LIFE’S LITTLE WANTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 6 January 1928, Page 4

LIFE’S LITTLE WANTS.

The Limit. sJ| Air absent-minded young courting a girl, charged her half a guinea a visit. ’ * * * * Something About Laughing. The really happy man of to-day never laughs, declares Professor F. Aveling, University of London psychologist. Laughter is an ugly mask indulged in only by the “superior” qr discontented man, according to the profes- . sor, f “Smiles,” ltd professor says, “are beautiful as marks of human sympathy and understanding iir a heart that is at peace with itself and all the world.” ***** Heat From k Main. : Hot water and central heating JU’C to be distributed like gas and ‘electric cur- ’ rent by the Paris Municipal CounciAj That body has decided, to install a distribution station for hot water and ~ central heating on an old factory site in the east of Paris. If people show an inclination to avail themselves of this public utility service, other distribution stations will be inaugurated in the western and southern suburbs. *_•*** The Clay Pipe. Proving that clay pipes were not the exclusive invention of Irishmen, the Carnegie Institution staff, working in the State of Yucatan, Mexico, under the leadership of Dr. Sylvanus G. Morlev, has discovered a magnificent red clay pipe in the floor of the North-west Colonnade, the long-eolumned hall that flanks the front of the Temple of the f Warriors’ Pyramid in-Ghiehen Itza. The pipe was found in four separate fragments, which together formed the entire pipe, with nothing missing. The* stem was in three pieces, with th.\J| bowl intact. How the pipe ever came" t« this particular spot is still a mys-' tery to the explorers, but they declare it to be a magnificent specimen of Mayan art. The pipe is 21 inches long. The large, cup-shaped bowl, still shows traces of smoke. * * * * At Forty. When I was a young man— 3ay, about 22 years of ago—men of 40 seemed to me to be so old that the only thing for ’them to do was to retire from active life and prepare for the next' world (writes Hugh Walpole in “T.P.’s Weekly”). Indeed, I wrote at that time a novel called “Maradiek at Forty,” and the point of this book was, that 40 marked the close of life. Incredible though it may-seem, there-are numbers of young men of 20 or so at the present moment who think now exactly as I did then. My difficulty, now that I am 43, is to realise when middle age begins. I am certainly more, active now than I was at 22, more active both physically and mentally; I am stouter in figure than I was at 22, but not stout as I was at 35; I do not feel as I did then, that some catastrophe is waiting round the corner to lean upon me at any moment and spoil all my cherished plans. * • • * English Cathedral Repairs. Durham Cathedral has recently been extensively repaired at an expenditure of upwards of £20,000, but the Qathedral Commissioners now urge that there should be an architect on the spot, as the roof is liable to- damage after every severe storm, and where mining operations are so extensive as in Durham, a careful watch should be, kept for signs of subsidence. It is thought that. a sum of £20,000 will be required before 1947 to preserve a building of the magnitude and antiquity of Durham. A special tribute is paid to the preservation of the remarkable series of . windows at York Minster, but here, too, much further work is necessary. It appears that a sum of no less than £53,- - 000 is now required, £15,000 for dows, £15,200 for the roof and parapets of the Choir an.d Lady Chapel,-ami £7OOO for the stonework of the nave. It is well known on both sides of the Atlantic that Lincoln Cathedral lias been saved mainly by the heroic efforts of Dr. Fry, and it is -calculated that £21,000 more will be needed before the exceptional work is completed. At Hereford the fabric is causing a good deal of anxiety, and -large expenditure may soon be necessary. At Wells extraordinary fabric, repairs, such as the work on the West Front, are now being undertaken.