TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14836, 29 November 1913, Page 10

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Tho inconveniences attendHonesty ing "the tongue that Day. canna lee," so plaintively set forth by True Thomas, might be lessened if on the same occasion all your friends and neighbours were reduced to the same truthful state. Raymond Taunton, in 'The Presence of tho Kindly Patriarch," imagines a wholo town compelled, whether it wishes or not, to have "one day crystal clear." It began at the breakfast table. "Now at this moment," said the miracle-worker, "many a man will be telling his wife precisely how he stands in the world, what he did yesterday, and what he intends doing today. Such declaration will be against his sworn practice, but his wife will sing as she dusts the house, and he will whistlo his jvay to business." Some complications do occur, howover, when every child, woman, and man, with the morning ablutions, has washed away the fascinating but irksome power to tell a lie, or by silence to let untruth run at liberty. Shopkeepers almost fell through their windows in their flurried attempts to indicate which goods were sweated products. "Wβ labelled this yesterday as being worth 10s 6d. Wβ apologise, and will sell it now for 55." Thus ran one of the new window cards, while another would explain: "This looks attracti but is of poor quality." Customers, on the other hand, might meet their tradesmen with the acknowledgment that "owing to tho conditions of your trade, competition, cutting, etc., it is impossible for you to charge a fair price for your stuff," and kindly offer to pay an increaso of a penny all round 1 Many engagements wero broken, because young people were compelled to cast away attractive pretence. Some persons usually distinguished for their cheerful looks walked sadly, without that mask worn but to hide an inner tragedy. Some pleasant conversations broke off when one of the speakers retired in dudgeon, "stabbed by a homo-truth." But, on the whole, Honesty Day brought happy hours. "The city bore fruits of joy, the 6ap to feed conduct being drawn up from a soil moist with pure thought. Frankness, strength, and abiding love, laughter, knowledge, and innocence, energy to accomplish, skill, all walked tho common pavements, and, with the rhythm of their feet, caught up the hearts of the people." Perhaps the really extraordinary result of an Honesty Day was its power over inanimate matter. "We were nearly home. It struck twelve J 'Do you observe,' said my companion, 'that all the clocks and watches agree P And wo all are right. , "

That shrewd and well-in-Where formed observer, the Paris Prance correspondent of "Truth," Leads, attempts to account for France's superiority over England in air navigation. The reason, she thinks, is to be explained not only by individual, but by national character. "In England, admiration goes to the successful, but the uphill work which precedes success has to be undertaken without much, encouragement. There is something electric and exhilarating in the French temperament which is lacking in England. In this country any enterprise to which a touch of glory is attached can count upon universal sympathy. Nobody will dream of asking the chilling question which I have so often heard in England, 'Is it practical?" . In France, before the brothers Wright or anybody else had succeeded in rising in the air by machinery, hundreds of educated people were convinced that the "heavier-than-air" flying machine was a. possibility. They based their conviction on scientific data, and waited in perfect confidence for the news that the wonder had been accomplished. In England at that time people wore scoffingly sceptical ; they refused to believe in the thing until they saw it done. Even at that time, there was a French weekly journal devoted to the heavier-than-air principle. An English friend of the correspondent, on looking at some of the numbers, said he was amused at tho easy, self-confident tone of the articles, the authors of which had "nothing to show" ia the way of performances. The correspondent thinks that English admiration of wealth, style, and "good form" chills this kind of enterprise. She recalls hearing a small boy in London coming. to his mother in excitement and telling her that in the house of a .family with which they had lately become acquainted there were "no carpets on the stairs above the first flight,". the inference being that the people were 'badly off. The mother took the announcement as a serious piece of news, and questioned the boy as to where he got his information, and one of the girls of the family remarked that she "suspected as much; tho Thorpca were so civil." How, asks the writer, could genius ripen in such an atmosphere? There may be something in the theory, but surely it is a little unfair to draw sweeping deductions from such an incident. Though Englishmen have been out-distanced in aerial navigation, genius continues to ripen in England.

The football played by the Very American Universities in Serious the Eastern States difFootball. fers from, the Rugby game as much in the methods of practice as m rules. A correspondent of "The Times" gives an interesting description of what he saw in the football field of Harvard, when the "football squad" of the University turned ont for their first practice. The 70 players were divided into small groups of half a dozen or so, each under its own instructor, while the "head coach" went about from group to group superintending operations. In one exercise a group lined up and the instructor bowled the ball down the line. "Out rushed the first pupil, fell on the ball, rolled over hugging it, then up and back to his place in the line, to be followed, in the ordeal by his next-door neighbour." Then the men stood round in a circle, and threw catches to one another with balls of different shapes and sizes. Following

this came painful practice in the art of running \ QW . The players, "bent almost double, their knees nearly trailing on the ground, progressed with gigantic strides that must have,caused tortures to muscles, in the thighs, grown supme in vacation." Kicking practice followed, but on much more methodical lines than in our game. A man would throw the ball backwards between his legs to tho kicker, who would punt it high to a third player, whoso.work it was to catch the ball cleanly, a sharpeyed "coach" making mental note of every miss. By the side of the ground j stood an erection like a gibbet with a! dummy figure hanging from it in chains, dressed to resemble a footballer. Playors hurl themselves at this dummy to perfect their tackling. It is not a gentle game, this American football. In a report of a practice at Yale, it is stated that one player remarked to an opponent whom he had smashed into, "Excuse mo, old man, I didn't mean to get into you so hard," whereupon tho "coach" of tho team etrodo up to the apologetic one and remarked, "Here you, what are you excusing yourself for? You're here to play football, not to make excuses. This is a man's game. I don't want to hear any more of this 'excuse mo' business." After this the play "roughened up considerably."

Sot one of tho least The Reporters' interestinK features Gallery. of tho development of modern journalism is the comploto revolution, well within the space of a century, in wie attitude of Parliament to tho Press. Mr H. MacDonagh, in a recent book, "The Reporters' Gallery," brings home to us the fact that until tho year 1771 or thereabouts it was regarded as a luyh crime and misdemeanour to publish any sort of account, no matter how meagre, of the proceedings of either of the British Houses of Parliament. Not so very long ago, the House of Lords, meeting a quarter of an hour earlier than usual, actually deferred the transaction of business until the arrival of the reporters. Shorthand note-taking is an ancient art, but Parliamentary porting, as Mr MacDonagh points out, is little moro than a century old. "Memory" Woodfall and his competitors, and earlier, I>r. Johnson, could hardly be called Parliamentary reporters. They assimilated the gist of the speeches, taking rough notes as reminders, and then wrote them up in their own etyle, producing something which was far more their own than the original speakers'. When first actual reporting became general it was performed under the.most unfavourable conditions • The reporters "had to scramble for places in the Strangers' Gallery with the general public, whose sole object it was to see one of the sights of London. Towards the close of the eighteenth century they were permitter to take notes in the back row, if they could find seats there. The use of notebooks and pencils by 'strangers' was still an unholy sight in the eyes of the Speaker, and it was only by sitting remotely in the shadows that the reporters could pursue their calling without being observed from the Chair," Often, when a debate of, interest was in progress, it was" necessary to go to "early doors" and compete with a crowd of eager "strangers" for admittance. It was a case either of first come, first served, or of, luck, or strength 1 , or speed, in -the rush and struggle up the stairs to the gallery; When Pitt made a great speech in support of the -war on Slay 23rd, 1803, the crowd was so great that not a reporter could gain admittance. "The Times" described the scene at the gallery door, adding, "We cannot contend with impossibilities." All the ' "Morning Chronicle" could say. to enlighten the general public was: "The deoate, we believe, is entirely lost." As a.result,' the back row of the gaUery waa reeerved for reporters until 1831, when the first reporters' gaaery was provided for the convenience of the representatives of the Press.