People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19236, 25 November 1930, Page 6

People and Their Doings.

Why Christchurch Library Limits Readers To One Book A Day Three Brothers Over Eighty , One Meets GovernorGeneral : Wrestling Was Mild In Webers Day.

APROPOS of the statement that Londoners read four times as much as they read fifty years ago, a well-known business man of the city tells the story that about 1888 or 1889, when he was a boy at the Boys’ High School, he was a voracious reader, and used |to have a subscription of his own to the Public Library. When the winter holidaj-s came round, if he did not go away for a holiday, he used to do a little work in the garden, and read a lot—boys’ books and advanced books. He read so much, indeed, that he quite frequently changed two books in one day, faking out one book in the morning and another after tea in the evening. This annoyed the then Librarian, Mr Strong, and he protested against the double changing of books in one day, saying that it could not be allowed. The boy replied that there was nothing in the regulations to prevent it, and although this was so, Mr Strong moved the Library Committee of the Canterbury College Board of Governors to insert in the by-laws a provision that not more than one book could be taken out in one day. And although the Library is supposed to be for the encouragement of reading, that restriction remains to this day, and was imposed solely to prevent a schoolboy taking two books in one day. J> ADIO IN TRAINS should give motorists an idea. Indeed, Mrs Hoover, wife of the President of U.S.A., has already fitted her car out with one. Wherever she rides she keeps in touch with what is on the air. One day, while she was shopping, she left her automobile parked without turning off the radio. When she came back she was surprised to see a group of people congregated about the car. A baseball game was on the air, and a crowd had gathered to listen. Another of Mrs Hoover’s hobbies is taking motion pictures of persons and incidents about the White House. When she leaves the Executive Mansion she will have accumulated an intimate picture record of many events connected with the Administration. They will be prized pictures some day, and even now they would be valuable additions to any collection of pictures of eminent persons in interesting poses. V WHEN MISS FLORENCE DEEICS sued Mr IT. G. Wells, the author of the “ Outline of History,” and the publishers of the book for damages on account of alleged plagiarisation of her manuscript, “ The Web," she lost her case. She then took it to the Appeal Court, but they have now given judgment dismissing the case. Mr Justice Raney, in his judgment, said: “ Many famous authors have been accused of plagiarisation; even the Evangelists have not escaped, and numerous volumes in many languages have been written to prove that the author of Matthew copied from Mark or Mark from Luke or Luke from Mark and so on.”

A MONGST those who were introduced to Lord Bledisloe at Lyttelton yesterday was Mr John Webb, an ex-Mayor and councillor of Lyttelton for many years. Mr Webb, who will be eighty-five on December 27, belongs to a family who are noted for their longevity. Mr Webb’s elder brother, Mr W. Webb, of 62, Slater Street, Christchurch, was eighty-nine in August and his younger brother, Mr S. R. Webb, is eightytwo. Their aggregate ages reach 256 years. A close acquaintance of Mr S. R. Webb, by the way, is Captain Gilbert Brown, who has passed his ninetieth birthday. Adding Captain Brown to this group, the aggregate of the four veterans is 346 years. W & VICTOR BRUCE arrived at Tokio yesterday. She left Heston aerodrome on September 25, intending to cover the

11,000 miles in fifteen days. Instead, she has done it in seventy days. There have been scanty details of her flight cabled since she set out. She struck bad weather on the first lap and arrived exhausted at Munich. We next heard of her on October 1 when she arrived at Calcutta. There she met Oscar Garden, and accompanied him for a short distance along the route. Flying over Indo-China she got lost and was again forced down in China. Although she is

by no means the first to accomplish this flight, she is the first woman to do it, and no doubt the fact of her sex, as in Amy Johnson’s flight to Australia, had much to do with the enthusiasm of her reception. si? HAROLD M. FORD is a personality whom the Dominion Prime Ministers are not likely to forget after their visit to Scotland. He is commercial manager of the Clyde Trust. Last year he made an extensive tour fif Australia and New Zealand on behalf of Glasgow to open up new reciprocal markets. The result of his mission it has been officially stated, has been to double the Australian and New Zealand trade with Scotland. Mr Ford proposed to take his visitors to what he described as the “ housewife’s agent ” —in other words, a typical retail store. Here, he declared, his visitors would be amazed at the difficulty in obtaining Empire goods for the breakfast table. Bacon, butter, eggs, tea, coffee, sugar, preserves, and fruits produced within the Empire ought to abound in a first-class British shop. Mr Ford insisted that they would find American, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, and other foreign goods predominating.

(CLARENCE WEBER, the Australian strong man, whose death was reported the other day, visited New Zealand about twenty years ago and was in Christchurch for a few days. He was then a fine-looking young fellow, quiet and well-mannered, but with a distinct Australian accent During his Christchurch visit he hob-nobbed with F A. Hornibrook, the local physical cultu.ist, who is now in London with Mm Hornibrook (nee Ettie Rout). Clarence Weber was a wrestler as well as a strong man, but the gentle wrestling of that time was < is mild 5s mother’s milk compared with the bash, bang and batter mixture of these degenerate days. Weber resembled Eugene Sandow in that he made an untimely exit from this life —he was only forty-eight. A CORRESPONDENT asks where Kings-ford-Smith’s “Southern Cross” came from. . _ Originally the Southern Cross was a single-engined Fokker, built, it is believed, in Holland. It belonged to Wilkins, who had crashed in it when preparing to ny across the North Pole. Kingsford-Smitn and Ulm were in America searching for a machine in which to fly the Pacific, bu they were not very financial. The machine was given to them by Wilkin's, who, however, retained the engine. They decided, on getting the best advice, to put three engines into the machine, but did not have the money to buy them. A Melbourne man, Mr Sydney Myer, secured the engines for them. These were Wright “ Whirlwind motors, but in America Smith and . fitted the motors themselves, and with the aid of an American naval airman, Lieutenant George Pond, Kingsford-Smith learned to fly the three-engined machine. The tail was found to develop a flutter, so Smith and Ulm designed and built a new tailplane and rudder. The machine was then fitted with radio apparatus and with navigation instruments. Since then it has been frequently overhauled, and has had several parts replaced. W 9 & A PROPHECY that motherhood as a popular aim of young women of the United States will soon be back in fashion, and a suggestion that the birth of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, jun, about a year after the marriage of his parents, might be a strong influence in bringing this about was hazarded by Fritz Wittels, Viennese psychoanalyst, right-hand man of Dr Sigmund Freud, who was lecturing recently at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science. “ Ideas these last few years have not been favourable to motherhood, and young women have not welcomed it,” Dr Wittels said. “As a doctor I see that this blocking of natural impulses is the basis for many neuroses. But Nature will find her own way to keep up the continuity of life, and it may well’ be through fashion. Surely the example of Colonel Lindbergh, the national hero, may be a strong influence in setting the fashion."