TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 18856, 23 June 1920, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Early this month newspapers in New Zealand published a cable message from New York stating that the United States House of Representatives by 343 to 3 hail adopted a resolution expressing sympathy with the Irish cause. The message went on to state that the Speaker (Mr Gillett) informed the House that he would not permit the House to give consideration to the mea sure; and that Mr Giliett’s words were final in the matter. The apparent contradiction in the message is now shown to have been caused by an error in transmission. The message as it was published in Australia and in the North Island papers was as fol lows; — WASHINGTON, June 8. By a vote of 343 to 3 the House of Representatives adopted a resolution to repeal all war laws. Supporters of a resolution expressing the sympathy of the United States Congress with the Irish cause stated that the Speaker, Mr Gillett, had informed them he would not permit consideration of the measure by the House. They accepted Mr Gillett’s words as final in the matter. Announcement has just been made that Yale University has recently received from Bayard Dominick, of the class of 1594, Yale College, gifts amounting to 40,000 dollars

to be expended under its auspices for ex- j ploration in the Southern Pacific Ocean, j Professor Herbert E. Gregory, of Yale, will be the active head of the expedition, which will consist of a group of distinguished j physicists. Their work is expected to cx- j tend over a period of approximately two years. The London District Council of the National Federation of Building Trades Operj atives, through its president, has mentioned in no undecided manner what it is not going to build. After having examined about a hundred working-class housing schemes received from the Ministry of Health, none of which, it has decided, would provide structures fit to live in, objections to the houses are Summed up as follows: Rooms are too small. Ceilings are too low. Houses practically jerry-built. Almost complete absence of decoration. General air of drabpess. The condemnation of the dresses worn by j women in London which the Anglican Arch j bishop of Melbourne uttered recently follows closely on a strongly worded sermon delivered in April by Father Bernard Vaughan, whose essays and sermons on morality and home life during the last twenty years have attracted great attention throughout the world. “In days gone by ladies dressed for dinner, now they undress for it,” he declared. “Women’s clothing ought to serve the three purposes of decency, of warmth and of ornament. Women, in their mad craze for what is known as ‘emotional gowns,’ an against every canon of taste. Such dresses are immodest, unhealthy and as ugly as they are expensive. Girls who follow the up to date fashions arc ruining their own and their neighbours’ souls as well as their own bodies. Designers of fashions seem to be devoid as much of taste as of principle.”