DID YOU HEAR THIS?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 63, 6 September 1940, Page 5

DID YOU HEAR THIS?

Extracts From Recent Talks

Oranges and Lemons UT to get back to the Strand and St. Clement Danes. I don’t know if it is the Feast of St. Clement, but one day, towards the end of March, they hold a special Oranges and Lemons service in this church. It’s a children’s service, and adults are admitted by ticket only. Though the Strand is a rich business area, the neighbourhood is a poor residential

district. There are many Dyways and backwaters around here, where the poor live. So this service is really for poor children. And how they love it! The church is decorated with oranges and lemons, clusters of these, with leaves tied to seatends facing the chancel, and along the altar rail. The church is crowded with children, so shabby, some of them, so thin and wunder-fed, vet with

that sharp, keen look of youngsters who have to fend for themselves. Most of them are scrubbed and brushed, at least they’ve had a cat’s lick on the surface. Adults sit in the gallery or around the sides.. This is the children’s day, the Children of St. Clement Danes. As the name suggests, this church is Danish in origin, and St. Clement was a Danish saint. The Danish residents in London take a keen interest in this service, and supply the oranges and lemons for the decoration and distribution, which comes later. (Nelle Scanlan: "Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax,") Goodness and Beauty AVE you ever studied the form of your own teapot, chairs, clothes, knives, forks or tools? They can be of bad, indifferent or good form, and of poor or good workmanship. The same applies to houses, streets, and cities. The appearance of all things seen is such an important thing in the lives of each one of us that to neglect the study of form would be a universal menace. No doubt you will remember the description of chaos in the book of Genesis, as.to the earth, " being without form and void." You know, some people think they can buy beauty. They are the kind of people who claim to be "artistic," and they purchase what they call " works of art." I assure you it is not so easy at that. You have to understand goodness to appreciate beauty. It is not a matter of monetary riches, ability to purchase socalled " works of art," it is a matter of understanding, of real knowledge, even wisdom, which constitutes the real payment, and one of the fundamental factors, the true coinage of real payment-in the study of form. Why even the industrialists and merchantmen have discovered that for the sale of their waresthe tea-pots, chairs, knives, and so on-that it is profitable to consider the form as well as the colour, It is not only a matter of the object functioning as such, it is also a matter of the appearance of the object. (F. A. Shurrock and C. H. Booth discuss "Things as Seen by a Sculptor," 3Y A, August 21.) Labelling People E’RE most of us fond of labels. We've got tidy » minds-some of us-and we're never content unless we can label people and tuck them away each in their own little pigeon-hole. I wonder what sort of luck you have when you try to label new acquain-tances-I never have any. That’s why I’m so sure I’m not a psychologist and never would be-lI look back on my library experiences and think that those ought to have taught me not to try to label any human being till I’ve known them for years-and then I'll know them far too well to imagine I can label them at all. To come back to that libraryI was once a librarian, you know, for two years in a country town-and I got a lot of pleasure and

real happiness out of it-and plenty of fun-lI can’t think of any job that shows you more of human nature than a librarian’s; people are so interesting and so amusing about their reading and you simply never can tell what will please people or what will annoy or offend them. And they tell you so much of their lives and their thoughts-I can’t think how one could hear more, except perhaps if one were a doctor or a nurse. But the one thing you do learn and lay to heart for ever in a library is--don’t try to judge people by appearances. Don’t try and be clever about them. Don’t say, "I can tell from a glance what this sort of subscriber wants; no need to warn me about that one.-I can see from the sort of hats she wears that she’ll hate anything the tiniest bit naughty." Of course we can say all that. It sounds smart and amusing-but it can lead you into the most extraordinary pitfalls. When I first went to that library I thought I knew a little about peoplebelieve me, I had to alter most of my ideas. I learnt not to try to label people-that no one really belongs to any one type-that we're all a mixture-and that, as far as reading goes, it’s very hard indeed to judge by a person’s appearance or even their talk. what sort of book will be their special kind. (Mary. Scott: "The Morning Spell: The Amateur Psychologist," 2YA, August 31.) N.Z. Brains Abroad R. SYDNEY SMITH hails from Roxburgh in Central Otago, and began climbing the ladder of success when he started serving in a chemist shop in that little township, Always on the look-out for advancement, he then acted as chemist assistant in Oamaru and Dunedin, and at leneth became dis-

penser at the Wellington Public Hospital. This enabled him to become a part-time student at Victoria College. Later he went to Edinburgh and went through his medical course, while keeping himself by spare time tutor‘ing. While filling a position under the Egyptian Government, Dr. Smith figured in the sensational case following the murder

of Sir Lee Stack, Governor-General of the Sudan, and Sudai of the Egyptian Army in 1924. It was his evidence that was mainly responsible for sheeting home the guilt to the murderers, The case became a classical example of detection in medico-legal circles. In praising his work in Egypt, the London " Times " said that he had raised medico-legal work to a very high standard. Though the Egyptian Government sought to retain his services, an offer by his old University at Edinburgh determined him to return to it. Dr. Smith has written text books on medicine and has also edited editions of Taylor’s " Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence," a standard work on the subject. Smith, the one-time assistant in a Roxburgh chemist shop, is now at the top of the ladder, for he is Regius professor of forensic medicine, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Edinburgh University, and a leading authority on medical jurisprudence. (" New Zealand Brains Abroad: A Review of our Achievements,’ by Bernard Magee and Major F. H. Lampen, 2YA.) Cromwell’s Wife and Family HE title of this book sounds strange — "Mrs. ‘* Oliver Cromwell"! It sounded so to me, but with great possibilities. We are apt to think of Oliver Cromwell as one big force-a big_thunderbolt with lesser thunderbolts round him doing his will, if any of them really understood what that was. Yet if there was ever a family man in England it was Oliver Cromwell. No man ever knew more about each of Ais children, than did Oliver Cromwell about the eight healthy boys and girls growing up about him-their schooling-his great ambition for his four

sons. His love for his second daughter, Betty, has come down through history-and yet least of all his children was she like her father-gay-attired in costly clothes-married to a titled Royalist whom her father disliked. But she was paramount in Oliver’s affection though she set at defiance the plain course of conduct set out for her and did nat even nretend to like Father’e lone nravere Har

death at Hampton ‘Court when he was Lord Protector of England was the greatest tragedy of Cromwell’s life. Some people have imagined that Cromwell was an unlettered man. Sydney Sussex College in Cambridge could disprove this, and Oliver in later years represented Cambridge in Parliament, Not that all the Colleges sided with him

in the Civil War by a long way. Some even sent their plate to be melted in the Royalist cause. Then, as now, money seemed to play an important part in warfare. But there is a little description of the countryside in the Civil War which might still apply to-day. "Ploughs were in the fields, seed was in the fields, corn was in the fields. Spring brought its cowslips and wood violets. The cuckoo’s note was heard and changed as summer came and grew older. Poppies flamed, fierce suns bronzed the corn in broad fields. Rain came and mists: moons silvered ponds and streams; the stars wheeled in their untiring endless courses." (Miss G. M. Glanville in a review of "Mrs. Oliver Cromwell," by Margaret Irwin, 3YAJ)

The Rope that Broke HYMPER says the jerk came on the other three "as one man." The rope broke below old Peter, and the four unfortunate men went to their death 4,000 feet below. " The Challenge" film makes the rope break below Whymper and he was accused of cutting it to save himself. This is not true, it broke below Taugwalder who had to refute a suspicion which most unjustly prejudiced him in after life. The rope was not thrown away as happans in the film; it was brought down to Zermatt for examination because Whymper foresaw that the question might be raised against Peter. I saw the rope twenty years after the accident, and cannot understand how anyone could suggest it had been cut. It was an old rope not intended to be used except to attach to a rock as a handhold if necessary. A new rope would have withstood the strain. (From A. P. Harper's talk-on Edward Whymper, whose first ascent of the Matterhorn ended in tragedy, 4YA, July 22.)