Page 1 Advertisements Column 5

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1927, Page 1

STANDARDISATION. The statement that -Mr Chamberlin, the hero of the flight from New York into Germany, is in appearance ami manners more English than American, provokes a number of reflections. At one time it would have been meaningless. The Americans were English, perhaps a thought strange and provincial in manners and speech, but still members of the same race, and, naturallv. sharing its characteristics. I hen came a period in which a different race seemed rapidly to he evolving. And then, suddenly, with obscure beginnings at some time within the last twenty years, came a new phase of civilisation, the phase ot unilorniitv, affecting America and Europe alike, having its hands even on Asia and all the rest of the world. There is now nothing strange in the tact that an individual American should look like an Englishman, though, perhaps, it would he more correct to say that lie looks like the “ standard man ” of our modern culture. The “ standard man,” of similar appearance and habits, is spread out in ever-increasing numbers over two continents, between Berlin and .San Francisco. It is oniY when he opens his mouth that it is possible to tell that he still retains a nationality of his own.—The “ Evening Standard." THE OPTIMIST FALLACY.

“ Optimists and pessimists have each their uses. 'We know how often the minor difficulties of life may be defeated bv mere cheerfulness. But whit the difficulty is hie. a bigger effort is needed : you have to Ret down to causes and effects, and recognise what is wrong before starting to cure it. Nothing is more foolish than to shirk swallowing an unpleasant medicine, because two or three trifling and super heial symptoms seem lor a moment to belie your disease. — llie *’ Ihi ill Chronicle.”