People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19237, 26 November 1930, Page 8

People and Their Doings.

Freemasons Are Specially Interested in Archaeology * What Englishmen Ate In The Time Of Pepys : A Ship The Germans Could Not Sink.

THE REPORTED DISCOVERY of a great arch in Jerusalem, supposed to be the Causeway of the Going Up, will be of special interest to the Freemasons, who are gathered in Christchurch now, because they trace their craft back to the building of King Solomon’s temple, and the reference to this new arch, which is supposed to be the one spoken of in First Chronicles 26-16, takes the reader right back to the latter days of King David. The reference is to a drawing of lots among the Children of Israel for many things, including the Gates. The chronicle says:— To Shuppim and Hosah the lot came forth westward, with the gate Shallecheth, by the causeway of the going up. It was in those days that King David had it in his mind to build “an house of rest for the ark of the covenant,” but gave over the work to Solomon, who after King David’s death, sent embassies to Tyre for “ a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem.” It was to Jerusalem that The Queen of Sheba came “ to prove Solomon with hard questions.” The period is fascinating and full of interest, and much studied by Freemasons in every generation. W W A LL KINDS of competitions in connection with the grocery trade were staged recently at the Grocer’s Exhibition in London in order to discover the champion of Great Britain and Ireland. One of the most interesting was that in which the grocer had to attend a possible customer on the telephone. At the other end of the line was a -judge masquerading possibly as a disgruntled customer, harassed housewife, or perhaps a person who did not know exactly what he or she wanted or where to get it. This test called for a high standard of salesmanship, courtesy, and tact, as the slightest word out of place might have added wrath to discontent and cause a customer to be lost. One of the latest mechanical devices for the grocer’s counter showed how to make a tough steak juicy and tender. For years steaks have been heavily beaten by rollingpin until every fibre was displaced and the steak made soft. Now, from a Sheffield workshop, has come a strange instrument which, instead of beating the steak, will prick it all over with small, sharp knives. The advantage claimed for this machine over the rolling-pin is not only that it really does make the steak tender, but that it does it cleanly and quickly.

rpHE HABITS of Londoners, referred to in a cablegram, could not be studied without reference to their food. Pepys, in his diary, gives a lively picture of how they fared 270 years ago. On January 26, 1660 — in cold weather, of course—his wife “ had got ready a very fine dinner, viz., a dish of marrow bones; a leg of mutton; a loin of veal; a dish of fowl, three pullets and two dozen of larks all in a dish; a great tart; a neat’s tongue; a dish of anchovies; a dish of prawns and cheese.” And in midsummer we hear of it being so hot that Pepys played the flageolette on the leads in the garden, and Sir W. Pen “ came out in his shirt into the leads, and there we staid talking and singing and drinking great drafts of claret and eating botargo ” (dried roe of the tunny fish) “ and bread and butter till 12 at night, it being moonshine: and so to bed very near fuddled.” On another occasion Pepys had for dinner “ a fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things most noble and to my great content.” E. MANNING, chief officer of the Canadian steamer, Canadian Constructor, now at Dunedin, believes he can claim the distinction of commanding the only vessel during the war period that: the Germans could not sink. The vessel was the four-masted barque William T. Lewis, 2157 gross tons. While sailing off the Irish coast in 1915 she was stopped by a German submarine which ordered the crew to take to the lifeboats. After the Germans had examined the vessel they decided to sink her by shell fire. The William T. Lewis was laden with a cargo of timber, and though badly damaged did not sink. Her crew were picked up 100 miles off the Irish coast, and the vessel was later towed to an Irish port for repairs. In 1923 she made a voyage from San Francisco to Wellington in command of her old skipper, Captain E. Manning. Captain Manning is a distant relative of the late Captain W. Manning, for some years master of the ferry steamers Mararoa and Maori.

rpHE OLD STAGE COACH kept by Mr 11. G. Ell for some time on the hills ladks a coach house, according to Mr Ell, because he has no money to build one. But he hopes to repaint and recondition the old vehicle, and lodge it in a new shed that is being built for drays and tools near the toll house on the road to Kennedy s Bush. Mr Ell scouts the idea that he ever intended to carry passengers to Kennedy s Bush in the coach. He says he regarded it as an advertisement for the Summit Road, to b» taken for an outing periodically m the city. He has spent £6O of his own money on the coach. QNE OF THE GREATEST spy sensations of the war has been revived by Denis Gwynn’s “ Life and Death of Sir Roger Casement,” the traitor-knight. Casement landed on the Irish Coast from a German submarine during the war, to further his pro-German plotting. He was arrested, and after a sensational trial was found guilty and executed. Gwynn, in his newly published book, denounces a statement that a diary containing indecent passages which could not be printed in any age, in any language, found in Casement's lyggage, was Casement’s and in his own handwriting. At the time of the treason trial photographs of pages of the diary were shown to interested politicians and others. Gwynn states that the diary was merely a copy of a book relating to the Pernambuco atrocities, in which Casement had earlier been interested. The Home Secretary, Mr CJynes, will make no comment, but Lord Carson and other prominent men, however, declare that there was no doubt that the diary was Caesment’s. W 9 THERE is something to capture the imagination in Major Ramon Franco, who was imprisoned about a month ago during the republican troubles in Madrid. He has now escaped by removing the grille from the window of his cell. In June last year Major Franco and three other Spanish aviators started out from Cartagena in a Spanish hydroplane for a west-bound Atlantic Ocean flight. For almost eight days no word was received regarding the 'plane or the crew, although 'planes and ships scouted the coast and the Azores. Eventually the 'plane and crew were picked up off the Azores by the British aircraft-carrier Eagle, and it was found that fuel had given out on the day after starting. The ’plane had drifted for seven' days wuthout injury to the aviators.