Editor's Wallet

Otago Witness, Issue 3885, 28 August 1928, Page 83

Editor's Wallet

IDENTIFIED. Two coloured fellows standing on the street were discussing the greatness of their respective families. Says Bill: “Yes, sub. Ah kin trace mah folks way back to de fambly tree.” “Yo say you’s kin chase dem back to de fambly tree? ” says George. “Not chase,” says Bill; “trace, Ah said, trace. Git me? ” “Ah see,” says George; “ oney two things lib in trees —birds and monkeys,— and Ah suah doan see no feathers on you! ” THE GOLDEN BIRD. My mind is a cage Where the thought of you swings Like a golden bird. My mind is a cage Where awakens and sings A melody heard. And forward and back In that limited space The golden bird sways. (Oh, all that I lack Is the calm of your face, ' The strength of your gaze!) My mind is a cage. On its frail, rusted bars The thought of you clings— A bird in a cage — That looks out at the stars And batters its wings! —Anne Campbell, in Women’s Weekly. WHERE WAS IT? “ Let me see some of your black kid gloves,” remarked the sweet young thing to the shop assistant. Black kid gloves in bundles and in boxes were brought and placed before her. “ These are not the very latest in style, are they? ” she asked. “ They are, madam,” replied the assistant. “We’ve had them in stock for only, two days.” . 1 But the young woman was not so easily convinced. “ I don’t think they are,” she said, “because the fashion book says black kids have tan stitches and vice versa. I can see the tan stitches all right, but where’s the vice versa ? ” HARD ON FIDO. The stout lady, who was beautifully upholstered in velvet and pearls, scarcely troubled to look up from her breakfast as the door opened to admit the little man who had been too timid to resist her advances during a leap, year long ago. “Have you shaved?” she demanded, •with her mouth full of bacon and egg. “Yes, dear.” “Have you brushed your hair?” “ Yes, dear.” “And cleaned your teeth?” “ Yes, dear.” A podgy hand was waved generously towards a bundle of fluff that lay on the sofa. “ Very well. You may kiss Fido.” LITTLE RAC-HEAD. I call her little Rag-head, my precious baby girl, Because at night when bedtime comes her curls are “ put in curl ” ! They’re very nearly natural, but not exactly quite; So nurse produces curling-rags and ties them up quite tight. And then when morning comes again the rags are all undone. And auburn curls are brushed and combed, all glinting in the sun. A My Rag-head has a Bonzo and a lovely teddy bear, r And dolls of every kind and size, with dark or golden hair. And all are put to bed at night and tucked in tiny cots, But none can have their hair in curl in tiny raggy knots. Because it isn’t long enough to tie as hers is tied, So we tell her only “ humans ” with curls can be supplied. I love my little Rag-hcad, and I love her hair in rags, For though they are not pretty, those raggy little bags, ' At any rate they show that she has got some hair to curl. And she’s neither bobbed nor shingled, my own Rag-head little girl. —Francesca, in Chambers’s Journal. VEGETABLES ON VENUS? While Mr Baird in London has been using infra-red rays to let us behold the face of a man thousands of miles away, Professor Ross, of the Yerkes Observatory, has been using the same invisible •rays to photograph the face of Venus, and has proved that this lovely planet is always under heavy clouds, and that it is indeed the reflection of li<rht fro™ her ■clouds that gives her her silver radiancy (says the Children’s Newspaper). The layer of dense clouds assures Venus a steady, warm, moist temperature such as prevailed on earth during the Carboniferous Period, when coal was being laid down, and it seems not imnossiole that Venus is at present covered with vegetation. Some astronomers, indeed, believe that it is much more likely that hicrher forms of animal life occur on Venus than on Mars.

THE POPE’S CLOTH. How many people are aware of the romance that lurks in the names of fabrics? Cotton is the Arabic “ qutn.” Calico is corrupted from Calicut, in India. Muslin is from Mosul, -whence it was first exported, though nearly all the cotton muslin names are Indian; Sanskrit gives us chintz; gingham is a Malayan word; nainsook is Hindustani; jaconet is from the town of Jagannathi, near Calcutta. Of the silks, damask, of course, is shortened from Damascus; taffeta comes from the Persian word “ taftan,” which means both “ to shine ” and “ to spin.” Poplin is an interesting exception to Eastern derivation. No one would associate a curtain or dress material with the Pope, yet poplin really means a papal cloth, for it was first made at the papal town of Avignon, in France. The most romantic name-chain of all links an Arabian prince with eats. It concerns a forgotten watered silk called tabby—vain old Pepys had his “ false tabby wastecoate with gold lace.’’ The word came to England from Arabia by way of France and Spain. The Arabs named the silk after a quarter of Bagdad, ’Attabiy, in which it was first made. ’Attabiy in its turn commemorated ’Attab, an Arabian prince. So from Prince ’Attab comes the word we use to-day for a cat whose wavy patterned coat resembles the material. A TIMELY WARNING. A certain lurid melodrama had almost reached its conclusion, and the audience were wondering what would happen when the villain was suddenly confronted by the fair-haired hero. “Ah,” the villain scowled, folding his arms across his chest, “you again, eh? And what is it now, a hiding you ” The hero raised a protesting hand. “ Sir Jasper! ” he exclaimed in threatening tones. “ You may have reduced me to beggary, broken the heart of the girl I love, and murdered my aged mother—but beware! Don’t try me too far!” WONDER TRIPS BY TRAINS. London to Edinburgh non-stop is a fine achievement, but probaby not the most spectacular one in railway history. The companies, in fact, would be hard put to it to break some of their own thirty-year-old records. On a certain memorable night in August, 1895, for example, the old London and North-Western Railway despatched a train from London to Aberdeen. It covered the 540 miles in 512 minutes! It stopped on the way, and was also very light behind the tender; nevertheless the average of 64 miles per hour over the whole distance is one that would need some beating, even today. The Americans shortly afterwards went one better by sending a train from Chicago to Buffalo, a distance of 510 miles, at an average speed of. 65 miles per hour. For the first 424 miles, as far as Erie, the average was only 63, but at Erie the engine was changed, and the remaining 86 miles wore actually covered in 70 minutes. Ninety-two miles per hour was the highest speed touched, and (perhaps most extraordinary of all) the engine put on at Erie was an ordinary goods engine. Even 92 miles is not a world’s record, for before the war the Germans, experimenting with electric locomotives on a specially prepared concrete track near Berlin, touched speeds of well over 100 miles per hour. As for the Flying Scotsman, with its hairdressing saloon on board, it is beaten in point of novelty, one would imagine, by the pre-war trans-siberian expresses, which used often to contain a travelling church! PUEBLO WARRIOR’S INVOCATION. Lords of the six World Quarters, The North and the West, the South and the East; Lords of the Up Above and the Down Below! For your defence I come! I bring you my -war club, I bring you my flint, T bring you my shield and my bow. Lords of the Earth and the Sky. I give you my strength, I give you of my life and my death. Lords of the Earth and the Sky, Your protection I pray! Make of my enemies a weak woman; Make their arrows of no avail Against my painted shield. Lords of the Six World Quarters, Give me of your strength and your wisdom ; Lords of the nethermost world quarters, Your son comes before you now; Listen to my song and my dance, O Brothers! Listen to my prayers! —lna Sizer Cassidy, in Interludes. SENTENCED PEER. It would be easier to find precedents for the execution of peers of the realm than to parallel the four years’ penal servitude to which Lord, Terrington has been sentenced. Indeed (savs a London Star writer), I cannot recall any precedent at all comparable in character, 1 There was Lord George Gordon, of course, of Gordon riots fame, but he was not a peer, but the son of a peer. In 1788 he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Newgate, “where he lived at his ease, giving dinners and dances,” till he died of “ delirious fever ” in 1793.

ANTIMACASSARS. Name-words tend to wear out like any others, sometimes because they are superseded by more modern words carrying meanings more freshly, and sometimes because the things they stand for pass away. It is a great many years since I heard the word “ antimacassar ” used. In my childhood it was almost a sacred household name, and I dare say it was considered to be a clever creation. The purpose of an antimacassar was to preserve the upholstered back of a cbair from the macassar hair oil, which came from Macassar, the capital of the Celebes Islands. As antimacassars were merely thrown over the chairs and not attached to them, they were always falling down. The attached short variety is seen today in clubs and in Pullman cars, and here the word survives. A somewhat similar word, “ doily ” or “ doyley,” appears to have had two derivations and two meanings. As a table napkin its name, according to Mr Stenhouse, came from the Dutch word “ divaal,” meaning a towel, and was modified by Grimm’s law of the change of consonants. This I doubt greatly, for the word must have been a fairly sudden creation, and I do not thing Grimm’s law could have had time to operate. I should guess that doily, the napkin, and doily, a kind of light cloth, were both named after the seventeenth century linen draper in the Strand, who is thus oddly mentioned in Addison’s Spectator: “ The famous Doily is still fresh in everyone’s memory, who raised a fortune by finding out materials for such stuffs as might at once be cheap and genteel. I have heard it affirmed that had he not discovered this frugal method of gratifying our pride we should hardly have been able to carry on the last war.” Evidently in those days war took its place among the amenities of life.—John o’ London, in John o’ London’s Weekly. THE RIGHT ONE. They had met on the Underground, and the first girl, who recently had become engaged, had a quantity of news for her friend. In the end she mentioned her engagement, and after a long look at the ring on her friend’s finger the other girl said: “By the way, in case I put my foot in it, have you mentioned your engagement to Timothy to anyone else? ” “No,” returned the first girl, “not a soul, except that cat Carrie, w 7 ho thought h e was going to propose to her.” THE PURSUIT OF A BALL. Many people hesitate to make a journey at all unless they can do it on wheels. This leads naturally to muscular decay. Often, also, the years bring a certain enlargement of circumference. Walking, at first undesired, becomes increasingly difficult. Whereas at 40 one should be able to do 10 miles comfortably in three hours, half a mile in 30 minutes may come to be regarded as a very creditable achievement. Others; rather absurdly, invent occasions for walking, while neglecting opportunities for it that naturally arise. They never dream of traversing the distance between home and office except on wheels, but on Saturday afternoon, and perhaps on Sunday, they may be seen tramping over the links after a ball. “ One must get some exercise, you know,” they say, “ and often Sunday’s the only chance one has.” There is a pleasure peculiar to itself in playing with something round. That is why a ball is one of the first things a child wants. But what really makes golf fascinating is that by means of it people who were fast forgetting how to walk are discovering its charms anew. One wonders, however, whether such substitutes can compensate for the loss sustained through excessive riding. The giraffe, it is said, came to possess his long neck through persistently stretching it to reach leaves on tall trees. Perhaps 10,000 years hence our successors will have large heads. Whether they will have any nervous system, if the racket of civilisation increases, is perhaps doubtful. In gradually fitting man to his new conditions. Nature, may abolish that nuisance. Something like the same fate may befall his legs. They may shrink until they become like the forefeet of a kangaroo or the bifurcations of a mermaid’s tail.—A. J. Edmonds, in the Sunday at Home. SOME BAROMETER. Two sportsmen, putting up at a cottage for a holiday, found the rain interfering with their arrangements. They also noticed that an old-fashioned barometer, hanging upon the living room wall, invariably registered “ V ery fair.” At last one of them drew the householder’s attention to this. . “ Don’t you think,” he said, “ that there’s something wrong with your glass? ” “Na, sir,” answered the old Scot haughtily: “she’s a guid glass, but she’s no moved by trifles.” HE’D HAD SUFFICIENT. A dinner was being given by the smiire to a number of his tenants. Everything was carried out in first-class style, and, among other luxuries, fingerbowls were provided. One old man cotildn’t understand what these were for, but being thirsty and seeing nothing else to drink, he emptied the bowl opposite him. A waiter noticed the empty bowl and promptly refilled it. The old fellow then raised it to his lips and drained it once more. ‘ _ The waiter was about to fill it again when the old man remarked: “ I say. ye’d better not gimme any more o’ that or I’ll burst! ”

BUCK UP! Buck up! The demon, of despair Is stronger than your strongest foe. Shake off the shackles which you wear, Stand up and give life blow for blow. Take failure now, to-morrow too, And then the next day if you must, But watch that chap inside of you! He is the one you mustn’t' trust. That vicious fellow of, your mind That whispers craven hints, and tries With artful cowardice to bind Your hands and arms and blind your eyes, Needs watching more than outer foes, For greater injury he’ll do. He’ll steal the courage from your blows, And make a coward of you. Buck up! and get your vision straight. The enemy you have to fight Is not the one beyond the gate, But one that’s with you day and night. His voice is plaintive, and he wails That all is lost and hope is vain. Your every dream this foe assails: Don’t give him lodgment in your brain. Buck up! One victory wipes out A hundred failures gone before; Heed not the little voice of doubt That sickly whispers, “ Try no more.” See clearly failure and success And all the men who’vc struggled through, And watch that demon of distress Which seeks to make a wreck of you. Your thoughts are stronger than your foes, They’ll drive your dearest friends away, They’ll weaken you and they’ll impose New fears upon you, day by day. Who gives his mind unto despair Lodges a foeman in his brain. Buck up! To-morrow may be fair, For cowards only hope in vain. —Edgar A. Guest, in Answers. THE SEA SLAVE. Give to me not a redden’d sun as it sets o’er a placid sea, Nor smooth white sails as they spread and strain far over the rail to lee, Nor an easy trick at a lazy wheel, when all is dead and still, But give me the spume of a violent sea and a wind that is harsh and shrill. Give me a leaning, keeling ship, with masts of bending pine; And decks awash to covering-board, with surging wake, be mine. Give me strong winds and ■wild winds, that whip the seas to foam, And slanting spars and bare spars, with erojack set alone. Let me stand in a wheel-pit, my face turned to the clouds, And let me mind the cutting wind w’hile it’s shrieking through the shrouds: Give me black skies and hidden stars — a night that’s deep and dark— When the blinding streaks of white lights flash quick about the barque. —William Anderson, in Westward. WHY LOVERS “SPOON.” Do you know why love-making is sometimes called “ Spooning ” ? Probably you’ve used the word often enough without ever giving a thought to its origin. Well, you will find the clue to the mystery in a £1,000,000 exhibition of art treasures organised by the British Antique Dealers’ Association, which is now being held, in London. Among the exhibits is an eighteenth century Welsh “ love spoon ” carved out of applewood. These tokens were carefully fashioned by lovers of bygone days and presented to their sweethearts. The old custom has'■- vanished, but “ spooning ” still means love-making. The aim of the exhibition is to show that, _ in spite of the way in which American collectors have been snapping them up, we still have plenty of beautiful antiques in Britain. But perhaps the exhibition will succeed only too well in its object—it may stimulate trans atlantic treasure hunters to fresh efforts.

WISDOMETTES. The perfect husband always belongs to another woman. A man hardly ever realises his worth until he is sued for breach of promise. • • • The real hero of many a novel is the man who undertakes to publish it. » « • The more a man tells a woman he loves her, the more he will have to keep it up. * * The girl who thinks no man is good enough for her is quite surprised to find that men are satisfied she should think so. * * * What a girl likes about a young man is usually what her mother doesn’t. ♦ * * That girl who admitted that she was 25 in 1910 must be nearly 30 by thia time. * * ♦ It is wise to shut your eyes to a lot of things in this world —soap is one of them. * * * Occasionally a woman does a man a favour by making a fool of him instead of marrying him. * * ♦ Poor Eve must have found life awfully monotonous with no other woman to be jealous of. The amateur poet begins to count himself a success -when he earns enough money with his pen to pay for the ink he uses. HE THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY! The man who had been knocked down by a motor car, which had not troubled to stop, was being questioned by a policeman. “ Did you get his number? ” asked the policeman. “ No,” said the man, “ but I’d recognise his laugh anywhere.” MODES IN WEDDINGS. The manner in which fashions in churches for marriages change in London is strikingly exemplified just now in the ease of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, which for some years past has held pride of place for society weddings (says the Daily Chronicle). Before the war the church was St. George’s, Hanover square, and it used to be said that no girl felt really legally married unless the ceremony had taken place there. The latest tendency among fashionable brides, however, is to select out-of-the-way churches for the weddings. A THOUGHT AT BEDTIME. When you sleep, my baby, Take this thought with you; It’s a funny something, But it’s mighty true: Snuggle in your pillow, Weary, you must rest; Dear, when you are naughty Then I love you best! Go to sleep, my baby, Don’t you lie and toss; Never mind, my honey, When your mother’s cross; When you’ve been a bad boy Stabs me to the breast; ' Dear, when you are naughty Then I love you best! There’s another Shepherd Loves the straying lamb; He looks down and sees me Striving as I am; Want so much to see you Grow, with wisdom blest: Dear, when you are naughty Then I love you best! —Anne Campbell, in Women’s Weekly.