VANLOAD OF PLAYERS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1934, Page 21 (Supplement)

VANLOAD OF PLAYERS

IDLE MEN FIND GOOD TO DO. ENTERTAINING UNEMPLOYED. In these days of swift travel so many surprising things occur that the unV expected becomes part of one’s daily life. Therefore it was with a feeling of slight astonishment only that we saw a van draw up at our door bearing the exciting inscription: From London; Unemployed Dramatists, says the Children’s Newspaper. Out of it jumped a little band of unemployed men who, under the courageous leadership of Mrs. Edwards, have been touring Wales and the West of England, visiting camps and centres for the workless, to present entertainment, free of charge, which they have themselves initiated. Courage was needed for this venture, as they had no money and no professional training to equip them, and they had to rely on their own enterprise to carry them through. They wished to show how enforced leisure can be used profitably for worthy ends and the development of latent gifts; they also wished to follow the lines of the first Strolling Players and produce their own work in their own words and in their own way. IN AN OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN. So they have given performances in all sorts of strange places; in lofts, and barns, in outdoor camps and clubs; they have slept on the floor of any shelter that offered, though gratefully accepting better accommodation when this was available. /’ They soon made themselves at home in the old-fashioned garden in which we gave them tea. They had not had much time or opportunity for a meal during the day, so they were glad of food; but what their hostess noticed with delight was-the fact that it was the little garden and the sweet herbs in it which gave them most pleasure. “Now, this is a garden,” said one, burying his face in a bunch of rosemary, sweet briar and verbena. “These are the things no garden should be without.” “Mignonette, lavender, lemon balm and thyme,” said another, who held all these in his hand. “Oh, they are delicious!” They passed with content, these Londoners, from plant to plant, and one of them begged for a red rose. He was given one; all of them had roses. One, the youngest of the band, paused and, looking down at his own, quoted softly: Out of his mouth a red,red rose, Out of his heart a. white, For who can say by what strange way Christ brings His will to light. It was no doubt His will that brought these workless men to this old garden > _ the West of England on that summer’s day, to taste the joys of colour and fragrance and renew the memories of childhood and happiness that seem somehow to be inseparable from them. When they left in their van to journey on in the quest of happiness for others, their hostess went with them part of the way to show them the right direction, and the last sight she had of them was of happy faces, and hands waving bunches of sweet herbs. DOT AND DASH ONE MORE THING GOING. I FAREWELL TO GREAT IDEA Farewell to Dot and Dash, farewell to Morse! It is going: the last Morse message has already gone out from the central telegraph office in London. Progress knows no sentiment, and the teleprinter is outsing the simple system of telegraphic transmission which has served the world so well and so long. The new machine looks something like a typewriter. In the central telegraph office each operator sits at a keyboard and taps out a message almost instantly reproduced in type at the big towns where it is sent. A good operator in the old days of Morse could deal with 40 or 50 telegrams an hour, though the average was less. To-day any man or girl can easily be trained to send 80, and a good operator 100 telegrams an hour.

Consequently as accuracy is joined to speed the Morse had to go. But, wonderful as is the growing power of the machine, it is not so wonderful as the idea born in Samuel Morse’s brain. He was one of the earliest of the pioneers of the electric telegraph, and in a world unready to believe in new inventions nearly starved before the United States Congress agreed to allot money for his experimental telegraph between Washington and Baltimore. On May 24, 1844, Morse sent his first official message over the wires, and his triumph was immediate. He did for the New World what Wheatstone and Cooke were doing for the United Kingdom. But what he did for the whole world was of more account. It was his genius which struck out the alphabet of electric communication, the telegraphic Esperanto that has served every nation, an alphabet that all the world uses, not on the wire alone, but from ship to ship, from ship to shore. The signal SOS is spelled in the longs and shorts of Morse. GOING BUT NOT YET GONE. There is no end to it yet. It will be long before the end can come. The henograph winking messages across the Indian hills, the signals flashed by searchlight, no less than those waved by the flags of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, all go in the dots and dashes of this universal code. When Kipling wrote of deep-sea cables, along which in the ooze the words of men flicker and flutter and beat, the flickering thus imagined was that of the Morse signals, i The first wireless message across the Atlantic came in this alphabet. The post office may discard it. Wireless wT-1 discover an improvement on it, though ‘even now, As we listen to it, we may hear him speaking to us from the grave. Morse! we grumble, as sharp high-pitch-ed sounds enter the room. They are the jerky fragments of his alphabet Still employed by the ship operators who have not yet found a better. JOKES AND RIDDLES, Visitor: “And have you lived here all your life?” : Native: “Not yet.” ❖ 3 s Mother: • “Now,- Bobby, don’t let me speak to you again.” Bobby: “How can I stop you mummy?” (Sent by Gerald Long). * * * * Why is a whirlpool like a donkey?— Because it is an eddy (a neddy). (Sent. by Joyce Thompson). When is a’ dog like a watch?—When it is on a chain. (Sent by Betty Milne).