HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17854, 24 May 1926, Page 8

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. The Useful Walnut.. The walnut can be put to more uses than most people imagine. In California it has been discovered that no part of this product need be wasted. The trade is in the hands of a Walnut Owners’ Association, which last year produced IS.OOO tons of nuts. They have installed the most modern machinery, including a machine for cracking nuts. It can deal with 15 tons a day. The nuts are passed through a number of metal fingers, which crack the shells without hurting the kernels. For nuts that are dust-covered or otherwise unfit for sale without cleaning, there is another machine which removes the dirt and polishes the walnuts. This is worked by compressed air, which moves a number- of brushes fitted into a long trough.

Quality of British Stock. There is one industry - the breeding of pedigree stock—in which Britain remains supreme. From pigs to ponies and from sheep to Shorthorns. British beasts are acknowledged to be the best in the world and are bought by foreigners at high prices to improve the foreign breeds. During 1925 the Russian Government bought, from British breeders 250 pedigree pigs. England has always been famous for her cattle and her sheep. Nearly 300 years ago huge oxen we’re produced there. In his diary Evelyn speaks of an ox that was 19 hands high and four yards long, and that was in 1649. At the date mentioned Leicestershire sheep had already obtained a great reputation and fetched big prices. The ,marvellous sheep of New South Wales, one of which recently yielded 4541 b of wool at a clip, are of purely British descent.

Twenty-three Babies Each. By the birth of her twenty-third child, Mrs Lucas, of Tonbridge, has drawn level with another local mother having twenty-three children. Mrs Lucas's family previously consisted of six daughters and sixteen sons, three of whom were killed in France. In eight years she gave birth to three pairs of twins. The family all live in a sixroomed cottage on the small earnings of the husband, who cycles twelve miles to his work. The mother’s chief difficulty lies in providing clothes and shoes for this small army of young folk. The cobbling is done by the husband, ■who also acts as family barber, while mother does most of . the tailoring. The children of Mrs James Goldsmith, who previously alone held the town’s record for the largest family, were all of single birth.

The Elements of History. In the course of an article on the resources of literature in the Pilgrim, of which he is the editor, Dr Temple.. Bishop of Manchester, defines history as “that great field where science, art and philosophy meet and are at one.” History is a department of science, he writes, because it is always engaged in the search for truth both general and particular; it is part of philosophy, for it must both select and arrange its material in accordance with some outlook on the world which determines the relative importance of things; it is art because its aim is so to present the past that we not only receive information concerning it, but enter into its feelings and passions, its joys and griefs, its hopes and fears. But in its essence it. consists in a wide and comprehensive intellectual grasp, so that it calls for an effort quite out of comparison with that required by other sorts of literature. History is the most all-round of literary exercises; in its science, art and philosophy are all equally involved. And universal history may well be in itself the noblest drama ever conceived. But no Irian can see it all or contemplate it as a whole. Therefore in order that the deepest meanings may be expressed there mus tbe concentration on certain aspects of the whole reality.

The Conductor’s Baton.** Ludwig Spohr, famous violinist, conductor and composer, who is known to the general public chiefly by his oratorio, “The Last Judgment.” and his song, “Rose, Softly Blooming,” was the first to use a baton for conducting a large orchestra in England. But. like Safonoff, who became famous ten or fifteen years ago as the man who conducted without a baton, he was simplv reviving in a more convenient form an older custom. The use of the baton is, in fact, a very ancient one. though the manner of its use has varied. It probably arose from the fact that in the larger churches, and especially on great occasions, the director of the’ choir had a staff of office something like. a bishop’s crozier, but. with a different head. This he held in his left hand while directing the singers with the right. - Now and then, however, he had to recover the attention of his singers, whep he would stamp On the floor with his staff, doing the same thing also on occasion to keep them together. In later times, when boys began to take part in the singing, he vised it as a means of chastisement, and graduallv transferred it entirely to the right hand. We may, therefore, say that both conducting with a baton and conducting without one come from the same ecclesiastical methods.