NEWS AND NOTES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2422, 29 April 1922, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES

The composer of the song “Funiculi Funiculi),” once heard with excruciating reiteration all over the globe, has died nt his home in Maida Vale. He. was Signor Luigi Denza. Born at Castellamare di Stabia, Italy, in 184(i, he settled in London in 1883, and since 1898 has been professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music, and he was also a director of the London Academy of Music. He married in 1890 Miss Leila Dufour, the contralto vocalist, and one of his earlier pupils, and had one son. He was a Chevalier of the Orders of the Crown of Italy and of the Crown of Spain. He composed over 600 songs.. His most famous one was “Funiculi, Funicula,” written in 1880, on the opening of the Funicular railway up Mount Vesuvius. Originally a 1 Neapolitan dialect song, it has been arranged in almost every conceivable form, and has been translated, it is claimed, into the language of every civilised nation. Richard Strauss, under the impression that it was a genuine folk-song, paid it the compliment by putting it into his orchestral suit Aus Italien.

The Feilding Star, in referring to the case of a Melbourne baronet who is working as a market gardener, says:—There have been and still are parallel cases in New Zealand. There was the case in the South Island of a Scots baronet of ancient lineage who married the washerwoman of a small township. Their eldest son worked as a labourer on a farm in the Feilding district a few years ago. That son is the baronet to-day. But, like his father, he does not use the title, and he earns his living by taking casual jobs. There is a resident in Feilding to-day, living a humble and retired lifej whose mother was entitled to be addressed as “her ladyship,” but her neighbors did not suspect her real identity, as she dropped the title on coining io New Zealand. Scions of ancient British houses are scattered all over the Dominion, some of them bearers of titles which are hidden, whilst some of these secret aristocrats are actually “dead scared” lest their hidden life should be disclosed. They really prefer to be commoners —most of them because they cannot a (ford to do otherwise.

the present educational system genius was sacrificed on the altar of average. He stated that he carried out intelligence tests with large numbers of American, German, and Scottish children and had come to the conclusion that 45 out of every 100 develop no fresh intelligence after they are 12 years old, and that another 24 stopped devoloping after 14. He said he believed that this 70 per. cent. Should be barred from secondary education altogether and that of the remaining 30 only 13 per. cent, were capable of approaching a university education and only 4 per. cent, took honours.

A New Zealand lady who has been living in the North of Ireland for some months ’ recently cabled out, “Can stand it no longer, sailing next direct boat.” Letters just received from her state that the winter in Ireland from a weather point of view has been a most delightful one, and but for the outrages that are taking place, Ireland is a lovely country to spend a long holiday in. Many of the people, she says, know nothing of affairs outside their own country, and lead a simple, unassuming life which makes them an easy prey to those who would intlame their minds with stories of injustice.

“If education can make a girl a good house keeper, it will fulfill its highest function as far as she is concerned.”* said the Minister for Education (the Hon. C J Parr), at the Beckenham School. “I hope that in the new curriculum (the course from 12 to 16), the girls will give half their time to domestic science, as it is done in Victoria. With the other half of the curriculum "devoted to English, arithmetic, bookkeeping, etc., the course will train a girl to become a proper housewife, and an intelligent companion for her husband. The importance of domestic science cannot be stressed too much.”