JEWISH NEW YEAR CELEBRA TED WITH FLOOD OF POST CARDS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 256, 28 October 1931, Page 6

JEWISH NEW YEAR CELEBRA TED WITH FLOOD OF POST CARDS.

Out London Letter

Recent Events at Home Include First Speech of Youthful Duke. (Special to the "Star.'’) LONDON, October 2. There are only a handful of people in the Northumberland fishing village of Boulmer, and nearly all belong to two families —the Stantons and the Stephensons. They are all servants of the lifeboat, and have behind them a century’s record of work which is probably unexcelled in any part of Britain. Only a few years ago the women of Boulmer came into prominence by their heroism in dragging their boat for over a mile through a winter storm in order that it might go to the rescue of shipwrecked mariners.

JgOULMER has now been gven a new lifeboat, the seventh of its line, a fine motorboat of the latest type, and Viscount Grey of Falloden, K.G., and the 19-year-old Duke of Northumberland, making his first public appearance, and his mother the Duchess of Northumberland, were in the village to take part in the ceremony of handing over and to see the craft launched. Viscount Grey, in handing over the lifeboat on behalf of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, of which he is a vice-pre-sident, said the Boulmer branch had a distinguished record, but that was only natural. “ After all,” he remarked, “ we are descended from seafaring people. When I look at the North Sea I think how our ancestors came over that sea to settle in and populate this country—the Saxons and the Danes and the Normans. They were the strongest, most enterprising, most courageous men in Europe of their time, and it is their qualities as pioneers that have made us achieve the great British Empire, and have made the English character that which has done such great things in the world. “ I cannot help thinking” added Viscount Grey, " that the men and women of Boulmer, who dragged the lifeboat for a mile, were inspired by the same spirit as the race from which they were descended. And more than half the crew were women. That is as it should be. A strong race must have mothers who are strong in character and constitution as well as fathers.” The Jewish New Year. “ May you be inscribed with a Happy New Year,” is the greeting that Jews in all parts of the world use when they meet their co-religionists. At seven o’clock on the evening of September 11 the Jewish New Year (5692) was ushered in, and no Jew neglected to send his relatives, friends and acquaintances a customary card of greeting, headed with his New Year wish inscribed in ancient Hebrew. For several days printers in London, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and other Jewish centres had been working overtime to meet the huge demand for Jewish New Year cards. In Whitechapel the post offices were besieged for half-penny stamps, special post office clearing boxes were provided for the cards, and notices in Yiddish and in English exhorting the Jewish public to post early were exhibited at the post offices. An official of the Eastern District Post Office, in Whitechapel, stated that last year nearly 900,000 Jewish New Year cards were posted in his district for distribution to Jewish areas. The New Year cards vary in size from that of a visiting card to a postcard. The director of a prominent firm of printers of Jewish New Year cards said that the biggest demand is for a small, neat card, simple in character, bearing the greeting in Hebrew and the name and address of the well-wisher in English. In the old days there was a big call for ornate cards, produced irt somewhat crude colours, but there is little demand for those now. A Roman's “Modern Home.” Verulamium, the Roman city built in the broad valley almost over-shadowed by St Albans Abbey, is yielding up its treasures this summer. Excavations by Dr and Mrs R. E. Mortimer Wheeler have been remarkably successful, and streets, houses and Shops of the greatest city of Roman Britain are gradually being laid bare. Roman houses were often beautifully

decorated and a well-designed mosaic floor is one of the most. notable finds of this year. This pavement belonged to what was evidently a handsome building and it must have been a very “ modern ” house, too. Central heating, by means of a furnace underneath the floors was installed, and the flues in the wall carried warmth to every room. Pipe lines joined together by lead collars brought water to the house, and the interior decorations were remarkably fine. Labour-saving devices were popular, too, and the Roman matron disliked dust as much as the modern house-wife. In this seventeen hundred-year-old house a quarterround moulding is fitted at the junction of the floor and walls to abolish dusty corner^. From one exceptionally deep rubbish pit unbroken pottery has been recovered. Some of this is Samian ware which was imported from Gaul, and there are also delicate vases from the lower Rhine. One black vase is highly polished and decorated with patterns in pipe clay and has an inscription, “ Bibe,” which means “ Take a drink” or more simply “Have one!” Where Britain Leads." At one time we went to Germany for our microscopes, lenses and other optical instruments. Now the best work is done in this country. At the Science Museum in South Kensington is an exhibition of modern optical instruments which shows that British manufacturers in this field are well ahead of their foreign competitors. Among 200 exhibits is a new model Vickers projection microscope, and when visitors examined a polished steel surface through it they were surprised to find that it looked like coloured linoleum when it was magnified two hundred times. An aircraft camera with a film magazine containing a supply for 100 consecutive exposures, and stainless steel mirror difficult to distinguish from real glass, also interested them. One apparatus, called a projection microscope, has a power of 50,000 dimensions. Thus, if it was suspected that the wing of a metal air liner was defective—although there was no visible evidence of it—-this apparatus would reveal the slightest sign of metal crystallisation, or weakness, months before it would become dangerous under flying strain. All kinds of machinery can be examined this way; and, what is more important, the metal used in their manufacture can be scrutinised before assembly* so that its condition can be guaranteed with certainty. Photographs under intense magnification, can be automatically obtained. Then there is this new prismatic astrolabe, which has been tested by naval officers under the direction of the Admiralty. It can give an explorer his position 6n the map to within twenty-five feet. The new strain-viewing apparatus shows the birth of a crack in glass months before it appears. Large sums of money will be saved to opticians and manufacturers of optical instruments, for up till now much money has been wasted in polishing lenses and prisms which have later cracked and become useless. The newest aerial camera swivels in every direction, and remains steady always. It takes 100 consecutive “ snaps ” which are astonishing in detail—whatever the height from which they are taken. There is a range-finder with which the public can amuse themselves during the exhibition by focusing it on different parts of the building.