of the -?• old .Form Fours, which took much longer, and often involved more crossness and bad language than well-bred ? arsons would deein possible. Form hrees, which took one of the high-up / brasshats a week to work out, in clear literary English—and if you_ think we're looking down our nose, just try describing that rope-knot known as the clove hitch in a simple English sentence—has already been adopted by the Grenadiers, and is so obviously smarter, easier, quicker and more efficient than the old way, that we don t wonder it has taken, the War Office a hundred years to discover it. , —D. B Wyridham Lewis, London.

"Domino" TN Derbyshire the word "domino" had a tragic meaning. When all hope ivas given up for an animal's life, it was domino with it. A man stooping over a stricken beast would at last rise. ''lt's domino," he would say with slow finality, and that was the end. The J'ord_ always gave me a shiver of utlbappiriess. It was used for human ofinns, too. "It's domino with me," n n old labourer said to my father, and knew death's wing, was already shadowing him. I thought it was a Metaphor from the game of dominos, n nd that God had put down the last counter.

Alisnn Uttley. Bcaconsficld, Bucks.

Best-seller fHK Bible is continually in the news. It heads a best-seller list. It leads, a national poll, as the most interesting book. It outsells "Mein Kampf" 200.000 copies a year in Germanv. jJt makes its way into a new language, .it is recommended by great voices as ;th« book a world in trouble needs most ;~-Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt calls it "the :Jirst book any family should possess." |:»»eek qftcr week tlie Book of Books c °rnman<ls headlines. H. Kobbins, New York.

Spiritual Realities recent happenings in Europe have had their ill-effects upon most e partments of life; but at least one Bood lias 'come out of its spiritual travail and frustrations. The Christian are- seriously taking stock of he weakness in their own foundations; and a real desire for a revival of true pugion and a better understanding at least between Christian and Christian is certainly growing. •. V.

—Ashley Sampson, London.

Some Ducks/ A SALESMAN was rattling along a country road in eastern Tennessee, when he came to a ford. A darkey was standing by the little stream where some ducks were swimming. The salesman said: "Can I get through the creek with this car all right?" "Yes, suh, drive right through." The salesman, thus encouraged, drove into the stream, only to find that the water was so deep that it flooded his engine. He and his companion had to get out into the stream with the cold water up to their armpits and push the car to the bank. The salesman turned and said: "What do you mean by telling me that 1 could drive through that creek?" . ~ . "Well, boss, 1 nevuh knew dat water was so deep. It only comes half-way up my ducks!" —Montreal Star. Dancing Feet AME RICA is in a dancing mood. Swing, whether one likes it or not. shows no sign of losing its sway. Dances have their moments and are gone. Those of a year ago are as stale as last summer's map of Europe; to-day it's the Samba, the Lambeth Walk, the Glides —Palais and Eleanor. And more people than ever before are taking lessons in ballroom dancing to learn the new steps and the more stable forms of dancing. The rush of people wanting to learn to dance this year is taxing the capacity of the dancing schools and the feet of the teachers. —Lewis Bergman in The New York TimesPrimitive A.R.P. "\TEWS of primitive and somewhat macabre Air Raid Precautions reaches me from Southern China. Jly informant is. Professor William Empson, who for the past eighteen months has been teaching English literature, under considerable difficulties and in a good deal of discomfort, in the province of Yunnan. At Kunming, it appears, the municipal cemeteries on the outskirts or the town have been turned into air-raid shelters. - The old graves are used as dug-outs in which the population is obliged to squat during a raid. Anyone standing up in them is liable to be shot at sight by the police. Three dollars a grave is the sum paid to grave protection societies for work in connection with re-interment. "We brought down an aeroplane hero the last time tlie.v came," Mr. Empson writes, "but one must remember to call it three aeroplanes because it was officially reported down by three villaces '' v —Autolycun in The Sunday Times, London.

Lights of London "TM have put out the lights of Heaven" was the boast of a Continental politician and iconoclast) of the last generation. Jn another and more literal sense London is doing this very disservice to Greenwich Observatory. Her nightly illumination is becoming such as to make the stars pale their inelFectual fires so that the man of science can neither watch nor photograph them to his full purpose.. Apparently, it must lead to the telescopes seeking a lodge in some vast wilderness where celestial radiance finds no rivalry- below. Many things seem to be forcing a course of devolution • upon the Empire's capital, but this is an unexpected addition to tliem. '• " ' " "1. '' —The Observer, London.

Grammar 'TJSERE is no doubt a stage in our learning of English in which grammar is important. It comes between mother's knee and the voluble world, but 1 agree with Sir John Squire that grammar can*safely bo forgotten "when a man's habit of logical expression has been formed, just as a scaffolding is forgotten when a building is complete or a mould broken when the casting has been made." As Dr. Otto Jespersen says, language is nothing but a set of human habits. Grammar is its archives, useful for reference, but too often allowed to obstruct new expression in a changing world. Jack Cade did not show himself an ignorant lout (he was in fact a man of education) when he sternly told his prisoner. Lord Say, "Thou has most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school. ... It will be pro\ed

in thy face that thou hast men about thee usually that talk of a noun, and a verb, and such abominable words as no Chistian ear can enure to hear." Jack went rather far, of course. —Jackdaw in John O'London's Weekly. Too Big T ORD HARMSWORTII'S complaint, at the meeting of the London Society, that London is "growing too big" had been heard as long ago as Elizabeth's time. James I. prohibited further building and did quite well out of fines imposed on delinquents. Since then London has increased fifty-fold, and has become, not a town, but a "geographical expression," stretching its grim tentacles into half a dozen counties. It has even falsified Punch, which, in ISoS, published a , mock

prophecy that "if the population of London keeps on increasing at its present ratio, in 1901 it will bo 5,816,900." To-day it is eight millions. —The Observer, London. Books and Morals 'THE recrudescence of the movement in Quebec against undesirable literature has resulted in the formation of a new organisation sponsored by the Catholic Union. Last year strong delegations headed by the Koman Catholic Archbishops and other clerical and lay leaders urged the Dominion Government to prohibit the importation of periodicals inimical to good morals. Since then fifty periodicals, chiefly American "pulp" magazines, have been banned. The censorship has also extended to a great many books both classical and modern.

—Sundny Times. London,

Memorial to the Brontes

"PROGRESS has been made with the arrangements for sotting up a memorial to the Bronte sisters in Westminster Abbey, and at the annual meeting in London of the Bronte Society, whoso members are defraying the cost of the memorial, particulars were announced. It will be a small memorial, probably in Yorkshire stone, containing the' names of the thrco sisters and possibly a short quotation. The site offered is in the south transept, close to the monument ,of the 18th century poet, James Thomson, whom Charlotte Bronte greatly admired.' •• '

—Times Literary Supplement,

Do You Know?

Here are a feu) questions on which readers may lest their knowledge. The answers will be found on page 14. 1. How did the fuchsia and the eschscholtzia come by their names? 2. What was "The Glorious First of June"? 3. What arc orlho-cousins? 4. Under what names are ihe following great artists better known: (I) Vecelll, (2) Buonarotli t (3) Sanzio, (4) Thcotocopuli? 5. Who Was "The Fait Maid of Kent"? 6 Who was the last English Prime Minister to fight a duel while still in office? 7. Who Was the only English Prince to visit" New York while It still owed allegiance to the , British Crown?