NEWS AND NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 August 1924, Page 3

NEWS AND NOTES.

In Ihe same week an English do. - t,,r say> that smoking prevents decant the teeth, and a New Zealand ...Imnl doctor says. “We slid notice ihe excellent condition of tin- teeth m schools where sweet shops do not <-xist.** I 1 writes Zamiel in Auclilam! ••Jsiar") suppose we onglil to close the ••tuck” shops near the school' iind open tohaceonists’ 'hops there. Great men ie. lim e .lays seem to | i; ,ve one ehuraeteristie in eominoii. the ••Morning Post" observes— they all read, in their moments of leisure, detect ive novels. The more sublime their literary lastes. the greater >oolll' to he their devotion to tin* form of dope. We find this touching revelation at the end ot the hl"' „ r „phv of almost every person o| distinciion. In the old days, su< * ‘J statement might have led to a hbe action. Great men undoubtedly did ,-cad novel' of this ingenious eharao ter hm the secret was guarded by their intimates like a family skeleton The .neat god. Humbug, never abdieatesT In the old days, it was tluthing not to read detective novels. To-tlav to read them is evidence of a superior and delightfully careless intelli"eiiee. Even people who are no distingiiishe.l statesmen or eminent scientists publicly Haunt their pro eronce. The possible explanation whi.li we hazard modestly, is that there a reaction against the highbrow, par ticulnrlv against the lady or gentle ,a„. who. with the bait of ™k, to hook us on the latest mstrn incut devised by the psycho-analyst 1„ the dear old days a novel was . el,arm. a source of hegudement: to ,|., v it is often launched as a <ha homo as a preparation for the sen mis" life. To- many of our moderi masters and mistresses of fiction ar ban ask masters. They inflict the, f lexes on us. as in the sterne t davs Scottish divines inoculate children with the Shorter Catechism,