BRIEF MENTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17942, 22 May 1920, Page 10

BRIEF MENTION

The alleged attempts 011 the part of tho inhabitants of Mars to establish wireless communication with tliis planet have led to thp issue of a new choap edition of Mr G. M'Leod . Winsor's wonderful wireless romance, "Station X." As those who read tho story when first it was published will remember, "'Station X" is the name of a secret wireless station 011 a lonely ocean island, which the Admiralty oonsidors vital to the safety of tho Ktnpire. The sudden fx'ssntion of all messages from Station X /fives the authorities at Whitehall grave anxiety, and a relief party is at once despatched. The discoveries made when the relief party rcaches tho island stroteh tho limits of credulity, but'tho story of tho method by which tho scientists of Mars and Venus, in their attempts to gain the mastery, aro prostrated by the quick-witted action of the British scientist, Professor Itudge, is full of thrills and excitement. Needless to say, the earth is mado safe once more, and tho projected invasion of tho Martians is frustrated for tho present. Some time back tho Interdenominational Conference of tho Social Service Union issued a little volume entitled "The Hope for Society," containing a number of essays on social reconstruction, by the Bishop of Oxford, Mr Clutton-Brock, and other wellknown writers. The-se papers were originally written for delivery n/t the Summer School at Swanwick, a yearly gathering at which members of all the denominations dissemble upon the broadest possible platform. A second series of these essays has just' been published under the title "Some Christian Essentials of Reconstruction." The authors include tho Bishop of Lichfiold, Mr Basil Matthews, Mr A. Clutton-Brock, Sir George Paish, and Dr A. J. Carlyle. Tho subjects discussed rango from the economic and financial consequences of the war to housing reform and unemployment, and suggest the need of a "new spirit" alike in domcstiio and international industrial relations, as well as in educational affairs. The quest-on is asked. "How can the churches play their part?" A- part solution of tho social problem is found in the phrase "Humanising the State." The book is suggestive and helpful throughout, but the opening essay on "Positive Freedom," by Mr Clutton-Brock. strikes a note at onoe provocative and stimulating. "If we are to be free," he exclaims, "we must be free altogether." This loads him to declare:

What we must believe in, and aim at, is a universal salvation —a salvation material as well as spiritual. Only so can we reconcile the conflict between the material and tho sp.ritual that is always troubling us. l'or at present we, the well-to-do, aro poisoned m our minds by the material squalor of the poor; we cannot thrive spiritually so long as they are sick materially. 1 injsell am always being tempted to .1 dislike of the poor, because ol their looiishness, frivolity, ugliness. 1 am angry with them because they like gramophones and silly songs and silly papers. L waste my spirit ia this mere lasudiousnesi. There is a division between us which hurts me, and it is the division made by their material squalor. Get rid of that and we fhall get rid of the division. Further, 1 myself am po.soned in my own mind, made irrational and cowardly,' by the fact which 1 am always trying to conceal from myself: that Ido not give value, 'lhe very effort to con ceai it impairs my reason. So long as therj is social injustice and we do i)ot put an end to it, we are sure to think wrongly about ail things. We shall not be saved or free intellectually until we have made an end of the squalor to which at present wo consent in fact, but not in conscience. Until we all give value for what wo get from society we shall remain scil-cieeeiving loois, 1 and shall seem

self-deceiving fools to each 'other. Lecturing in Cardiff in March last, "lan Hay'' reterred to the misunderstanding between Great Britain and America, iie said that the great barrier to 'a complete understanding was the 3000 milos of ocean. For a, like reason, because ot the ocean barrier, there is ever the fear oi a similar misunderstanding springing up between Australia and New Zealand, One 01 the very best remedies is to educate thoroughly die children of dominion and commonwealth in tae history of each other's land. To this.end Mr Joseph Bryant's "The Story of Australia for Boys and Girls" will be found of great value. Mr Bryant tells' clearly, yet accurately, the story of the making of Australia from the days when, that groat continent was inhabited solely by the aborigines and its discovery by the Spaniard, Liuiz V. Torres, in 1605, right down to the present day. Chapters an the trees and Mowers, animals and birds in the Australian bush are added, as well as one .on "Water for Thirsty Lands." In a foreword, Sir VV. P. Oullen, Chief Justice of New South Wales, gives reasons for the Australians' deep and absorbing love "for their native land and conditions: "Can anyone wonder it Australians, when they let themselves think of' their country without either foolish boastfulness or equally foolish dispraise, should feel that it lies upon their honour that her good fame shall not suffer at their hands?"

* (1) " Station By G. M'Leod Winsor. London: Herbert Jenkins. (2s net.) (2) " Some Christian Essentials of Reconstruction." Edited by Lucy Gardner. London: G. Bell and Son?. (5s net.) (3) " The Story of Australia lor Boys and Girls." London: Hodder and Stoughton. (6s net.)

Before ler death Mrs Humphry Ward completed a novel, now published under the titie oi Harvest. It is & story 01 rural Krigland, and tells ol woman's work in war time. The real Henry James is said to be disclosed in the two voiumes of his letters to his personal friends, just published undei the editorship of Mr Percy Lubbock. In his lai-est collection of short stories, "Tatterdemalion," which are divided into two sections-—"Of War Time" and "Of Peace 'lime," —Mr John Galsworthy fully sustains the high reputation of his previ-ously-published "Five Tales." Mr James Huneker, the versatile New York critic, has published a new volume of essays oalled "ifcdoums," in which Mary Garden is his top note. Mi- Hugh WaJjjole is at present engaged in a reading and lecturing tour in the United States. He is due to leave for England next month. It is 'reported that, lollowing his trip to the Holy Land, Mr G K. Chesterton is to visit America. Dr R. G. Moulton, author of " The Modern Reader's Bible," is at present engaged in compiling "The Modern Reader's Bible for Schools." Arrangements have just been completed foi the publication of a uniform edition of the novels of H. G. Wells. Mr Wells is writing a special preface for each volume. "The Young Visiters" is to have a companion volume from the pen of a boy 11 years old. This was probably inevitable. The title is "In the Shadow of Great Peril," the author A. Wade, and M» Irvin Cobb writes of him as a genius. An Amerioan writer, J. Thomas Looney, has discovered who it really was that wrote the dramas of Shakespeare, and has written a book revealing the secret under the title "Shakespeare Identified." Mr Looney is very sure that the immortal bard was not William Shakespeare, but Edward de Yore, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, and ho sets forth a bookful of evidence to prove it. The fifth and sixth volumes of Mr G. E Buckle's "Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Boaconsfield," will be published shortly. They cover the last 13 years of Disraeli's life ; and complete the work. An opportunity of making acquaintance with modern Amerioan poetry is given in "The Yale Series of/"Younger Poets." The first volume, "Tho Tempering," contains a collection of verse by Howard Buck Tho second volume, oalled "Forgotten Shrines," is by John C. Farrar. Two new plays by Mr John Galsworthy are announced—-"The Foundations" and "The Skin Game: a Tragi-Comedy,"—both in throe acts. They will bo issued separately, and afterwards bound up with "A _ Bit o' Love" as the fourth series of Mr Galsworthy's "Plays." At the Port Chalmers Court yesterday Mr H. Y. Widdowson, S.M., gave judgment for plaintiff in the following cases:—James P. Milnea, grocer, v. Charles Mant, Carey Bay, claim £4 5s 3d, for groceries and bread supplied; same v. William Lean, Mansford Town, claim £2 Os 6d, for groceries and bread supplied. Costa amounting to 8s were allowed in each case.

Although to-day we all shake hands on meeting as a matter of course, there was a time when purists held that friends of opposite sexes should not salute one another by shaking hands. In 1828, Siir John Nicholl," giving judgment in a divorce case, remarked that " conduct highly blamea.b)e and distressing to the feelings of a husband had been proved; but although 30 witnesses had been examined, no indecent familiarities beyond kissing had been proved Tho shaking of hands when they met was now a practice so frequent between persons of different sexes, however opinions might differ as to its delicacy, that no unfavourable inference could be deduced therefrom." The Japanese host never entrusts the making of tea to his sen-ants on high occasions; it is a task ho invariably performs himself. Of all bodies of salt water the warmest is the .tied Sea, which has a temperature, even at its greatest depths, of 70 degrees.