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Home My WebLink AboutThe Brussels Post, 1955-04-06, Page 6ABLE TALKS dam Ambews. MERRY MENAGERIE • 1.1 (3C, TRAINING SCRooi. I arr a 1,1...• 3.25 "Well, well! Looks like Tiger just flunked outl" Some Tales of Jumbo Famous Elephant Resistant T. V, Top Is Guestproof antl Dy EDNA MILES Ever hate hot coffee spilled on the top of your TV set? Or have you tried to wipe off rings made by the glasses that care- less guests put de'Wn on the handiest spot? Of course you have. ??rob-° ably the results were none too good and ,••::w bemoaned the damage to your set, then tried to cover the marks with , a' vase or a lamp. Good news . for the home- maker lies in announcement of a new laminate being used in some table-model TV sets. The new material combines the prO.- faction of plastic with the rigid- ity of metal. It comes in a var- iety of colors, to fit in with any living-rpom ,decor. One sit, or instance, comes in pretty shades of coffee, sand, cordovan or gray. And beneath the color, the surface is functional. It's guaranteed lot to chip, crack, peel, stain or scratch., It will stand 'up to heavy abuse from guests or children and keep its good tooks meantime. Guestproof laminated-top on this TV set is impervious to •spilled liquichidWo0. sCroich, chip, crack or peel. Actually, se:iu Ilifri;y: Use the you like. Handprints, spots and top of sets having-this laminat- I rains all wipe free with a ed material as a serving pot if i damp cloth. StariGazero, See Red Observations which astron- omers in many parts of the World are planning to Make through more power telescopes may solve in 1955 the centuries- old question: Are there men 'on Mars? One astronomer ,has said that if we could meet a creature from Mare we would probably find him ''too uncanny and too clever for us." He might also be millions of years ahead of us in evolution. Scientists are still divided on the question of whether Mary Liens exist on, the red planet so many millions Of miles away. Some say the only life is a strange kind of bright vegeta- tion which makes Mare look red. But the Astronomer-Royal, Sir Harold. Spencer Jones, believes it ie desert that gives the planet its ruddy colour. He has pointed out that other parts, of the sur- face are greenish In colour; It is believed that the rarefied atmosphere of Mars is rather like that which exists 100,000 feet aboye the earth's surface. Warm-blooded creatures, be- cause of the lack of oxygen, could not therefore exist on Mars, says one world-famous as- tronomer. But he 'does not rule out the possibility of some kind of life flourishing there. What form might it take? That is what the astronomers hope to find out. It was the Italian astronomer Schiaparelli who, in 1877, start- ed the notion -that there might be liVing, thinking Martians. He found that the dark patches on Mars which earlier observers had 'called "Oceans" were connected by harrow streaks, sometimes many hun- dreds of miles long. He called these streaks channels or canals. What astronomers now want to find out is whether these Heart of Australia channels were ,consteuctedesby Martians to. carry water rpm the melting polar caps ferepur- pose of irrigation. Or are they just surface features of Mars? If the question of who-.lives on If, is not satisfactorily an- swered this year it may be On September 11th, 1956, when Mars will be comperatively close to 'the earth — only 35,- 500,000 miles away. onto clean dish towel sprinkled with confectioners' sugar. Peel ea waxed paper and, trim edges of roll, Starting at one end of roll, roll up end let stand until cool, Beat cream stiff, Unroll the cake and epread with apricot jam and whipped cream, Roll up again, Chill for 1 hour, Makes 8-10 generous servings. 4, 4, BLACK AND WHITE BROWNIES cup all-purpose flour 2 eggs 2 squares unsweetened chocolate ' oup nuts cup butter or margarine Ii ' Cup-sugar IA teaspoon salt teaspoon vanilla Start oven at 350°F, Grease 8" x 8" x 2" pan. Sift flour; measure. Beat eggs until light and as thick 'as whipped cream. Melt choco- late over hot water; cool. Chop nuts fine. Work butter until light. Gradually acid sugar, con- tinuing to cream•'s until fluffy. Stir in eggs. Add flour and salt and beat until sinboth. Stir" nuts and vanilla. `Divide batter in half. Add the cooled chocolate to one half. Pour light and dark batter into pan in alternate spoonfuls. When all batter is added, swirl through with a spatula. Bake 25 minutes. Re- move from pan and cool. Makes 16 'sqUares. A * * BRAZILIAN FROZEN CREAM .1/4 cup, water 2 squares unsweetened chocolate 114 cups milk 1 tablespoon instant coffee M cup sugar 2 tablespoons flour % teaspoon salt 1. cup heavy cream 1 tablespoon vanilla 'Add water to chocolate and heat until chocolate is melted. Heat milk until a film forms across the top. Add coffee and chocolate mixture, stirring until *ell-mixed. Mix -sugar, flour and salt together. Stir in -milk mixture and cook, stirring con- stantli`, until mixture thickens. Cool rand_ add vanilla. Pour into a 'refrigerator tray and chill un- til firm. Beat cream until stiff. Remove mixture from refriger- ator, Beat until mushy and smooth. Gently mix chilled mix- ture into whipped cream. Return to freezer tray. Chill until firm. Makes 1% pints. Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species, with the design to be each other's mutual comfort and en- tertainment, have, in that action, bound themselves to be good- humored, affable, discreet, for- giving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfections, to the end of theii- lives. —Joseph Addison, Rere's the recipe for a really Outstanding dessert, orange chiffon pie, no less made with lemon pastry for extra goodness, But perhaps I'd better start off with the pastry recipe. You'll find it so wonderful with many different sorts of filling. LEMON PASTRY' Vs lemon I tablespoon lemon juice 1 cup all-purpose flour 34 teaspoon salt cup shortening 4 tablespoons water Start oven at 450' F. Grate the lemon rind; squeeze the juice. Sift the flour; measure. Sift again with salt. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add in water and, lemon juice, a tablespoon at a time, mixing with a fork until all dry ingredients are moisten- ed, Form into a ball. Chill for one hour, Roll out on lightly floured board to 12" circle. Fit into 9" pie plate, Trim to 1" edge. Fold under edge and flute. Prick closely with fork on sides and bottom. Bpke 12 minutes or until golden brown. * ORANGE CHIFFON 342 recipe lemon pastry rind of 1 orange I envelope unflavored gelatin Se cup orange juice 2 tablespoons lemon juice 4 eggs 1/4 teaspoen sal 3/4 cup =sugar ., Make up lemon, pastry (see be- low); Grate the ,rind of orange. Sprinkle gelatin over 1/3 ,cup orange, juice' to soften. Separate, yolks :end whites of eggs. Mix orange, juice, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar join top of double boiler. .$ Place „Over boiling water afid cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens slightly and coats krnetal spobn, Add gelatin and stir until completely dissolv- ed. Remove frdm heat. Add lemon juice and orange rind, Chill Until mixture has consist- ency of unbeaten egg whites, Beat the ,egg whites until stiff enough to holds peaks. Gradually, beat in%remaining 4 tablespoons • of sugar, beating well after each addition. Gently but thoroughly nilx the thicken- ed gelatin mixture_ into whites. Pour into baked pastry shell 'and chill until firm. * * GINGER-APRICOT ROLL 8/4, cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 54 teaspoon salt - 1 teaspoon ginger 24. cup sugar 3 eggs Y2 teaspoon grated lemon rind lh cup heavy cream 3/2 cup apricot jam - Start oven at' 375° F. Grease and line with wax paper a 10" x 15" x 1" baking pan. Sift flour; measure. Sift again with baking powder, salt, ginger. Separate yolks and whites of eggs. ;Beat egg whites until stiff enough ,to hold sharp peaks. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup sugar, continuing to beat until stiff. Beat egg yolks until light and as thick as whipped cream, Gradually beat in remaining Ye cup sugar. Gent- ly but thoroughly mix egg yolks into egg whites. Divide flour mixture into three parts. Sift one-third of flour over eggs and mix in lightly and thoroughly. Repeat for remaining two-thirds Of flour. Spoon batter into pre- pared pan, spreading. mixture into the corners of pan. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Loosen edges with knife and turn out North of Quern, the farmers dare not plough their fields, or these fields would blow away. Nothing grows but the salt buSh, stunted and sparse, yet sweeter than clover to hundreds 4 and thousands of sheep, an unfailing fodder of the drought country that produces Australia's lightest and finest wools. Only those that have seen it, veiled in the colours of dawn and twilight, or eaten it boiled with young rabbit, can testify to its delicacy both ways. One shower, and the surface of this grey earth is covered with gayest green and the glamour of wildflowers, :Fish and frogs are to be found in the very heart of these sandy wildernesses — frogs that bloat themselves out with a years' sup- ply of water when the precious stuff is to be found, burrow into 'the earth, and can actually be lapped, like miniature tanks, by blacks and desperately thirsting whites. • . Practically every known jewel is found in this country, even including the diamond, though none has yet been discovered with the 'blue-water gleam of those of Peru. Amethysts' and emerald are picked up anywhere from, Western Queensland to the Buccaneer Islands. The sapphires of. Anakie are famous, and the black opal Of Lightening Ridge world famOus. Tourmalines and beryl and garnet and quartz crystal are so plentiful that they are scarcely reckoned of worth. A camel-load of rubbies sounds like the finale of an Oriental fairy tale, yet east of Alice Springs the hills and plains are sparkling with the red glitter ,of "MacDen- nell Ra,ngee etibies," not 'quite rubies unqualified, but more richly Ted end of deeper fife than the garnet,' the true Burmese cor- unduin: 'So plentiful are they that they. cannot be precibus.. . But the most luminous and 'il- luminating sermons in stones ' are the cockle shells and mussel shells petrified" in glowing opal in the barren heart of Australid. When the ichthyosaurus' pterocis actyl dragged their, slow lizard length across a half-baked world,- these iridescent shellfish were live things in the shallows' of that vast warm sea lazing south from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Spencer's Gulf. Now stranded high and dry above the receding tides of the, aged, they live im- mortal in the colours' of sun and sea that shone before the dawn of a= human day.. . . Another phetioinenoti of ab- sorbing interest that has in- trigued and to some extent baf- fled men of science is that of the teckites, or AustraliteS, or Obeid, ianites, or inethoretes, call them what you will, and each name is more or less correct — the little round Nubians'' of iron and 'nickel alloy, Said to be infiiiitees ling bits of other worlds Pelleted on to this, or bubbles and blebs of 'aim that have teavelled per- haps for millions' of light years, tiny Vague niitSles through into''- , plebe* Space — Froth' "The 'Great Australian LonelitiesS,".b3r . Ernestine' Rill, DRUMSTICKS GALORE — Folded Up Underneath like retractable landing gear are the two extra legs which this chicken was blessed—or cursed. The creature was on exhibit at the Biological Institute of the University of Istanbul, Turkey. Jumbo was first put on a barge and then hoisted by a hydraulic crane ,on to the As- syrian Monarch, where a huge amount of stores for his journey had already' been placed.' The ship, with Jumbo aboard, sailed on March 27th, 1882 So great was public interest in Britain that daily bulletins were put into waterproof bags and dropped overboard in the hope that news of Jumbo would reach Britain. During the whole voyage cartoons and sarcastic verses appeared in British pub- lications. Jumbo arrived in New York On April 9th.' There. was .450 customs duty to pay on him. The elephant received a tumul- tuous reception and was placed on show at Madison Square Gardens in New York. For three years Jumbo toured the United States with Barnum's Circus; meanwhile the children of Britain continued to mourn for him. In the late summer of 1885 the Show was in Canada. September 15th of that year the Circus was tented at St. Thomas, Ont., where Jumbo suddenly took a violent dislike to an on- coming train. He charged the locomotive full tilt, and was killed outright. Jumbo was skinned and stuf- fed, and put on show standing next to his skeleton. Some years later this somewhat gruesome exhibit was brought to London. On the death of Jumbo, Bar- num bought his mate Alice and had her fetched to America, where she was exhibited as "Jumbo's Wife," but she ,surviv- ed her mate by only two years. Her death was even more tragic than Jumbo's. November 20th, 1887, Bar- num's Circus and Alice were at Bridgeport, Connecticut. A ter-. rible circus fire swept through the menagerie and killed all the animals, including Alice. Modern. Etiquette By Roberta Lee If you only loved me, as you say you do' You'd never go with Barnum's Show And leave me. in the Zoo,' " Another Ping was entitled: "Why Part With Jumbo?" 'Then there was the "Jumbo March" for the piano which all the little girls and boys who loved Jumbo learned to play. There were letters to the newspapers, full of indignation; there were protest meetings. But the Zoo stuck to the bargain: £2,000 for Jumbo as he stood; Barnum to pay all transport ex- penses and to arrange the transport. Mete arrived from America "Elephant Bill" Newman, said to be an expert in handling elephants, and a Mr. Davis, Barnum's personal representa- tive. Little did they know what was in store for them. Jumbo, now eleven feet tall, walked placidly enough into a travelling cage mounted on a low trolley. He was chained by his forefeet, but he struggled hard and pouhded the sides of the box. He weighed' six tons. Heavy drayhorses were harnes- sed to the trolley, which moved off and at once sunk to its axles. It took four hours to get clear of the gates of Regent's Park. Night fell and huge' crowds collected. It took five more hours to cover 100 yards, again and again the trolley sank down to its axles. The crowd took up a chant: "The Yankees will never have Jumbo." It took all night to get to the docks; there was a procession of hansom cabs and pedestri- ans. At seven a.m. Jumbo had breakfast, plus a copious drink of beer given him by a weeping woman who had followed him from the Zoo. After the beer, Jumbo was given some whisky. It later transpired that the Americans who had come to fetch him were so "het up' that Barnum offer- ed another £1,000 if the Zoo would take the responsibility of getting Jumbo to New York. The. Zoo refused. Any old place I can hang my hat is home, sweet home to me. —William. Jerome and Jean Schwartz Of an the fmgoug animals the. London Zoo has housed in its century and a. quarter of exist- ence, none—despite the greet lame of BrinnaS the Polar bear .sever captered the linagina- lion of the entire country as did Jumbo, The elephant went to Regent's Peek ninety years ego, a scruffy little baby, and his de- parture for America, eighteen years later, was accompanied by nation-wide lamentations, Jumbo was captured when rather less than a year old on the banks of the River Settite in Abyssinia in 1861. His captors sold him to the Paris Zoo, After staying in Paris for three years, Jumbo was exchanged for a rhinoceros; Paris, got the rhinoc- eros, and the London Zoo got Jumbo, Jumbo arrived at Regent's Park in June, 1865, and was handed to e keeper named Mat- thew Scott. The youngster stood only four feet high and was in & filthy condition. His feet had been neglected and -had become enalformed. HIS temper was terr- ible; he destroyed the doors of his house and drove his Welts through the iron plates. Scott took hold of Jumbo by one ear, and Superintendent Bartlett took the other, and they thrashed him soundly. Later Jumbo was taken into the gardens and meekly took s children for rides on his back at ltd. a time; but once back in his house, his behaviour continued to be bad. Nevertheless, he be- came a great meney-maker for the Zeo. At first keeper Scott was allowed to ;retain all those twopences, but' there came ea time when the Zoo authorities decided otherwise. From then then onwards Jumbo made £800 a year for the Zoo. ' Jumbo's tusks, broken when he thrust them through the iron plates, began to grow again, but, they emerged through. 'the skin, near his eyes. It was" decided to operate. But as the operation be- gan, Jumbo gave a scream of fright and tried to kill his keep- er, who just managed to escape. For the second attempt at an operation, all precautions were taken against Jumbo's possible behaviour, but this time he was as good as gold, just as if he understood that he would be re- lieved from pain. But once back in his house, he continued to raise. Cain. Jumbo was quite a problem to the Zoo. It was decided to find a mate for him. The Zoo bought a tiny female elephant, for 1500 from an East End dealer. Superintendent Bartlett and Alice walked all the way to Regent's Park and then sat down together to supper. Jumbo at first showed no sign of being influenced by female society; indeed, his behaviour got. worse. But the people who flocked to the Zoo to see him knew nothing of what went on behind the scenes; when he ap- peared in public he was as docile as could be. The Zoo put up with him for sixteen years, then the Superin- tendent petitioned the Zoo Council to • be allowed to pur- chase a powerful rifle to shoot him. But at that critical moment came a letter from New York, from Mr. Phineas Barnum, proprietor of "The Greatest Show on Earth," offering £2,000 for Jumbo, This was accepted and his life was saved. As soon as the news spread that Jumbo had been sold to Barnum, Britain went wild with excitement. Nobody outside Zoo circles knew that Jumbo was scheduled to be shot. Thousands of letters reached the Zoo from both children and parents. Music-hall singers sang ballads about Jumbo. One typical verse went as follows: "Jumbo said to Alice, 'I love yeti.' Alice said to Jumbo, 'I don't believe you do; Q. Please give some tips On the giving of a buffet supper. A. Any time between five and eight p.m. Hot dishes, salads, rolls, appetizers, dessert and beverages are served,The dishes, napkine- and siNierware are placed on the table with -the ,food, and the guests help them- selves. This is a good way to ,entertain a large gathering with- out maid.service. Q. Do good manners today dis- approve of tinted stationery for informal correspondence? A. No, proVided the shades are, not too garish. Men, of course, should stick to white stationery. Q. When giving an informal din- ner, how should the invitations be issued? A. Either by brief note, or - over the telephone. Q. While confined in a hospital, many of my friends brought me gifts. I have thanked most of these persons either personally or over, the phOne. Is it neces- sary for nie to write them each a "thank you" note? A. Only to those you have not thanked personally. Q. What should a person do when he has completed intro- ducing two persons? A, He should try immediately to ,draw the two acquaintances into conversation, Q. Is it right for a young man, who has just become engaged, to break the news to all his' friends? A. The announcement of 'an en- gagement is the' inalienable right of the bride-elect. A young Man should not tell even his intimate friends until after the young lady has anonunced it, either formally or informally, to her friends. . From: which side should one properly sit doWit in. his chair at the dinner table?" A. From whichever side is more convenient. Q. Whet) .cheese is aiitired With apple pie, should it '136 eaten, with the fork or the fingers? A. tleilelly it's riabee..deriVenient to eat it with the fork, But it's het itriproPee' to pick it UP tOltb, the fingers if yeti ebnoid.- , Q. IS it alWays necessary' thit chaPerOtt be a married,. *Milk?" A. No, SitiY *titian of Mature years may serve in this ifetioset* 4 Whete,s the [gamily? That's an that's needed' to make this, gadget free-Wheeling' dog frock: Dewey Blantori peers fraril his 0010 as he SU16erViSei, exercise of his. six racing greyhoundip .leashed to this rate track` like bumper device. 'toeing COlihettibilS on the leashes absorb' shock, keep the dogs inr check. 'while they beVide ttiVCS tHeln a workout and Clitiritii `tUitill et Universal cidb.4y. desire ,: the illipulti6 to run, after' moving objects. PRINCESS MARGARET Al DEDICATION' Princess Margaret (left)'appears'before d group, "of Girl'iGudes, as she doetvet lota. the de dication of the Anglican Chbrch of s., „and. kieriet In' londOi. ,