TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 18819, 12 May 1920, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

In a recent number of the New York Times appeared a page of pictures of the Christopher Columbus statue that will soon be erected in the Argentine Republic, a gigantic piece of sculpture in which the marble figure of the great discoverer dwarfs the Italian, sculptor standing beside it, until Mr Arnaldo Zocchi himself looks almost like a Lilliputian standing beside Gulliver. To be more exact, the sculptor’s head is about level with the knee of Columbus; and the tremendous task of carving the gient in marble is revealed very objectively. But the figure of “Ocean Liberated from its Chains,” symbolised in human form that suggests a splendid and impressive Neptune, and taking its place among the ornaments at the base of the shaft that is a pedestal for Columbus, is equally gigantic; and so, of course, are the other symbolic figures vrith which the artist has expressed that first voyage across the Atlantic and some of its consequences. Bas-relief panels picture Columbus laying his plans before Queen Isabella, and again Columbus returning to the Spanish court with gifts from America, and a little company of Indians. The statue weighs 200 tons.

The rector of the University of Berlin, who has returned the diplomas conferred on him before the war by the universities of Oxford, Liverpool, St. Andrew, Chicago, and by Harvard, no doubt thinks that his act will sorely aggrieve the Allies. It is however, more than probable that the allied attitude could not be summed up more concisely than in a few words of American slang, namely, “I should worry.”

Strange as it may seem, China, in at least one respect, is far ahead of the most progressive countries of western Europe. This is in her use of the wireless telephone system, for in China daily use is made of this invention for communication between cities and the rural districts. One advantage that is claimed for the use of the wireless telephones by the inventor of wireless telephony, is that they do away with the interruptions due to atmospheric causes.