THROUGH OUR HOME FILES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14038, 22 April 1920, Page 6

THROUGH OUR HOME FILES.

Strange stories are current of trea-sure-trove (if that is the right phrase 1 ) which is finding its way to London from Vienna, and Munich. The art col-;iro%b.eing;;£oW-^fpr.<Tood. v It iirsaid tlrat'an English picture dealer recently exchanged a few tins of pottfkl meat, for .English-prints from a famous- Austrian collection- which im- . mediately .-fetched over £SOO ■in • Loiidan. Arid- there *.a riS about fyrs and lacc-s equally aniazing—and true.

The suggested debasement of our silver coinage is a reminder that at one time the sovereign was worth exactly a Tower pound of silver; hence the term "pound sterlihg." That was in the time of William 1., but progressive.debasements of the sovereign, by successive monarchs ultimately so. lowered the silver value of the coin that ultimately it required 3.3 sovereigns to purchase a Troy pound of silver, and the difference- between a Tower pound and a Troy pound is only a fraction of" an ounce. Originally, too, 240 silver pennies were the equivalent of a pound, and that explains the "pennyweight," which is the 240 th part of a Troy pound. Wo still keep the terms "pound sterling" and "pennyweight," but the sovereign is fio longer worth a pound | of silver, and the pennyweight has no connection witli the weight of a penny.

To rescue him fr.om the life of a criminal, a burglar with many convictions has asked to be flogged once a month. His request was conveyed in a written statement to Mr Montagu Sharpe, chairman of the Middlesex Sessions. "I would like to live honestly if I could only get employment," said the accused man. "Imprisonment is no cure by itself. Half the crime in the country is committed for the sake of getting, back to prison, especially to penal servitude." Mr Sharpe told him, however, that, his wish cotild not be carried into effect, and that instead he would have to go for four years' penal servitude. The charge against him was one of burglary. ■

Says a writer in a London paper:— President "Wilson's dismissal of his Secretary of State, Mr Lansing, reminds one of a retort which was recently made at a London dinner. A number of Americans were chaffing a well-known Englishman over the pronunciation of proper names in this country—Cholmondeley. Marjoribanks, and the like. Said the Englishman: "The same thing sometimes happens in the States. You don't always, as you insist, pronounce names exactly as they are written. For example, take the case of your Secretary of State. You spell it L-a-n-s-i-n-g —but you pronounce it House." This in allusion, of course, to the general belief that Colonel House was the real power behind the position.

The old association that lias kept the flag of temperance flying over all parts of Ireland, through good and evil report, for more than half a century, held its sixty-second anniversary meetings in Belfast recently. . These culminated in a great public mass meeting in the Assembly Hall. Various speakers from different parts of the world addressed the meeting, including Mr Ernest Winterton Linden, who said that at the testing time it would he found that the great body of the Labor movement would be in line with the temperance thought, which believed that the only way to control the liquor traffic was to extirpate it. The Rev. J. T. Bartoji, M.A., Glasgow., spoke of the situation in Scotland, and the Rev. Dr. Poole, of U.S.A., said that it was the Church of the living God which was the spearhead of that magnificent prohibition ; driven like a hurtling projectile, it broke down the barriers and gave them a new highway to victory. .The oitly people in America who were hurt by prohibition were the undertakers, the gravediggers, the bad debt collectors | and the pawnbrokers.

Says a contributor to a Loudon paper:—To all intents and purposes we as a nation are about to debase a, certain amount of our coinage, and again make it equal to paper 01* token money. The early Tudors did this in order to obtain more funds for their Exchequers. When Eliza,beth came to the throne; she gave instructions for the withdrawal of the base coin. She went so far as to send to "Bristol two goldsmiths with ;£ 1000 of new money to exchange for the old,coinage. Queen Bess found difficulty in obtaining all the silver she required, in spite of the attacks on treasure ships from the Spanish Main. "What shall we call it?" is a, question which will agitate manv minds with regards to the new coinage. Tb call it silver when half of it is alloy would be boastful exaggeration; to call it by the name of the alloy would be to depreciate it. unfairly. "Five hundred line" may be technically correct, but it is not a term suited for general usage. The most successful element in the alloy of silver has proved to be nickel, and the probability is, therelore, that it will be employed by our authorities. If so, whatever we may call the new coins, the fact will remain. to depress or exasperate our spirits, that they will be neither "more nor less than German silver. Mr Winston Churchill's attitude towards Labor at present has naturally excited a good deal of attention and comment. It reminds a correspondent lof an incident which occurred more than 21 years ago. Late in 1898, 011 a memorable Sunday, he was lunching with a friend at a Soho restaurant. This friend, himself a, well-known Parliamentarian in/later years, was describing his recent return from a trip round tile world. His most interesting companion on the last stage, he said. was a. man called Winston Churchill. After lunch the two decided to go down to Trafalgar Square to take part in the jrreat pro-war meeting being held there that afternoon. There was an old horse 'bus going solemnly round the Square with a single passenger. This latter was 011 the roof, and was waving continuously a Union Jack. Our correspondent's friend recognised him immediately as his late passenger. Winston Churchill. It'was the War Secretary's first introduction to London. Soon after, he began, with the Boer war, to make his own history.

"This is the first time- I Have ever been inside ;t bus," said the King as he stepped into the B43—the most famous of the London General Omnibus Company's buses that went out to France. "I have been in a tramcar, but that is not the same thing,' _ added His Majesty. 843, now christened "Ole Bill," has been brought back frorii France, given a coat of civilian paint, and awarded a special decoration in the shape of a briiss commemoration plate showing its records 1914 Antwerp ' 1917 Somme 1915 Ypres 1918 Amiens 1916 Ancre 1919 Home "Lest wc Forget." In the full glory of "demobilised" spruceness "Ole Bill" rolled up to' -Buckingham Palace lately, where King George shook hand with "his" cargo of 35 war veteran drivers, and after a thorough inspection came away highly elated, through the ranks of a cheering crowd. Some of the drivers gave their experiences with "Ole Bill" to a Daily Chronicle representative. "He was'one-of 'the first to join us," said the driver, "and same with the 350 driver volunteers in October, 1914. His first job was to take the .Ist Battalion London Scottish up: to the firing line. And he helped to bring them back—some of 'em at any rate," he added thouglifully. "Only about 300 came through out ,of 1000." Some of these motor-men got about France in the early war days witli most inadequate maps, often without sleep for nights, and with an equipment made up of a Primus stove,' two cushions, for a bed, and a day's rations in hand. The drivers totalled 9,468 men-, and the 'bus service was 1,319. "Ole Bill JBus" now wears a white board bearSig the legend, "No. 'B—'Willesden to Old Ford." He has found "a better 'ole."