The Christchurch Star. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1930. BOWLING AND BRAWLING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18961, 7 January 1930, Page 8

The Christchurch Star. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1930. BOWLING AND BRAWLING.

WHEN blows are struck on a bowling green, as happened at Linwood on Saturday, one begins to realise, sadly, that we may be in danger of returning to the swashbuckling manners of early Victorian times. There was perhaps some excuse for the duelling spirit in those days. Men affected the most preposterous fashions in chin whiskers, and old photographs show that they were inordinately vain of their personal appearance, posing in profile before the camera in a manner that would raise a riot nowadays. But We have outgrown most of these human frailties, at least on the surface. Possibly our children, with clearer vision than their parents, have a restraining influence on the amount of paternal swank that may be indulged in. At all events, in polite society, while a sickening degree of male conceit still exhibits itself in certain directions, it does not assume the loathsome outward form that calls insistently for corporal correction. We have travelled many miles along the road of good manners since the days of Dickens, when the ladies left the men to their wine and walnuts in the almost certain knowledge that a breach of the peace would not long be delayed after their withdrawal. The rule of might has given way to the rule of gentleness and reasonableness. “ Soft words but hard arguments ” is a business maxim that has penetrated the social world, and has accelerated the reaction against the futile fisticuffs of a former age. The bully and the brawler are out of favour with the fair sex, except in the lower strata of society. Manly men have a hatred of brawling, and it is a welcome sign of the times that the members of the Linwood Club have taken steps to preclude the possibility of a recurrence of the scene that threatened to imbrue their bowling green with blood.

IS THERE A CENSORSHIP? IF NEWS FROM SAMOA is being censored at the Samoan end—and it is certainly not being censored in New Zealand—the Administrator will have to be told very plainly that his edict is quite contrary to the spirit of the times, or of the terms under which New Zealand holds the Mandate to govern Samoa. As a matter of fact, the censorship of cablegrams, which in view of the paucity of information one would suspect to be in operation, apart from Mr Hall Skelton’s definite allegation to that effect, would be a very stupid thing, because the mail is bound to bring full accounts of the riot, and photographs of every aspect of it, and a censorship could have no other effect in the meantime than the creation of doubt as to the merits of the Administrator’s action. New Zealand is not at war with Samoa, and there is not the slightest ground for a censorship of any kind. It is quite unthinkable that Sir Joseph Ward has approved of any degree of censorship, and the interesting point at present is whether there has been a censorship, and if so what the Government is going to do about it.

HUMAN RECEIVING SETS. THERE IS NOTHING NEW in the idea that there may be persons who are natural wireless receivers, because telepathy was a well recognised phenomenon long before wireless was discovered. This much is clearly proved by reference to a standard dictionary dating a few years back, in which we read that telepathy is “ the sympathetic affection of one mind or person by another at a distance, through a supposed emotional influence' and without any direct communication by the senses.” As a matter of fact we do not need to go to telepathy to prove the case, because everything we have in the way of perception, except touch and taste, is received wirelessly. What mankind did in discovering the wireless wave was to do in the matter of hearing what Galileo and others did in bringing distant objects nearer through the telescope. If hearing from distances far beyond the range of the human receiving valve—the ear—had not first been developed by wire, the word wireless itself would be meaningless to-day, and we would not regard it as in any degree a novel idea that the human body should be a natural receiving station. What is novel is the suggestion that some of the human receiving sets should be more sensitive than others, and should be capable of tuning in to music that is “ on the air ” —whether put there by human agency or not. And here again one encounters the fact that many persons have had the experience of hearing music in the air—or bells—in circumstances where music could not possibly reach them by the ordinary means. If there are persons, as Major Avery says, who hear music of every kind that is not audible to those around them, the next step will be to record the music and find out where it may have been sent from. The possibility that this may be done opens up a wonderful field for speculation, because it is not too fantastic to suggest that by some such means communication with other worlds will be established.