Untitled

Timaru Herald, Volume C, Issue 15304, 25 March 1914, Page 6

The world must -wait a little—probably a great deal—longer before it knows the Pope's opinion of the tango. An amazing story was communicated to the English Press and cabled to New Zealand newspapers a few weeks ago that the Pope> wishing to form his own judgment of a craze which has excited so much controversy, arranged for a young lady to dance the tango for hiai at the Vatican. He was reported to have said, after the per formance, that the tango was "not very amusing," and that if he- had set it as a penance he would justly have been accusad of cruelty. The story revealed a curious conception of papil ftmctions and responsibilities, hut it may have been rendersd more convincing to some English readers by a photograph, which was promptly published in the London "Daily JN"ews," of. a very handsome, aristocratic looking young lady, described as. "Sig norina di Careno* who gave an exhibition of the tango at the Vatican. 5 '

The story was, of course, nn imposition. Even the "Daily iN'ews" now admits thai it must be discredited, though, for tin* sake of the Pope's alleged verdict on the dance, it would like to think it true. But Signor 3klar\netti, leader of the artistic cult of Futurists, has expressed an opinion on the tango which is calealated to make it most unpopular, if the ideas of Futurists come the rage. "Do you Cud it so very amusing," he askVl recently, "to look into each other's mouths like two mad dentists?'' And, in a remarkable letter he has published, he reminds the world of fashion nf another argument, "the only -<ne that you can care about." ' c To love Wagner and 'Parsifal' nowadays, to give tango teas like aU the good little bourgeois everywhere—ce n'est plus chic"—it is no longer smart. That should be the last blow to the tango, though "Wagner may survive it.

'Airmen who get rich quick in the round-the-world air race :a connection with the San Francisco Exhibition, for which prizes to the amount of £200,000 are being offered, will deserve their fortune. The route to be coverol in the 120 d-\vs allowed for the journey of 22j000 miles stacks

from the Exhibition grounds. Uie first stage is to .New York and tlience to Belle Isle, betw 3 _in and Labrador From this point the Atlantic will be crossed by way of Cape Farewell, Greenland, and Iceland to •Stornoway in the Hebrides. The airmen will then pass by way o£ Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and will follow th> Trans-Siberian Railway through .Manchuria to Yladivostock. Korea will Be their ntxt objective, and then, crossing to Kobe and passing- over the Sea of Japan, they will head north for Kanisckatka, in Siberia, and for East Cape. They then cross the short stretch of water to Alaska, and "finally reach San Francisco by way of Yancouver and Seattle/' At least that is the official programme as recently revised, on* if a single airman should complete it the world will be astonished. Mr Orville Wright's opinion of a trans-Atlantic flight is that it would be "absolutely foolish to attempt such a feat with. such, engines as are at our disposal now." The question of the soldier's duty in the event of civil war arising has been much, discussed in the British Press of late. According to the Unionist argument, a soldier is not, by his military oatli, divested of the obligations of a citizen. "The common law holds hi™ to a kind of spiritual dualism." In respect of riots it has been ruled by, Mr Justice. Stephen that the ques - tion whether the soldier and the subordinate officer are justified in shooting and killing depenls not on their orders, but "on the question whether each of them respectively had reasonable grounds to believe and did in fact believe in good faith either that what they did was necessary to suppress a dangerous riot," .or that the person giving the order "had reasonable grounds to believe and did believe that theorder given was necessary to suppress a dangerous riot." It wis also found by the Eeatherstone Riots Committee that a soldier "cannot x because he is a soldier, excuse himself if, without necessity, he takes human life." History has many instances of officers resigning from an army rather than take part in civil war, but the notion that tie Army and the ISavy should tfultimately determine the country's policy" is properly condemned by Mr A'sauith.