THE LORD OF NOISE

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4545, 18 December 1930, Page 3

THE LORD OF NOISE

CRAM CIAiRiS, MOTOR JABS, AEiROPAINS AND RADIODIUAIS. “If all the world is a stage, men built the uproar house,” writes Air . Ken Alexander in the New -Zealand Railways -Magazine. . “Man has denatured Na lure, ’ *Afrry _ aerated the air, substituted sport for thought, .speed ol n for freedom, mass extinction for class distinction,’ and Thought, for Pood for Pood for Thought. . . . In so doing, lie lias omitted to eliminate noise from the Scream of Things. _ “The Modern Whirled is a bed- : . lam of Ihlataney, a din of discord- ' ' aiiey, a -tumultiplieation, and a, roar deal. It is fairly safe to assert that when man was first projected o.n the screen lie was a more or less silent film; but owing to his deep-rooted passion for ab1’ tubbing bis own echo, he has developed into a hundred-per-cent Talkie. “Man presents the greatest argument in favour of the dumb ® animal. His articulation has - “ grown in proportion to his cman- * oipatioii, and, intoxic aextdzfiflhg cipation, and, intoxicated hv his power of expression, he lias overlooikied the flower of suppression. .‘“Truly he is the Big Noise of the Wf CosmogTaphieal Choir. .... He produces cram ears, motor jars, radiodiuins, -earopains, and 7 / other madieal instruments.” A little more in this strain caus--:A:A"; os the author to descend into verse: ..How doth the dizzy world gyrate, Continuously whirring, While Man adheres uncertainly, ? His doubtful boons conferring, By 'dashing wildly whence and hence, Creating din in consequence. ' How doth -the work of man intrude With grinding' gears gyrating, • .Disturbing all the harmony r ; ••• , .■— Of Nature’s mild creating, And, . raising'—well—all sorts of din, With things composed of toots and tin. How doth the human brain recoil, And stagger in its pan, Beneath the titillaeious tide, Which mars the works of Man. The hooters and the scooters, ,y;.‘ All the clatter and the crash, i-M/w ; Of the multitude of marvels Manufactured out of cash. All the jumble and the rumble, Of the things that (puff and pant, All the shoals of shrilling shriekC . ; ers, ' Restless wreckers on the rant., ■' Oh, the mind of man is maddened, ’Till he’d give ithc whole concoctions - . . Por a momentary lull. But he’s cornered, caught and c'ap- , . tured, * By his cleverness I ween, ■ . And he’s naught, to put it frankly, But a modern .Frankenstein. But, adds Mr. Alexander, the railway engine is the exception to : the .general rule of loco-eommo-tion. It is melodious hut not smollodious. It is power without pandemonium; it is speed with . f strength, also smoothness. y “Tho railway locomotive com- ■ A'. bines wisdom and whizzdom. It . " possesses the deep wisdom of ex- , *f..’ perience; for ages it has followed •W' ' . the axe through the primitive - . ' back-reaches of the land; it has ,-iV . drawn the pioneers to the outposts a of civilisation. It lias sped undismayed through the untenanted . silence of Nature’s last strorig- ,’ holds; it has braved flood, fire, and landslide; it has transported the weapons of tillage with which Man has tamed the wild heart of Nature. It links the Future with the . ' Present, and the Front Line with ) r. the Commercial Base. % “All this is tme, dear reader, Ary/-. juid lest, we forget let us remember, lesser forms of transport fol--g ‘ lowed only after the railway enp f i " gine drew the means and the men for making the highways fit to . ’ speed on. Strength, purpose, pow- **;•; or; these are the characteristics A y not only of the engine, but of the ; -> men who drive and conduct it; also of the men who hewed the track ’ where the ancient rimu brooded hi . - hoary solitude and the stratified cliffs towered aloof and unbeliev- . i»g. gy/y//,'- ' : “Shouldering, boring, pressing (..ji, despite the reluctance of resis- ■ . *• ting Nature, the railway drove into the- heart of New Zealand; it took from Nature, but it has given r . more than it took. To the railway *1 is the credit of the Golden Fleece, ‘4‘>'L the. Golden Oalf, the Sacred Cow, the Lands of Mijjk. and Money, and ’ J’ New Zealand’s credit in tiie mar- ‘ ket places of (lie world.”