CULLED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

Wairoa Bell, Volume XXXI, Issue 215, 11 January 1918, Page 2 (Supplement)

CULLED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

In his description of the social changes in Germany during two years of war, Mr. Gerard gives some interesting particulars of the. development of women’s work in Beirlin; As more and more men were called to the front women were employed in unusual work. The new underground road in Berlin is being built largely by women’s labour. This is not so difficult a matter in Berlin as in some places, because Berlin is built upon ia bed. of sand, and the difficulties of rock excavation do not exist. Women are employed on the railroads, working with pickaxes on the road bed. Women drove, the great yellow post carts of Berlin. There were women guards on the underground road, conductors on the tramways, and women even became motormen on the tram cars. Banks, insurance companies and other large business institutions were filled with women workers, who invaded the sacred precincts of many military and governmental offices. Mr. Lloyd George, in a letter to the “Times,” appeals to parents to devote more attention to the teaching of domestic science. “Among the many branches of educational work, none has deserved better of the public at large than that of domestic science. It is helping in this time of crisis in every conceivable way, and has penetrated into every stratum, of society. On the women of this country, no less than on the men, is laid the necessity of fighting eniemies of stem stuff —in the case of the women, want and hunger for. themselves and their children, unless scientific knowledge is brought to bear on the question. The various food 1 campaigns organised all over the country have done much to open the eyes of the people to shortage of food and the national defect of ignorance in cooking; but the trained people w'ho are wanted to present the truth in a convincing and incontrovertible way are comparatively few in number, .and many have been lent by education authorities to other departments requiring help in practical food questions. I would ask parents who are weighing the future o£ their daughters to consider whether xney could not usefully be trained for such w'ork. Work in offices and banks, labour of all sorts (most of it of a transitory nature) are deflecting into blind alley occupations the girls on whom the educational future of the children depensd. There is no one to sound the alarm. The terrible mortality of infants and children due to improper feeding is a scandal to our civilisation and could be minimised, if knowledge of this important branch of education Were more widespread. ” The exacting and absorbing work of the sick nurse leaves no very conspicuous leisure for the cultivation of literature; yet experience' show's that a. large porportion of nurses, in their bom’s of ease, turn to books for solace and' recreation. Light reading it must of necessity be more often than not. When tlhe hours of duty come to an end she is by no means always leftl with sufficient mental energy or physical freshness to undertake reading which requires concentrated attention. What we all, men or women, need then is what may be called a soothing stimulant —something which will at once rest the body and keep the mind in moderate activity. The desire to purr is a human as well as a feline trait, and books jsyhich make us purr are invaluable in those hours of fatigue or discouragement, which are at least as frequent w’ith nurses as with other people. A well-known Italian obstetrician, Dr. G. Antonelli, has recently madS some interesting experiments with re- | gard to ascertaining the sex of the amj brya in utero. From a woman advanced two months in pregnancy about 4 c.c. of blood were obtained by syringe; from this blood the serum was separated. At. the same time a few drops of iblood were obtained from two newly born infants, a bov and a girl; these two little specimens being placed respectively on watch glasses, a few dr-ops of the woman’s serum was a.ckied to each. On the blood of the baby girl this serum made no reaction, but ou that of the boy it coagulated. It was. therefore suspected that the expected infant would be a male, and such proved to be the case. In the second experiment the woman had already had two boys, and was expecting a third child, but as she was suffering from disorders quite different from those of her other pregnancies she was led to expect a female child. The test was applied as above, and her serum coagulated with that of the baby (girl, .and at full time ;a girl was bom. In both experiments the results were positive. Frank Dilnot tells some interesting stories about Lloyd George in his boyhood. In one chapter of his book, “The Man and his Story,” Mr. Dilnot pictures the future Prime Minister as a lad of seventeen years of age, taking part in the controversies of the village smithy or shoe-maker’s shop. “Into the mid'st of the discussion young DaviJ,” says Mr. Dilnot, “would plunge with a wit and understanding beyond his y he stood up to his seniors with both gravity and audacity. ‘Do you know,” said the grey-haired blacksmith toi Richard Lloyd one day. ‘I really had to turn my serious attention to David last evening, or he would have, got the best of me.’ If an^fcfiT those .who read this are .an idea, that this youth was by way of 'becoming a prig, they may be relieved by the knowledge that when the youngster was not taking a-hand in polemics in the smithy or tile cobbler’s cottage he was often enough leading the boys of the village into some kind of mischief. One old inhabitant came to have the fixed belief that David was the origin of pretty well all the mishaps in Llan.vstumdwy. Let a gate be flound lifted from, its hinges, a fence or hedge broken down, or windows smashed, and the old man had one explanation, ‘lt’s that David Lloyd at it again.’ ” At Lloyd’s where insurance lagainst practically anything can be obtained, even against the birth of twins, a-.policy was issued recently insuring that Lord Kitchener would remain dead, at a. premium of 5/ per £IOO. Hundreds of persons are flocking to take similar policies. One firm announces that the widespread belief that Lord Kitchener is alive is causing a flood of applications many of which offer much higher premiums.. More than £200.000 of such insurance has been asked from a single firm, the applicants including army, navy, professional and business men. The old farmer had dined well, as' befitted a son of the soil when in town on a visit, but, to the waiter’s surprise, ho evinced’ a tendency to depart without bestowing a tip ou the man who had supplied his wants. He fussed about the old genleiman. and cast his “ yoii-aren’t-going-to-forget-me ?” stare on him. but to no purpose. Then he determined that severe measures would

have to be adopted. “ Perhaps you <are not aware, sir,” said lie, “that the waiters here receive no engages. Ahem!” “ Then,” said the old farmer, “the more fules you to work for naathing, when I wad gi’e ye a week and your meat tae fricht craws !” A tired Tommy, burdened with about five tons of equipment, climbed wearily into a ’bus outside a London railway terminus. There were no vacant seats and no one offered the weary mlan a seat. He was dead tired, and so resolved to get .a seat by strategy. He ashed from his harversaek a small bomb. “ This is one of the things we use out there, you.', know,” he remarked to the interested passengers. “See this pin here ? When I pull it out like this it should explode fifteen seconds later. They’re pretty deadly, too. If I put it •back again the thing’s harmless. Then, beginning to search frantically, “ Gosh ! Where on earth did I put. that pin?” The passengers rose in a body and scrambled for the doior, tumbling over one aonther to get off. Tommy watched them go. Then, putting the bomb in his haversack, He stretched himself full length on the cushioned seats. The many speculations that have been published concerning the origin of life on the earth and on any other bodies in the universe where it may possibly exist, usually assume that, in some way or other, “life germs” are transported across the gulfs of space from one planet to another. Thus it has been suggested that life may have been brought to the earth in meteors. One of the most recent suggestions is that minute “life germs” jnay escape from the atmosphere of a pl'anet in which life exists, just as molecules of the attmosiiheric gases are believed to. escape from our terrestrial atmosphere, and may be driven by light pressure to some world where physical conditions have become suitable to support life. While there is nothing essentially .absurd in tirese hypotheses, it is not clear why their authors should! take it for granted that life cannot originate de novo on a cooling planet. The late head master of Eton, Rev. E. Lyttelton, gives some amusing stories of schoolboy life. “Trace the growth of the power of Parliament during the time of the Tudors ?” Answer : “In the reign of Elizabeth the Commons wiqre always petitioning the Sovereign to marry; a thing they would not have dreamt of doing in the time of Henry the Eighth.” tendency to blend isolated bits of knowledge the following are cited :—“ Who were the Pharisees” ? “ The Pharisees were people who fasted in public and in secret devoured widows’ houses.” An account of the three creeds :—“A long time ago they wrote the apostles’ creed 1 . Nobody believed it. 'So they waited a bit land wrote! the Niceme creed. Still nobody believed it. So they waited a bit and wrote the Athanasian creed, and the y’had to believe that.” “ Give an account of Balaam.” Answer : “ Balaam was a prophet who lived a long wav off. After a while he went out for a ride on his donkey, and iae got very angry with the donkey and hit him; and a voice from heaven said, “You must not hit the donkey; it *s holy ground.” “ Among the celebrities of whom a brief account was demahdled, occurred the great names of Copernicus and Galileo. The view of these worthies taken by one youthful writer was as follows :—‘Copernicus is a mixture of copper and nickel. Galileo oared for none of these things.’ ” A large Philadelphia theatre is to be the first one in the world to be operated without footlights. All the stage illumination will come from above, being -as nearly as possible production of ordinary sunlight. The innovation of taking away the. -footlights comes as a general surprise! to theatre goers, violating as it does one of the traditions of stage art. The system employed demands a long steel bridge, of cantilever construction and 10 feet wide, which is thrown all the way across the proscenium arch direct>\y behind the curtain. On the bridge will be stationed 80 electricians, eacn handling two lamps, pointed 1 downward and manipulated much as a soldier might aim a machine gun. The rays of light completely envelop the characters on the stage below, and explore every corner of the stage. It is just as though an enormous sun were above tlie players. The effect is described as the most natural lighting ever seen in a theatre. The combine;.? candle-power of these lamps is 160,000, and the electric current used at each across the Atlantic or illuminate two performance would carf / a submarine large metropolitan hotels for 24 days. The New York City Department of Health has unearthed a. sensational fraud in the manufacture of fake isalvarsan. The imitation, vjhich was put up in New York and sold widely throughout Australia, Canaida, Mexico, and Central America, consists of ordinary table salt coloured with a little aniline dye. The package, circular, ampoul and every visible detail of the original 'article are cunningly imitated. It is believed that at least 50,000 doses of the fake article have been sold. Few persons realise how great a- toll industrial accidents take of people every year. If we are ever so unfortunate as to hear of the loss in a great battle of, say, 10,000 of our soldiers (10,000 killed) the nation Would be moved deeply; yet- every year twice, perhaps three times that number are (says the “Scientific American”) slain in industries of all kinds and almost without invoking comment. If we were to hear that 1,000,000 of our men suffered wounds in this war, the nation would be troubled; yet industry takes its toll in the form of injuries to persons to an extent nearly three times that number every year. Tlie man who has been laid aside because of his age is now to come into his own. The Pennsylvania- Railroad announces thnt its rule heretofore in force, prohibiting the hiring of new employees over 45 years old, is to be abrogated. Pea - sons up to the age of 70 will now be eligible to employment on that railway during tlie war. Steps have been taken in Lonidlon to promote the institution of an annual “Shakespeare day” in schools. Tlie idea of the setting apart of one day hi which to do homaoie to our greatest poet is to awaken in the school children an appreciation of his works, which is n.t present insufficiently developed—this appreciation to be the precursor of the institution of municipal theatres and finally the building of a national -"School should be left free to celebrate' the day after its own manner, although the acting by the school children of one of Sliakespeir’s plays was brought forwar das possibly the best suggestion. Another idea was that those being trained in trades, such as carpentry, drawing and so forth, should be encouraged to make the scenery necessary for these productions.