Topics of the Day.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 21, 23 November 1910, Page 51

Topics of the Day.

By Our London Correspondent.

THE BIBEE IN 530 TONGUES. LONDON’, October 8. \ EXT year the British and 3 1 Foreign Bible Society will 1 1 commemorate the tercentenary / of the publication in 1611 of the Authorised Version of the English Bible, and arrangements are already Joeing made for the occasion. The pn'blica'tion figures of this most famous of all (books are nothing less than amazing. The Scriptures have been published, up-to-date, in no fewer than 5:10 different languages and dialects, and the Society Bias circulated over- 222,000,090 copies. J-ast year established a record by the publication of 6,620,000 volumes. The Bible is now being published by the society in the native tongues of feeven-tenths of the human race. Every day it sends out 19,000 volumes in 424 different and distinct languages. One 'of its newest departures is to issue the Scriptures in English and foreign languages in parallel columns. These volumes are intended for emigrants to jCanada. It may surprise the majority of Antipodeans to learn that the new-

comers to Canada speak no fewer than eighty languages. From the new publication these people not only gain a knowledge of Holy Writ, but also some acquaintance with English, while, incidentally, the result must tend towards the unification of the Empire. ’ 'Flhe difficulties isurmlounted >by the translators of the Authorised Version into so many strange and uncouth languages have been enormous. Take the case"of the tongue spoken by the natives of Lengua, in Paraguay. The missionary ■who had to learn that language in order to translate St. Mark's Gospel for the natives must have had a life’s work before which the bravest man m.ght quail. "Eighteen, for example, is “Sohogemek - wakthla - mok - eminik - anthanthlama.” and the simple word “'butter” becomes “Wiaitkyanamauku-kingminik-ikpithmuk, which means literally, “the grease of the juice of the udder of the cow.” Obviously the learning of German is child's play compared With acquiring an (acquaintance with Lengua. But in spite of all its labour and all it-s triumphs the Society calculates that there are 450,000,000 people to whom the Bible remains to this day a sealed iliook, because it has not yet been pub-3-islhed in the language they understand. So there is still plenty of scope for further enterprise and endeavour! « JARNDYCE V. JARNDYCE." In the spring of 1908 a ease came before Mr. Justice Fhillimore and a jury in the Divisional Court. It was an action arising out of some concessions in 'Portugese East Africa about which two rival groups of financiers were disputing, and was listed as “Wyler and others versus Lewis and others.” Prior to the appearance of the ease in Mie Divisional Court there had been considerable litigation between the parties in connection with the concessions, and in that Court the case lasted no sfewer5 fewer than thirty-three dayis. After ourteen days * juror dropped out

through illness, and the hearing went on without him. Then one day the judge himself was indisposed, and everybody had to take a holiday. The principal plaintiff, Mr. Isidore Wyler, was in the witness-box for eleven days, and in the result the plaintiffs were awarded damages to the amount or £ 65,472. The case was then taken to the Court of Appeal, where the finding of the jury was reversed. Here the proceedings lasted eighteen days. The three judges who heard the appeal each occupied over an hour in delivering his judgment. At the close it was intimated that the ease would be carried to the House of Lords. That “appeal to Caesar" will probably occupy about three weeks, and bv the time their Lordships have delivered their judgment, this modern case of “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce” will have cost nearly £70,000. ‘ “ THE SILENCE OF LONDON." With the roar of the traffic of Fleetstreet resounding in one’s ears, it is rather amusing to read a leading article

in Wednesday’s “Times” on “The Silence of London.” Not long ago, says the “Times,” a British emigrant to Australia, who had returned home after many years’ sojourn at the Antipodes, was asked what struck him most among the contrasts to be observed between now and then. He replied, “The silence of London.” Tha “Times” explains that the returned emigrant was speaking in a comparative sense, and that what he meant was London streets were much quieter than they used to be fifty years ago. It may be so, but I rather suspect our Australian friend of having indulged in a little gentle irony at London’s expense when he spoke about its “silence” as remarkable. ‘: J\o doubt the London of fifty years ago was noisier; one can readily Believe that. Fifty or sixty years ago there was no Thames Embankment, no Queen

Victoria-street—even f'annonwtreel was still in the making—no Holborn-viaduet, no underground or tulie railway to relieve the congestion of the upper streets, no wood pavement, no asphalte, ami very little macadam; ithere were no electric tramcars, no motor vehicles, no rubber tyres, no cycles, none of those nowsaving appliances which the present generation all too ungratefully enjoys. The streets which carried any continuous traffic ait all were paved almost universally with granite pitching—the noisiest of all roadbeds—-and they were traversed exclusively by wheels with iron tyres and horses with iron shoes. Rubber tyres, motor traction and as-phalte-paving have removed the more strident noises of the London street traffic. Glasgow, with its stone-paved streets, always seems to me a far noisier city than the metropolis, though it can not compare with the latter in the volume of its street traffic. Blit even so, after making all allowance for the noisesaving devices of the present day, the roar of the traffic still resounds through London’s central streets in full and unceasing volume. Sometimes when you are walking down the Strand or Fleetstreet the motor ’buses charging past raise such a din that conversation with a friend at your elbow is impossible unless you shout. And if you sit back in your office chair and listen to the traffic streaming by outside, the sound of it rises and falls like the breakers on a

stormy coast. The silence of London—if by London is meant Hire central districts of the metropolis—is a meaningless phrase. London is only silent when London sleeps, and that is never.