MODERN FASHIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3676, 11 August 1927, Page 1

MODERN FASHIONS.

THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD.

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

Those who declare there is nothing new under the sun are guilty of too sweeping a statement. If, however, they had said that much that we think is new is really very old, they would have spoken the truth. And they might have given examples that would startle. Search Patent Offiiee records, and you will discover the specification of that boon and blessing to mothers —the safety-pin. New? Oh, no. Go to the British Museum and you will see safety-pins thousands of, years old. When Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in the bulrushes, she probably wrapped her cloak round him and secured it with a safety-pin. EVE HASN’T CHANGED. To-day a good many cycle tyres bear, either a., distinctive pattern or the name of the make of tyre on the tread. Rubber-soled shoes, too, have patterns. New? No. In the Museum there is a shoe, thousands of years old, which left the imprint “Follow Me!” Many of the soles of “8.C.” Grecian shoes have studs that formed words in the sand or soft ground when the wearers went a-walking. The fashion, launched a few years ago, of having initials in gold or silver on the backs of brushes, .and so on, is at least 4000 years old. Beautiful examples can be seen in the Museum. Every girl now carries a bag. But neither her mother nor her grandmother did. So vanity bags are modern? No! Grecian women had them. There are plenty in the Museum. And when a preacher tilts agains't what he calls “the modern craze of women for painting and powdering,” he’s adrift. The women of 'B.C. times used powder and cosmetics, and preserved in the, Museum are not only the receptacles but the remains of the actual powders and so on. Wireless development is new, but its basic principle —that vibrations would travel in definite waves through the air and could be “picked up” again—was known long ago to the tribes in Central Africa. They had their crude transmitters and receivers and cut “wave-ways” through the forests. “BOTTLED SUNLIGHT” IN PERU. Some, day oil, gas, and electricity, as illuminants, may be superseded by “bottled sunlight,” and that will be hailed as the most marvellous discovery of modern times. But it will be but a re-discovery. The Peruvians had the secret. For years scientists have been trying to track it, but without success. The invention of ball-bearings revolutionised machinery, bu't the invention was not new. The axles of ancient carts had little rollers of hard wood, like sections of a pencil, to take the wear and cause easier turning. What exactly is learnt from the exhibits in museums is not trumpeted to the world, but mixed with the visitors who merely go to look are others who go to study. A toilet article about to be put on the market is but an improved copy of a specimen, 3000 years aid, in a museum case. It came from an excavated tomb in Egypt.