HERE AND THERE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1936, Page 15

HERE AND THERE

Novel Marriage Ceremony.

The Maheno, the passenger vessel formerly owned by the Union Steam Ship Company which was engaged in the Bluff-Melbourne service last season, recently figured in a novel marriage ceremony (states the Christchurch "Press"). Several months, ago when the vessel was being towed to Japan to be broken up she grounded on Fraser Island, off the Queensland coast, during a storm. The vessel djdi not appear to be extensively damaged, but all efforts to pull her off the sandwere unsuccessful. Recently a Townsville girl journeyed to the island and at the Happy Valley tourist resort, half-way across, she was married to the Customs officer, one of the two men who are watching the stranded Maheno, to see that the Customs obligations are carried out. After the ceremony the little party boarded the vessel, and held the wedding breakfast in what was once the captain's cabin.'

ceed in doing this. Who has not had the experience of having to trace out the unknown name and hopelesslyillegible address of somebody whose letter requires an answer, trusting to it that the post oflice officials will be able to read what has. baffled the united endeavours of ourselves and everybody within reach? PASSING ON OUR TROUBLES. "It is all very well—at least, I suppose it may be—for big business men to cultivate a scrawl by way of signature which serves as their mark at the end of a letter and conveys, heaven knows why, an air of prosperity and confidence which impresses us. But such usually see to it also that their real names stand in clear print at the top of the page for our. guidance if we are obliged to reply. "The trouble is that many private persons give the same effect merely because their calligraphy is of a nature that cannot be read. Our language, so full as it is of v's and n's and m's, which often all look alike, encourages these brutes togo one further, to dot their i's at the wrong part of a word, to stroke an 1 that is two letters further along than an unstroked t, to let their c's go without loops, to loop their i's, and to adopt singularities in forming their r's—to mention only a few of their obliquities. Fortunately there is no absolute call upon any of us to read the contents of a letter so written. But curiosity is strong in us, and when somebody has gone the length of writing and stamping a communication, we should like to know what it is all about, or at least to have a rough idea. .This is often all, that may be possible. But it may be really essential for us to know the.name v amd address of our correspondent, and when this is indecipherable we are' forced to pass on our troubles to the already overburdened officials, whose duties, we feel, ought not to include such unnecessary problems. CONSCIOUS SINNERS. People who write badly or illegibly always know that they do so, because their friends have told them of i,t. Sometimes, they refuse to believe it, which is adding insult to injury. Who are they to contradict us when we say we can hardly read what they have written? If they cannot mend their writing they might at least have the common courtesy to strangers and- to the post to print essentials, such as their names and addresses. II they are too lazy to do this by hand they ought either to type their signatures and addresses or to use stationery in which both will stand clearly in stereotype. The number of such sinners is legion, as everybody knows who has ever inserted or replied to the kind of small advertisement which begets correspondence.

"In respect of letters from women a further exacerbation is frequently provided by the failure .to indicate whether the correspondent is a Mrs. or a Miss. I, for one, have become an adept at writing out, on envelopes, and at the beginnings of letters, a word which would serve at a pinch for either. But it never satisfies me, and I doubt if it wholly satisfies the recipient. There are male correspondents, also, who sign with an initial or initials only, so that one cannot guess their sex unless one has either a psychologist or an, expert in handwriting in the house, and even so one may be mistaken. And there 'is no faking an Esq.' One is driven, therefore, into the discourtesy and trouble of inventing a symbol that may be taken for either Miss, Mrs., or Mr., knowing all the while that if the recipient is a Mr. he will be aggrieved by the omission of that which he certainly does not deserve after his name."

"HYMNS OF HEALTH"

"Hymns of Health" —songs illustrating the virtues of cleanliness —are being taught to Indian children and their parents in Hyderabad State, states the "Sunday Dispatch." The songs are. being taught in recently opened free schools for children and night schools for adults.