OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19750, 17 March 1934, Page 9

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

SOME INTERESTING VIEWPOINTS. “Facing the Facts.” “Most of us at some time or other have been advised to ‘face the facts/ Possibly the advice has been salutary. But, in general, those who urge us to ‘face the facts’ may justly be suspected of partiality toward ‘the facts’ as they see them. There may be other facts, equally relevant to the situation, towards which they turn the blind eye of an exclusive interest.”—“Liverpool

Post.” Adding Up. “I do not know whether the Church is a kindred society, but I am inclined to think we are not particularly good at accounts. lam not,” said Dean Inge in a humorous speech at a gathering of the Institute of Cost and Works’ Accounts. “I have to add up my accounts every year. First I add them up and then I add them down, and then I split the difference. A gentleman wishes to know w'hether I have to add them up a third time. If I do they are quite different from either of the others. Because, after all, gentlemen, the notion that two and two necessarily make four is quite exploded; it is all a question of relativity and space-time. When space and time which we used to suppose to be quite different, are joined in holy wedlock anything may happen.” Middle Age—And After. “The besetting infirmity of people in middle age, is the notion that they have probably experienced most of what life has to offer and that when they pass, as it were, the crest of the hill, the rest of life is either a repetition of what has gone before or is in the nature of a decline. lam quite sure that is the mind of a good many men between 45 and 50. It is a deadening state of mind. Surely one's faith in life ought to include the belief—which is a very well-founded belief—that as a matter of fact life gets richer and fuller as it goes on; that as we burden ourselves wnth increased responsibilities and sacrifice a great deal of our liberty instead of impoverishing life, we enrich it.”— The Vicar of Leeds (Canon W. Thompson Elliott). The Lawless Cat. “To those who dw r ell in towns a dog is a luxury, but a cat is often a necessity,” writes Nicholas Lewis in “Our Cats.” “Practically every tenement house possesses at least five or six cats, its only protection against the mice and rats which infest it. This being so, it

is all the more surprising that so far as the law is concerned, cats have absolutely no legal status. It is perhaps not generally known that when a dog is run over the accident must be reported to the police. Failure to do so renders the driver liable to a heavy fine. Should, however, a cat meet with this misfortune, the driver is not even compelled to stop in order to see what injury has been done to the animal. Even were the cat a valuable one. its owner would probably be required to prove that the driver had been guilty of gross negligence before compensation could be claimed.”