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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1951-10-31, Page 7n li Reek's Cure By Helen Langworthy 'Che reason my husband has been nick named Big Red is because he's over six feet tall, carrot -top- ped and peppery d!spositioned. While painting our home and reaching far out from the top of the ladder Big Red fell, There were more people than the doctor and I to realize that my husband had broken his leg. IIe was howl- ing mad! Surprisingly, though, Big Red wasn't too bad a patient during his long hospitalization. Yes, leave it to him—he did a royal job, nothing simple and routine! His fracture required specialists, operations and enough paraphernalia around his bed to make it resemble Franken- stein's nightmare. That's my Big Red! During those Long months be- fore he .:ante home Bag Red said that the thing he was most thank- ful for was that he was away from the Sanders, the Markhams, and the Keatings. Perhaps in other neighborhoods there are more family's like those three. If so, I can sympathize with all who live neighbor to thoroughly nice but thoroughly tiresome folks. Take Mr. Sanders, for instance. He has gall stones. The way he describes the pain, the many medi- cines the doctors have tried to dis- solve them is something to remem- ber for days. When anyone sug- gests an operation, Mr. Sanders grasps, "Oh, no!" You wonder if one would rob him of his only con- versational topic! Little TLrs, Markham is sweet and lovely. She seems so—until she mentions she didn't sleep last night, the night before and for weeks has heard the clock strike every hourl She's tried counting sheep, hot milk and drugs. Nothing helps. Theft there's Mr. Keating. He's next in size to Big Red. His woe is a allergy. When he and his wife conte in maybe it's the new daven- port pillow that he stares at like it cause front Mars. He's spent hours receiving painful shots and telling about them, When Big Red finally came home and was established in bed he told ne to ask the Sanders, Markhams and the Keating's all to visit. Those bores—and all at once, Wondering if complex broken legs could upset a man mentally, I argued gently. Big Red roared so I asked the three couples over. It trust have been the first time anyone had dared having the three chronic complainers under one roof. How the conversation flew! "My painful gall stones—" was in- terrupted with, '—not a good night's sleep for three years!" Then Mr. Keating pounced on one of Big Red's fluffy blankets and gave us a run down on awful allergies. I looked at my husband, He was smiling! Then he began! With a voice that .could make a general stand at attention, Big Red described the troubles he'd undergone, 1Je reeled off treatments, doctors, spe- cialists, traction affairs, the silver plates that had been applied to his leg bone during the operations, the pain, -.the sleeplessness, the dis- comfort, the way "the doctors had ben perplexed, hundreds of shotsl It was terrific. I think my mouth flew open and I forgot to shut it. When our company looked at cath other in extreme boredom and wiggled tbeir feet experinentally as though they wondered how soon they could decently heave,—Big Red winked at mel He tools a sleep breath—and began again on the Horrors of his case, The three couples almost ran for the front door, Out On the porch,' with Big Red's voice just a Muted roar our guests' expressed their sympathy, "Such a one track mind!" said Mr. F eating. "Don't you get tired of hearing him talk about pain?" asked Mr. Sanders whq never tires of hist I stepped inside, closed the door on their pity. 'Then I went to Big Rest , , : and we giggled, we roar- ed with laughter. Big Red's bed shook. "i. can't wait '11! we see them , . . next time," I told hint, finally, "If this cure doesn't work," Big Red agreed, "I could always do a repeat l" Somehow, though I'm sure 4hcre will be no need! Red Scientist Says World Warming Up A dispatch front lvloscow spreads the news that Soviet astrophysicists have accepted the declaration of Dr, Otto Yullievich Schntidth, fatuous Russian Arctic explorer, that the world is warming up. The theory is said to have originated with Schtnidt and is hailed as "a great advance of history, showing that Soviet science is ahead of the seienee of other countries in this field," Dr, Schmidt is a man of parts, a good mathematician and an explorer whose feats in the Arrtic regions are unique, Itut he is not the first to maintain that the world is grow- ing warmer. Nor is Soviet climato- logy ahead of climatology in all other countries. The evidence that the world is warning up has been piling up for decades, and the met= eorologists of the \Vest have not ignored it. A thousand years ago Greenland wax flourishing Norse colony with a population of about 10,000, By 1500 few farmsteads were left, Whether or not a change of climate tlrove the colonists away nobody . knows, That the climate of Green- land did change is certain. Tree roots that forced their way through bones in cemeteries tell the story. Hack in 1830 the mean annual temperature. of .Philadelphia was 52 degrees F,; a century later it was 56 degrees. Similar increases in temperature are reported in the meteorological records of Montreal, Spitzbergen, the British Isles, Washington, D.C., and other places. The biggest changes in temper- ._ attire and precipitation have been noted in the Arctic, sub -Arctic and temperate zones. In Siberia, frozen ground is gradually receding toward the pole. Fish once unknown in cold waters are now caught as far north at Latitude 73 degrees, There are many explanations of these climatic changes. Cycles of mountain -building and degradation, variations in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit or the obliquity of the ecliptic, minor changes in the dis- tribution of land and water, long - period •variations in solar activity, the passing of the earth through cosmic dust, wobbling of the earth's poles, an dthe almost imperceptible drifting of the continents—all have been invoked to account for chang- es that were noted long before Soviet scientists were heard from on the weather and climate. ANSWERED "Jimmy," said his mother, 'run across ^the street and see how old Mrs. Smith is." Jimmy was back in a few min• Utes. "She says it's none of your business how old she is." Marked Child—Lady Grevy, a zebra at the zoo, poses with her first offspring, a daughter. Born shortly 'before the picture Was taken, the striped young- ster was taking her first steps minutes later. DESIGNERS STRIVE FOR LIGHT, AIRY EFFECTS INDOORS .A glow of outside radiance Is brought into a room when windows are hung with new venetian blinds with softly -tinted slats of a lately devel- oped translucent plastic, BY EDNA MILES 1R this era of home -decorating, which stresses color and bright- ness for interiors, furnishings and accessory designers seem to be vying one with the other to see what new creation for adding lightness and airiness can next be contributed, The outdoors is brought indoors, 'n effect, with a brand-new kind of coffee table which features a plexiglass aquarium as its base. In thls may be kept fish, green plants or fresh flowers, according to the home decorator's whim A removable plate glass makes the aquarium handily accessible. Light is again captured as a decorating aid in new venetian blinds which add a mellow radi- ance to the rooms they adorn. The secret of this magic is a new trans- lucent slat of a special plastic which obscures the outside, but at the same time allows enough light to conte through to bathe the room in a glow of color, These blinds, which are avail- able in a number of soft shades to harmonize with your own color schemes, are said by their makers to be easier to keep clean, since their smooth sleek surfaces have no minute pits for dust catching, Worry about chipping of the blinds Is also eliminated, since the color is an integral part of the slats, which are of extreme flexibility. Reflecting the charm of an outdoor garden pool is this coffee table which features an aquarium base of Incite 'and a cover of airy -appearing removable plate glans. Some truly startlire facts—facts of great importance to every one of us—were brought out in a paper recently presented to the American Geophysical Union by Leon Las- sen and E. N, Munns. K ,k 0 The paper was entitled "Vegeta- tion and Frozen Soils," Briefly,sum- med up its findings were that all soils don't form the sane kind of ice when they freeze; soils rich in organic matter forst porous, honeycomb ice that soaks up run- off water and prevents erosion; and that wornout, hard soils freeze into rock -like ice that penetrates deeper and thaws later in the spring. 5 0 '0 practical applications of this soil - ice study are important and far- reaching. The facts turned up may even throw light on the origin of spring floods that cause vast. loss- es to farmers every year. Such floods may be controlled if some way can be fotind to govern the type of ice that forums on farmers' fields. Many frozen soil investigations were made in New England during the winter of 1946 by Lassen and a colleague. The impervious, con- crete type of ice was found in fields that had been cultivated and were low in organic matter. Spongy ice was found in meadows and fields which had a higher humus content, .k '1' 5 Traditional opinions regarding frozen soil are being proved false hy,these studies. It is not true that all frozen soil will not soak up water or that alt soils freeze or Him ' at the sante time. Fertile fields and woodlands may be free of ice at the same tine that poor land is frozen solid and is repelling flood waters, * .F The fact that soil under light grass does not freeze as readily as bare soil was ,proved by Henry W. Anderson in 1947. k * * But most important is the type 0 Vez SY • HAROLD ARNETT ,?,.r.. -;w -ter. ,, yt DISCARDED BRACKETS usEp 'ra SUPPORT WIN!SOW^GHAGnE ROt.LER. MAYS USEt3 TO MARE STURDY HANGERS FOR HEAVY PICTURES, HAMMER `!'HEM MAT ANO SCAEIN TO SACK OF FRAME, of ice that does form in cold weather. Concrete ice that forms on poor soil is a very real flood menace. Honeycomb ice, on the other band, causes no trouble to farmers. * * Soil and water authorities have in the past stressed the relationship between the falling organic matter content of U.S. soils (four to 1.5 per cent in 200 years) and increas- ing flood damage. There is little doubt that farmers, who suffer most from floods, can stop rampaging waters before they start. # is .M Putting more organic matter into the soil and grasses on top of it is the way to do 1t. t 6 1 The practice of artificial insemi- nation of cattle is distinctly in- creasing in Great Britain; in fact, according to latest reports, practi- cally one-quarter of all their cattle over there are now bred artificially. * 7< .0 Joseph Edwards, head of the Milk Marketing Board's Production Divi- sion, said that membership in arti- ficial breeding centres was 70,966 from April, 1950, to March, 1951, compared with 59,90$ in 1949-50. Cows inseminated totalled 567,102 against 431,370, Each one of the Board's twenty- two centres showed progress during the ,year, The Carmarthen Centre, with its 9,300 members and 65,000 cows inseminated is probably the largest in Britain, Tarporley, Cheshire, Inas 4,100 members (41,800 cows inseminated) and Cheswardine, Shropshire, 4,500 Members (40,600 cows inseminat- ed). In Norfolk and Suffolk, the Beccles Centre inseminated 40 cows out of every 100, In Cornwall and East Devon, the Praze and Honi- ton Cylst Centres inseminated ap- proximately 45 per cent of the cows in their areas; these two centres were started less than three years ago. BIG SMOKE An Indian in New Mexico not far front the site of atomic bomb experiments, was using smoke sig- nals to broadcast a hymn of hate to his enemy. Threats, epithets and general imprecations swirled sky- ward as fast as he could manipu- late the code. Suddenly a black cloud shot ftp on his horizon, mushrooming with awful speed to blanket the sky. 'The Indian drop- ped to his haunches, utterly de- feated, "Gosh," he said with envious admiration, "I wish I'd said that." He Didn't Want People To Like Him The mortung the poet Swinburne died, at 10 a.m. on April 10th(, 1909, 1 made a pilgrimage across Wim- bledon Common to the Rose and Crown where the great man used to take his celebrated morning glass of beer. I took a horse -bus back, sat on the front scat with the driver, who gave me his esti- mate of Swinburne. "He was a very little man, titin, too, but with a great big head," he said, "He never wore an overcoat— snow, hail, or wet—and he never looked what you'd call a gentleman. He wouldn't speak to anyone at all, especially women. It was only chil- dren he'd take any notice of. He'd always speak to a baby in a pram— but if the nurse so much as looked at hint he'd be off at once!"• The mother of Algernon Charles was Lady Jane Swinburne, daugh- ter of the third Earl of Ashburn- ham—his father an admiral, with private means. Swinburne himself went to Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. Coming clown in 1859, he leapt into fame as the most electri- fying and passionate of romantic poets at a period when he was in competition with Tennyson, the Brownings, the Rossettis, Macaulay, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, Coventry Patmore, James Thomp- son and Edward Fitzgerald. The critics were for the most part horrified at the naked sensu- ality of his imagery, muttering in their beards about police interven- tion. But the .esthetes of Chelsea, the intellectuals of Bloomsbury, and the uppercrust intelligentsia of St. John's Wood and Hampstead took him instantly to the'r hearts, Indiscreet Letters Swinburne'" looks as a young man greatly enchanted his legend as a "second Shelley,' for he was small and slight, quick and nervous. White -skinned, green-eyed, his spa- cious forehead was surmounted by long, silky, bright red hair, the colour scheme being filled by a pret- ty poetic moustache and toy -like wisp of beard, Tie likewise dressed for the part in floppy bows, velve- teen jackets, and so forth. .He was traditionally the unfet- tered genius, too, in his contempt for conventional morality. He was not merely indifferent to mtpopular- ity, but went out looking for it. He was a confirmed dipsomaniac, frequently an invalid through his excesses, • By innuendo, by -infer- ence, by his known intimacy with those two drug addicts, Baudelaire and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he was tarred with "their brush as regards that vice and he gloried in pt•Ocaim- ing himself .a disciple of sadism, His spectacular affair with "Maz- eppa," the bareback -rider and ar- tist's model, alias Adah Isaacs Men - ken, five times a wife—apart from being notoriously the mistress of the great Dumas and others less famous—was common knowledge owing tee -Swinburne and the lady bemg photographed together and copies being exhibited all over Lon- don, .1.11 this publicity was, of course, most distressing to Swin- burne's devoted parents. Time and again they paid off their wayward son's debts and nursed him back to health after prolonged bouts of dis- sipation. They even, out of affec- tion, kept him short of money—the only effective method of curtailing his profligacy. The steadying influence they had so , long hoped for on his behalf arrived in 1879, when Swinburne was forty-two and was introduced to a Huntingdonshire solicitor and hanger-on to the skirts of the -arts named Jrheadore Watts, (later Watts -Dunton) a man five years Swinburne's senior. To Watts, the provincial bour- geois, Swinburne's upper-class ori- gin was alone a matter for rever- ence, apart from his literary ach- ievements. But the ,advantages were by no means oone side. Watts was reliable and respectable; Swinburne irresponsible and disre- putable. Watts was a professional man of affairs; Swinburne barren of the foggiest idea of business. A solicitor -friend was invaluable also when, upon the death of Ros- setti, Fanny Schott, the deceased's last mistress, found among his ef- fects correspondence from Swin- burne so blatantly indecent that she considered fhe writer might prefer to pay a large sutra sooner than let his indiscretions fall into the hande of the police or Press. In many ways Watt was the ideal companion and guardian of Swinburne. By the sale of the ad- miral's library, Lady Jane was able to contribute L'1,000 towards the setting up of a joint establishment, The Pines, a commonplace villa at the foot of Putney 3.0111.' There, for the thirty years that elapsed be.. for 10s death, Swinburne remained in not unwilling subjection to his nu-utor, A. Friend Indeed By this time drugs were unob- tainable, and drink only sparingly cl u•iug his invariable two hours' ramble over :Putney and Wimble- don Commons. In time Watts even trained him to be clean and tidy, positively calm, instead of an 'hys- terical, dishevelled, ink -stained Bo= hemian with St, Vitus's dance, hous- ed in a pig -sty of unsorted manu- scripts. Much time was devoted to the study of Shakespeare and the other Et zabetlum dramatists, and apart from his three learned volumes on this subject Swinburne issued from Putney a numeber of poetic trage- dies of his own; numerous volumes of verse and a novel. • But for Watts drink and drugs would undoubtedly have brought the weakling to an early gravel the kind of wild marriage he in his needless, giddy, impractical way would have contracted might well have landed him in far worse places than The Pines. Latterly very deaf, he lived more in exile than ever. But to the very last the sight of a little child would wrinkle his face in smiled, especially if it were a new-born infant; for about these mites he was always ready to rhap- sodize with the same exaltation which had at one time fired bine when he wrote of the sea. He died at Putney of pneumon- ia, the result of walking on the common in the rain without an an overcoat, and was buried in the Isle of Wight, among the tombs of his ancestors, within sound of his well -beloved sea. From "Tit -Bits", HERE'S HEALTH JENNY HAS AN AWFUL SQWN1, EVERY TIME SHE READS SMALL PRIN'Fii WEARING GLASSES WOULD DE WISE; THEY'D HELP HER GOOD LOOKS AND HER EYES. Deof. of NoIional Health and Welfare Dry -Cleaning Job—It beats the old wet wash -tub, thinks Duke, pet pup belonging to young Mark Buck. But Duke still isn't too fond of a cleaning job, even when it's done with a modern vacuum cleaner. JITTER irbTshfttfro PAINT THE BOAT AND LAUNCH HER,GAN6..,. BOY 1 CAN'T WAIT TU ear THAT SEAMS,. IN MY PIPES/ C11; YOU WANT•TO BRA REAL SAILOR YOU'LL HAVE 10 L.EARN HOW TO PUT A BOAT IH r �^ SHARR! HERES LESSON ONE ,dU9t TAKE THIS SCRAPER Yes sla,..p?fltaG' `. UP YOUR OWN BOAT 15 HALF THE FUN OF SAILING! e } Ey Arthur Pointer v