FROZEN WORDS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10097, 20 September 1910, Page 4

FROZEN WORDS.

The presence in New Zealand of.Dr. Bell, the founder of the world-wide telephone system, at once suggests a comparison between the methods of communication of to-day and those which were employed iri early history. In many respects the world to-day is considerably in advance of what it was a few centuries back. And yet, if Francois Rabelais is to be believed, we have something yet to learn in the way of communication. That great writer tells us how, as Pantagruel and Panurge were -making a long and perilous voyage in search of the Oracle of the Divine Bottle, they rounded the Cape and were sailing south, when Pantagruel heard 'strange voices in the air. "Be not afraid," said the pilot, "we are on the confines of the frozen sea, where there was a great fight last winter between the Arimarpians and the jslepheliabetes.* The cries of the men, ths neighing of horses, and all the din of battle froze in the.air, and now that the warm season has come, they are melting into sound." What an array of possi-' bilities is here unfolded! Imagine the speeches of members' of Parliament being frozen, and' thawed on the eve of an election!.Or the sweet nothings uttered before matrimony being preserved for use in after years! Or the afternoon tea gossip being dispensed among those who' have been maligned!. The discovery of Di;. Bell, wonderful though it be, is not in the same race with that of Ptabelais. ...