The Brussels Post, 1949-11-23, Page 3Baying
The Loon
By Richard Bill Wilkinson
TILE ALPHA, Alpha, Alpha, Alpha
fraternity at Boynton university
is responsible for the fate of Pere!-
val Oakes. It happened this way.
During his freshman year the
AAAA's pledged Percy to member-
ship end initiated him into the mys-
tic three R's, (Rites, Rituals and
Regulations,) Percy took it like a
turn. When ordered to imitate a
dog howling at the noon, he did
his level best, The result was as-
tonishingly successful, .Percy sur-
prised even himself.
The brother AAAA's cheered
loudly and clamored for encores.
Percy obliged a second time and a
third. He was intensely pleased
— Set by A J Rantala — Nov 3 —
with the applause and at the atten-
tion he attracted.
The next day, en route to class,
Percy was stopped by a grave -faced
sophomore and asked. to give his
imitation of a dog howling at the
moon. For a moment he hesitated,
conscious of a circle of grinning
faces that had silently formed about
him, faintly resentful of the fact
that the brothers of the AAAA had
made public the discovery of his
hidden genius. He glanded once
more into the grave face of the
youth who had accosted him and
then threw back his head and bayed
lustily.
A nighty roar of applause greeted
the rendition. There were cries of
"morel" morel" Percival obliged a
second time and then once more,
Returning to college in the fall,
Percy had completely put from his
mind the cause and fact of his last
year's popularity. There were other
and more important things to oe-
oupy his interest, He was. now a
sophomore, with all the rights and
liberties and sensations of importance
that are synonymous with that lofty
position. Best of all, he was now
He looked at the moon and
from his throat there came , ..
ricin tones or a baying hound.
unhampered by the 30 odd fresh-
men rules that had last year cramped
his activities.
One sophomore caused k'ercy's
brain to swim. Here was loveliness
anti intelligence and femininity all
combined, Unhappily, it took him
a fortnight to negotiate an intro-
duction. Her name was Delia Win-
ter, and she was as popular as site
was beautiful. This was discourag-
ing and disheartening, .Percy could
offer nothing; she had her pick of
the college.
IT WAS out of the Saturday night
informal dances at the college gym.
They had been dancing together for
pcnccaps 60 seconds when Delia
looked up at him and said; "Aren't
you the boy who can imitate a dog
howling al the moon? " Tier eyes
twinkled.
l'erey reddened to the ears. He
felt a chill, a horrible apprehension,
"No," he bleated, "no! Whoever
told you that is crazy!"
Delia didn't press the subject, but
Percy knew he was sunk. He let
a month slip by before he could
conjure enough courage to ask for
a date, and felt pitifully grateful
when she assented.
Within the following mouth he
kept five dates with Delia, but it
was always the sante; the "thing"
was always there between thein. He
thought she must think hint ridicu-
lous. She pitied hint,
.Uurng the intermission at the
Dartmouth victory dance, Percy
and Delia strolled out onto the now
dry ice-skating rink and sat down
on the bulwark and looked up at
the num. Because of his great and
hopeless love Percy was moody,
unhappy, thoughtful. Suddenly he
was startled by the petulant tote of
of his beloved,
"I think it must be wonderful,"
she said. •
"What n115.1 " asked Percival.
"'I'o be able to imitate• things, I
mean, anyone can play football, or
learn to skate, or dance web, but ft
takes genius to he able 10 imitate
things."
"Do --- you mean that 1''
"Why, of course I dot 'I've always
admired people who ---have creative
ability,. 1lonin<. Of course T mean
Si'She I„ltd senarely at him anti
the 1 ast r, u e of doubt Vanished
from f rr,y a soul like nest from a
river hid before a rising rot. He
stood up, he threw baric his head,
he looked al the mons and from his
throat there (mite the dear, sleep,
relic tones of a baying honntd,
Chinese Could
Teach Us Much
In spite of war and disturbance,
the Chinese farmer even now pyo -
duces vast quantities of food which
he would be glad to market more
Widely were ft possible, The Chi•
nese earth 'is rich In food produc-
tion, and the Chinese farmer is very
skilled in conserving the soil,
writes Pearl S. Buck, author of
"The Good Earth," and other fam-
ous books, in The New York Times
Magazine.
Tlie Chinese are farmers of 40
centuries and there they have much
to teach the rest of the world. They
need help in scientific seed selection
and in disease and insect control,
which can easily be given diem.
The primary need of the Chinese
farmer, therefore, is not food, but
more markets for the food he has
The abundance of food produc-
tion in China is more than the
result of necessity. The Chinese
are extremely modern in their out
look on life, 'Centuries before
Hemingway set the fashion for
naturalism for our young men and
women, the Chinese were natural,
istic to their very merrw. Every
function of lite was meant to be
enjoyed. Therefore, food was muco
more than a necessity—it became
an art, in production, in cookery, in
eating—and anastounding plenty
and variety of foods were de
veloped.
Those who have wandered over
China will remember the wonder of
the markets even in remote little
inland towns, Tubers of land and
water, green vegetables infinitely
more in number than are eaten or
even known by Americans, melons
of every color and texture and flav-
or, meats fresh and dried in a
score of ways, proteins we do not
suspect from beans and peas made
into vegetable cheese and cured dr
eaten fresh, sea food of every va-
riety, river fish of every size and
sort, the nets, the sweets, the fruits
—I wonder why we do not have
loquats, those delicious golden
fruits of spring, and why we do not
have pu,neloes, so much better than
grapefruit and greater hl variety,
and why we do not have the mane
kinds of persimmons that the Chi-
nese have.
The big persimmons of the north
dried for sweetmeats and dusted
with powdered sugar surpass any
figs or dates, though the Chinese
honey dates, delicately slit' with
needles and then preserved in honey
are the finest in the world,
No one who has eaten for years
in China, north and south and all
around, in city and village, can
believe that the Chinese are hungry
or that they need food—primarily,
that is. Take bread alone—in com-
parison to the poor pasty product
Which Americans eat for their daily
bread, 'what joy is to be found in
the many varieties of Chinese bread
the baked, the browned in deep
vegetable oil, the steamed in vast
trays set into the huge iron cal-
dron; bread in loaves, bread in
cakes, bread delicately filled with
bean vermicelli and spinach, bread
filled with flavored pork bits, bread
filled with dates crushed in red
sugar.
No, I flout tie idea that the Chi-
nese are permanently hungry and
that their hunger ie a world prob-
lem. I have breakfasted in southern
villages with the poor and found
delicious the bowls of rice gruel
and salted vegetables and tisk, or
in North China the thin sheet of
unsalted bread wrapped about a
fresh stalk of garlic. I have eaten
a bowl of hone -made noodles flav-
ored with soy sauce and sesame oil
in a poor wayside inn and I have
eaten official feasts of many cows -
es, and all are delicious and abund-
ant. The Chinese not only eat web,
they eat heartily. They are heavy
feeders, especially those who work
at physical labor, which is most of
the people.
Not food, but roads, are what
the Ohiuese need, roads whereby to
share with one another their own
plenty. A network of good motor
roads and freight vehicles to use
them, combined with a few male
railroad lines and some refa•igerator
cars, and China's famines would be
wiped from the record,
He Dives For Sunken Treasure—At left, Bob Forrest is lowered by his helpers into the Crottn
Zellerbach log pond at Port Angeles. He's going ,down to search for "treasure" in the form of
sunken logs. 'Treasure you say. Darn tootin'. Loggers up in the woods float great "booms"
of logs down the river to the swmills. A boons consists of thousands of logs, chained into a
gigantic raft. About 5 per cent of the logs become waterlogged and sink. And at present lumber
prices, that ain't Isar. Hence the salvage operation. Picture at right shows Forrest supervising
recovery of one of the logs he located below the surface and hooked on to the salvage hoist.
TOUGHEST DOGS
IN THE WORLD
Thirty -odd sledge -dogs are in Bri-
tain awaiting the day Mice before
long a whaler takes them "South"
through the blue -and -green pack ice
to Queen Maud Land, where they
will spend two years mauling the
sledges of the Anglo -Scandinavian
Antarctic Expedition ,
Across tete other side of the Ant-
arctic Continent in Graham Land,
huskies at the six permanent Bri-
tish exploration and scientific bases
there are getting ready for the great
sledging journey's of the coating
Antarctic .summer. So it is at the
outposts maintained in the Antarc-
ic by Australia, South Africa, Chile
and the Argentine, for in this ma-
chine age the husky is an indispens-
adjunct of paler travel writes Frank
Illingworth in "Answers,"
Mountie and Missionary
Only the more important Arctic
settlements are linked by aircraft
and snow -tractor "trains." The rest,
and they number thousands, relp on
the husky for winter transport,
With the first snow of winter the
husky becames the key to existence
over an area exceeding ten million
square miles. He hauls tete Mountie
and the Arctic missionary on their
rounds; he carries the trapper along
itis trapline; and the explorer into
frigid new territories; he is used to
deliver rations to the housewife its
sone polar parts, and to carry the
doctor into the wilderness of the
tundras when tete radio crackles
SOS calls.
The sledge -clog's excitement is
boundless when the first snow of
winter coats tundra and forest and
his owner turns the sledge over and
glazes the runners with frozen
blood (which "slides" better than
from water). A crescendo of yelps
burst from the dog's throat; his
eyes sparkle with pleasure; he rears
up and brings nighty paws thump-
ing down on your chest, Slap hint
under the chin, grab his immense
ruffle and slip around his neck a
strap that crosses between the fore-
legs and attaches at the back to
the thong that serves as a trace.
The team is traced either in Can -
formation or in line -ahead, or the
dogs are hitched to either side of a
trace. The method used depends on
the terrain to be crossed—for ex-
ample, the trappers of Canada's
forest areas wouldn't think of us-
ing the fan -formation)
Whatever the method of harness-
ing employed, the team is control-
led by word of mouth and with a
long whip.
In a well-trained team every dog
answers to his name. Sometimes a
dog will respond to a shouted order
only when you pick up a whip, He
does not 'bear a grudge for chas-
tisement that is earned. But beat
hint unjustly—and look for trouble.
The .husky has a long memory, And
there has been at least one instance
when the team has sided with e
badly handled dog and chased its
driver, their eyes on the seat of Isis
seal -skin trousers.
The husky has a marked sense
of humor. Throw your whip and
miss and he turns around and
"laughs" in a doggy wayl He re-
spects the good teats - driver 'and
recognizes the• inept immediately.
The 'thirty-foot thong has been the
cause of more laughter, embarrass-
ment and anger than any other item
of arctic equipment. The smallest
Eskimo child can handle it. But the
first efforts of the white man send
the Eskimos into paroxysms of
laughter.
Enjoying the Joke
Five minutes after Peary's Negro
companion on the former's .North
Pole Expeditions, the great Matt
Henson, had taken up his position
behind a sledge the Eskimos Alt-
nallca and Ikwah were helpless with
laughter. For while Matt cracked er
his whip the dogs sat on their
haunches and watched the perform-
ance, on their faces an expression
of wonderment at the manner in
which the big Negro was showering
theist with snow, curling the thong
around his lags, and keeping the
two Eskimos dodging,
The husky will never let you
down. When the Norwegian trapper
ICare Rodhal, fell ill in one of the
trappers' huts on the almost itnex-
pored east coast of Greenland, he
strapped his sleeping bag full length
to his sledge, crawled -within its
fluffy folds and left his team of
eight dogs to find their way back
to his cabin, This entailed a dan-
gerous journey through moving sea -
ice, Bet sixteen hours after he gave
the team -Leader the order to pull,
his sledge carne to a halt at his
cabin door.
Never was there a more loyal or
tougher dog than the husky.
The average pore -bred husky
weighs some seventy or eighty
pounds. But crossed with a wolf
he will exceed one hundred pounds,
and crossed with a St, Bernard he
weighs anything up to 180 pounds,
A team of six or eight huskies
will haul a half -ton load over bro-
ken ice almost indefinitely. On Vit-
hjahnur Stefansson's famous jour-
ney across the frozen Beaufort Sea,
in Arctic Canada, six 180- pound
huskies hauled a load of half a ton
for 700 miles, sometitnes covering
thirty utiles a day among the fan-
tastic pressure ridges of the Arctic
Ocean, That was in 1914, since
when there have 'been scores of
similar exhibitions of staying power
on the part of huskies. Only a couple
01 years ago a team of huskies
hauled a load of half a ton 1,096
miles across the blizzard -blitzed
wastes of Grahaniland in 96 days.
A world speed record so far as
exploration goes, the latter accom-
plishment is beaten every winter by
the Polar Eskimos of •Thule.
To the Polar lfskimos, journeys
of 1,000 utiles are "routine" during
the hunting season. Only last win-
ter one of the Thule Eskintoes set
off with his wife on a 1,200 mile
sledge journey to visit relatives in
Ellesmere Land, across the frozen
sea from Greenland, returning last
spring to report "good hunting';
pleasant trip,"
Grim Law of the North
Even udder normal conditions in
the Arctic, the husky's life is a hard
one.
There have been innumerable oc-
casions where to stave off starvation
on a long sledge journey, the weak-
est members of a team have been
ahot and fad to their teats -urates.
When a female husky "pups" in the
traces, her trace -mates will snap up
the helpless pups and swallow them
at a gulp. But sometimes the husky
prefers to starve ,rather than turn
cannibal, and then he is classed
among the weaker of a team and
killed and fed to tate other anitmals.
That is the law of the North.
Suffering the pain -of -snow blind -
neer, flanks sunken with hunger,
paws lacerated with the rip of sharp
lee, the husky is expected to haul
until he can haul no farther. And
he is prepared to haul to a stand-
still,
Itis reward? A hulk of pleat once
a day, or every few days in lean
times; a bed in the snow at night,
even if the temperature drops to
"fifty below"; and the knowledge
that he is the most loved creature
in the Greet North. For he is
loved, both in the Far North and
by the British explorers in the Par
South,
You probably recall the ancient
tale about the small boy whose
mother was trying to coax into
eating a new vegetable, "It's lovely,
dear," she said. "It's something
new—it's Broccoli."
* * *
The tiny tot took a wary mouth-
ful, chewed gingerly, then spat it
out. "You can call it Broccoli if
you like," quobli he. "But I say it's
spinach. And I say to hell with
it."
* 5 *
Well, there are some folks who
profess to admire the starling as a
beautiful bird, and who urge its
preservation. But practically every
body who ever lived in a place
infested wish them will contend, "I
say they're nothing but pests. And
1 say to hell with them." or words
to that -effect,
* a:
So it won't come as welcome
news to any of the latter to hear
that DDT has been tried for star-
ling extermination — tried and
found wanting.
* * *
In closely -watched teats last sum-
mer DDT powder in strengths of
10, 80 and 100 per cent was dusted
on Rooks of starlings to determine
the results that would probably be
obtained if use of the insecticide
was attempted in the field,
* * X<
No ill effect was noted among any
of the birds regardless of the
strength of DDT or the amount
used. Similar tests repeated w•itit
pigeons and English spareows
yielded equally negative results,
* * t,
When DDT was applied to house
mice in sufficient quantity, some
degree of control was obtained, .Re-
sults were most aatiafaotory when
a finely micronized DDT product
wee ;sed.
* * *
Plans are already being made for
a big celebration to take place at
Levis, Quebec, in the fall of 1950.
It will mark the fiftieth anniversary
of the founding of Credit Unions,
Started in a small wap there in
Levis, Credit Unions have now
spread to every Province in Canada.
and to every state in the United
States,
* * *
Canadian credit unions hit a new
high during 1948 according to a
report to be released shortly by
tate Dominion Department of Agri-
culture, Ottawa, In 1948 there were
2,608 credit unions chartered in
Canada with over 850,000 members
and total assets of $250 million,
* *
Dining the year, the r,o lit ,, ion-
wltie'ii are ill reality so -operative
:ravings and lending institutions
made loans to members of 8130.-
285,237, Deposits and shares at the
end of the year totalled almost
2140.000,000.
a
Quebec is the lt'atltit pros'„ II {'
with I,078 credit unions, over half
a million members and assets of
$205,000,000. Ontario is next in im-
portance with 371 credit unions,
95,000 members and $16,100,000 in
asset':,
*
There exists in every province et
least one central credit union where
individual credit unions and co-
operatives may deposit surplus funds
and make loans as needed. There
are 21 such centrals its Canada and
the combined balance sheet for 18
of these is included in the report
and shows total as=ets of over
831.000,000.
The Government "liand-out," from
which I borrowed the above facto,
failed to state the name of the in-
dividual responsible for the Credit.
Union idea. However, whoever he
was, he really started something,.
and no mistake,
Two bandits held azy a Women
florist in her shop in Los Ange[os,
When elle toldthane she was
poor widow, they handed her se
and departed,
Film Cutie—Actress 1\lary Janet
Saunders, age 7, clutches tight-
ly the $6,000 to $20,000 -a -yeah
movie contract approved for
her by a Los Angeles superior
court, The child actress star-
red with Bob Hope in "Sorrow-
ful Jones," the "Little Miss
Marker" role that started Shir-
ley Temple on the road to fame
` knew.sest M
Prize Poster --1 tether( Matter, photographer, looks at his poster,
which won i11nt $1000 in a contest sponsored by the Museum of
Modern Art and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.
The poster, which won first prize, is a photo -montage. Mattel'
used his own son, who recovered from 110110, as one of the models
Ey Artuur r oen ee
ismer o�?S
-t,•w. 9,yy. �.
*4,kx,4,01
Separated •--Sob i\fcKinley, 19, and "Ilerschel's Pride," his 1190 -
pound Ilcreford steer, were ,'lose pals when this picture was
Laken at the Royal .Livestock Show. But they are separated
lmw, "iferscllel's Pride" won the ;rand championship and Bob
sold 11bn to 'Eddy Williams, meat packer for $178 5. nub
ttse the money to get married,
;t •a;iir.1