People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19154, 21 August 1930, Page 8

People and Their Doings.

Was Woolston An Older Church Than Heathcote : Some Famous Echoes : Mistakes About New Zealand Disposing Of Murderers And Dead Men.

jyjTR BERNARD SHAW, who would give the murderer every- opportunity of de- —— ■ priving the hangman of his occupation, has no hesitation in saying what he thinks about dead men. In a preface to a private edition of his works, he describes his father as “ a miserable drunkard.’* Shaw, in turn, has been trounced by a Baptist parson in England for showing to the world the family skeleton in all its nakedness, and for speaking unkindly about his dead father. The dramatist said in retaliation : 44 The idea that one shouldn’t say anything unkind about the dead is a thoroughly false one.”

“J>IWI” writes in re P ! y to an inquiry as to whether St John’s, Woolston is an older church than St Marys, lieathcote: I find from my records that St John s ivas consecrated on Tuesday, December 27, 1559. An account is given in the “Lyttelton Times” of December 31 of that year. In regard to the church in Heathcote Valley, I see it was opened for service on August 19, IS6O, but was not then consecrated. The account states that it was a copy of the church at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight. I find further that the foundation stone of ihe church at Governor’s Bay was laid on January 29,, 1860, the foundation stone of St Mary’s at Tirnaru was laid on April 7, 1860, and that the church at Rangiora was to be consecrated on April 25, 1860.

PROFESSOR A. M. LOWE'S article in the “ Star ” on acoustics recalls some famous echoes, the best known probably being the Whispering Gallery at St Paul’s Cathedral, where a whisper is conveyed to the opposite side of the dome. There is a particular spot in Gloucester Cathedral from which a whisper can be heard seventy feet away. At Woodstock an echo once started repeats itself fifty times. x\ church in Sussex has an echo vrhich repeats “twenty syllables in the most remarkable manner.” One of the most noted of all is that from the bridge across the Menai Strait, ■where a hammer blow on one of the main piers is echoed in succession by each of the cross beams and from the opposite pier 52G feet away. W W QOMMANDER H. M. DANIEL tells how the properties of the whispering dungeon in Hastings Castle came to be rediscovered. The custodian had issued some instructions to workmen in the dungeon, and was walkiifg away when he heard himself reviled in no uncertain manner by a voice coming apparently from the solid rock. The solution was that one of the workmen, not relishing his orders, had muttered his opinion practically under his breath, and the peculiar qualities of the dungeon had done the rest, the custodian happening to be at the one spot where the sound could be heard in its intensified form. W W W REMARKABLE STUDY has just been published in New York of Hetty Green, one of America’s most remarkable women. At one stage of her life, though she had amassed a fortune of £20,000,000 in Wall Street, when fortunes there -were more easily made than lost, this woman chose to live almost in beggary, carrying about with her in the folds of her skirts the keys of the safe deposits she had in various American cities. Hetty Green must have been the greatest miser in history, and for that alone she would be interesting. But besides this she was a woman of strange and uncanny powers, who lived at the mercy of a mania • —the belief that everyone, including her closest friends—and she moved even in her rags in New York “Society”—was making determined attempts on her life. Hetty Green died in 1916 at the age of SI after withstanding the shock of no fewer than five paralytic strokes. What was the secret of this extraordinary woman’s financial successes? When asked what her method was, she replied quite simply: “I believe in getting in at the bottom and out at the top. ... I. don’t much believe in stocks. I never buy industrials. Railroads and real estate are the things I like.” WWW ]\£R \V F. M. BUCKLEY, whose deathj occurred 3’csterdav at New Brighton* will be remembered by surf-bathers as a very ardent bather who used to take a well-known Rolls-Royce taxi to Brighton, always with the same driver, indulge in a dip, and then drive back to town. Mr Buckley was one of several heavy-weight bathers at Brighton who were playfully known as “the howitzers.” Mr Buckley interested himself in one of the earlier Antarctic expeditions, and there is a Mount Buckley perpetuating his name.

"y£R R. E. GREEN has promised to look into this matter also, but his recollection is that there was no church on the Ferry Road in 1859. As for the naming of Woolston, he thinks it may have come about sometime like the name Fendalton, which was originally Fendall Town. Outside the city proper there were the Heathcote, Avon and Riccarton Road Boards, and later the Spreydon Road Board and portions of these districts picked up various names. Some stuck like Woolston, which might once have been Wool Town, on account of the wool-scouring works and tannery; Linwood, Richmond, Phillipstown, St Albans and Merivale. But other names did not stick, notably Knightstown, which started north of Edgeware Road and had no definite northern and eastern boundaries; and Bingsland, which was beyond Richmond. Mr Green remembers Bing, a very dark man, who, he thought, was a foreigner, and lived later in Salisbury Street.

WWW HE SUGGESTION to supply a murderer with “ all appliances and means to boot ” might have more consequences than those foreseen by Mr Bernard Shaw. The Rev S. R. Glanvill Murray, a prison chaplain of twenty years’ experience, told the House of Commons Select Committee on Capital Punishment how one man under sentence of death completely lost his mental balance on the evening before the execution. “ I went into his cell,” said Mr Murray, “ and as I entered this noose flicked past my face.” Mr Murray brought from under his papers three or four feet of rope and handed it to the chairman . “ The man told me,” he said, “ that he had meant to strangle the first person to enter and then to do himself in. lie said to me: ‘lf they want murder, they shall have it: ” WWW QAPTAIN T. A. DYKES, who lectured the Canterbury Sailing and Power Boat Association on sailing On Tuesday evening, came to New Zealand about twenty-two years ago in a new Northern Steam Ship Company steamer. He was later appointed to a position by the Government as examiner of masters and mates at Auckland. For seme time he was chief officer of the Government steamer Tutanekai, and was then transferred to the command of the Government training ship Amakura. On the Amakura being discarded, he was appointed Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine, and acted in that capacity at Lyttelton for some years until his retirement on account of age limit. r £ 111-: YOUNGEST EXPEDITION that ! ever set out for the Arctic left the ! Thames last month in Sir Ernest Shackleten’s old ship, the Quest. It is led by Mr 11. G. Watkins, aged twenty-three, and that is the average age of his fourteen companions. They form the British Arctic air-route expedition, which is to explore the ice cap of Greenland with a view to establishing an all-British air route between Britain and Canada. The far-north route is the shortest airway tu the Dominion.

& W & JT IS A PITY some of the ‘‘old school” do not always have the knowledge of boxing that is given to the boys of the present generation. How far a man may go wrong in the technicalities of the fight is illustrated by a description of a New Zealand boxing match in “Solemn Boy,' a book by Mr Hector Bolitho. It would appear that the writer drew a good deal on his imagination to supplement his ignorance. He mode the contestants fall down into the corner at the end of each round, and large blocks of ice were then applied to the napes of their necks. But this is not the only inaccuracy that Mr Bolitho has written about events in this country. In “The New Zealanders” he made this statement: —■ “In 1893 the women of New Zealand were given general suffrage. In the main they have used their vote wisely, and when women have been returned to Parliament, they have been useful without being noisy, conscientious without being objectionably intense. On city councils, road boards, education boards and in Parliament itself, they have been quick in suggesting innovations and hardworking in carrying them out.” It does not always follow that what we think ought to be. is.