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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1958-02-20, Page 3They Bartered For Soft Jobs "Do you think His Lordship will see me soon? The scene is the' anteroom of the Lord Chancellor at the Royal :Courts at Westminster Hall; iirid"the year is 1715. "What was it about?" inquires the Lord. Chancellor's clerk. The waiting man rises, cups his mouth and whispers, "Chaff -- wax!" "Ah, I don't know about that. But cone'with me. We can't dis- cuss it here. Who recommends you?" Together the two move off. Another deal is on, A deal in one of those strange jobs that were in the gift of, or for sale by, the Lord Chancellor .. When George I was newly on his throne, the age of sinecures, or cushy jobs with good saalries and little work, was at its peak. Chaffwax was one of these yobs. The. Lord Chancellor could do qne of three things about it. He bould : leave the post vacant and pocket the salary himself. He could sell the appointment to the highest biddrir. Or he could appoint somebody "on the level". Some chancellors chose one way, some another. Chaffwax was a joke. All he had to do was to stick sealing wax or documents. The job car- ried a good salary and was worth paying for. So, too, was the Clerkship of the Han. per, another Chancery racket. 'Phe hanaper was a wicker basket. Into it all writs had to go to be sealed -for a fee. ..Then there was the Registrar of Affidavits, the Protonotary (chief clerkship) of the 'court, and several other soft, cushy jobs, making their holders gentle-. men of independent means, Under the Lord Chancellor were the Masters in Chancery. Very often they had the handling of the money of suitors for cushy ' jobs. At that time all England was crazy over the South Sea Bubble, the phony business venture that was going to make everybody rich. Lord Chancellor Macclesfield did some brisk business. He sold the Chancery jobs at high prices and invested the proceeds and much more in South Sea Bubble stock. He knew very well that the Masters. hi ' Chancery were also bitten by the gambling bug; that they, too, were investing large sums. Where were they getting the cash from? The Lord Chancellor looked the other way. DON'T BE ONE - Only a goof is d "guberif"-firebug, that is according fir folks- in Utah. This forest fire prevention theme is carried on the face of postcafds being distributed by the Keep Utah Green Commit- tee as a reminder that nine out of Ven forest fires are man- made. The the blow fell. The colossal swindle was unmasked.` Among many other people in high places, the Lord Chancellor was ruined, Worse, he was now charged with corruption and im- peached:for trafficking, in sine- cures, and convicted. His successor in office was Lord.Hardwicke, who had started life as an errand boy. He, too, was accused of corrupting. A Member of Parliament ac- cused Hardwicke of . complete cynical indifference to the wide- spread graft in the Chancery Court. "Touch but a cobweb in West- minster Hall,"' he thundered, "and out upon you with all the vermin at his heels comes the old spider." , It would bewrong, hovJever, to think the judges of the, past were generally dishonorable men. They were considered to be gen- erally honest. But they follow- ed the customs of their times. And gifts, patronage, and social and political wire -pulling were recognized wyas of getting on in the world. Every New Year the King him- self accepted valuable presents of all kinds from those who hoped to secure the royal favor and a good job. One of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived was Lord Chan- cellor Lord St. Albans, later Vis- count Verulam, known to fame as Sir Francis Bacon, Bacon was convicted of graft. He admitted it when hauled be- fore his peers in the House, of Lords to answer the charge of corruption. He was accused of accepting bribes from suitors for jobs. Who could believe it of this man who was not only a great lawyer but scientist and philosopher too? Bacon removed all doubt him- self. Taking his quill, he wrote: "I confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defence and put myself upon the grace and mercy of your lord- ships." He was deprived of office, fined £40,000 and thrown into the Tower. Later, the fine was remitted and he was permitted to sit in the House of Lords. But he was a broken man. Though Bacon confessed, he later qualified that confession by a curious modification: He said that it was true that he took money bribes from suitors ap- pearing in his court, but said it never influenced his judgment! This may well seem a bit rough on the litigant who parted with his cash to square his judge! Today, all British judges from those ofthe country courts to those who preside over the high- est tribunal in the land, are held to be above suspicion. But some years ago a crooked solicitor, in league with a crook- ed barrister, bamboozled an Italian charged with a serious crime. They told him that if he paid over a large sum of money they would square the Old Bailey judge. The accused man paid up. Imagine his indignation when the jury convicted him and the judge gave him the appropriate sent- ence. . In that case the victim "blab- bed" and the two lawyers were very properly dealt with as the rogues they were. KICK A man recently arranged to have his aged mother cared for in a nursing home. Each time he visits her he brings delicacies from the farm, including a ther- mos bottle of fresh milk in which he slips a little brandy - on advice of the family doctor. The Old lady is always delighted with• the lunches, and the other day, as she sipped the milk, she said gravely, "Oh, Larry, don't ever sell that cow!" CROSSWORD PUZZLE 11. First decimal 40. Out of prat). number Moe 19.Throw min. 44. iengagod the Biles services of. 21. Outstanding 6. Makes a - 23. Cooking ne- mistake cesslty 47. Distribute 25. Baseball .team cards ACROSS 4. Aspect. 26. Jog - 49. Takes food qumor 6. Tear 27. Uses a needle 50. 661 elndy 4 Bow of a boat 6, Harem rooms - 28. Sob 61. tiro n1 the neo R carbon 29. Not busy of 12 Amer. humor. 7. Where the' sun 30. Kind of bean 62, Place of. '0 tut sets 82. Rumen repose 33 Skin 8. Single step 33. Musical sign 53. Hewing tool 14. Air 9. Extinguished 37. Went • 64. Trap 75 Huge wave 10. Cube root of hurriedly 56 `Tears nt one's 76 Wallabn.e one 89 Donkey Itre 17 Stm disk 79iDwells ei, len per 211 Male party 22 Lamprey 24 Conner coins 29 Volition. 81 Land measure tl erngor 79 Redact mt. Regret 87 Cr, si allIzed PRI t 38 Shade tree R9 p111 with 49 ('els sea 11. Pim 1 t 43 A rtirld 15 Secondhand 46. .State of per, Notion 22, Captnreo E5. Raise 97 Exist 80, Passage out 49. Vogue 80, Soft metal 41. Oppose 42. Coasting vehi ale }l, Disconsolate DOWN 1. Launder .2. Conception 7, hoerimose. tiros. Answer- elsewhere en this page.. HARVEST TIME - It's rice harvest time on Formosa, and this pretty loss doing her share at Taichung, wears gauntlets to pro- tect her arms from the sun. Believe it or not a suntan is not fashionable in Formosa. Man behind her works over a screened tub used to shake the rice grains loose. Free China is harvesting the greatest rice crop in her history, 1,900,000 metric tons -- breaking the 1956 record of 1,789,000 tons Famine, a periodic scourge in Communist China, is unkown on Formosa. In fact, Free China will export 200,000 metric tons from The 1957 rice crop to Japan. TllIil'ARM FRONT The difficult thing about rain making is that you never know just how the weather will turn out. Not long ago, federal gov- ernment rain makers arrived at a certain town in rural Aus- tralia, after farmers in those . parts had urged the need for a little federal rain making but when the rain makers landed in their special rain making air- craft to begin operations, they had to unfurl their umbrellas to cope with the steady drizzle that was falling. The farmers thereabouts, now that they had rain, felt the rain makers should not attempt any- thing at all in the way of weather experimentation, as the drizzle promised enough rain for early sowing and too much would be ruinous. Frankly, they didn't want them to stay in the district. Maybe it was because they knew that one thing rain makers like to do is to "trigger" off a bigger fall from a modest one. If this works out right, it serves to prove the ramp makers know what they are talking about, though some farm folks still are apt to regard all this talk of federal ramp making as just another excuse for high taxes. Anyway, a lot of them seem to have sunk a good deal of money in dams on their prop- erties. * * „ The press treats the rain makers for the most part very kindly. "We made it rain," they allowed one to say in headlines. He went on to claim that his unit had made it ramp six times between two towns out west. Rain was still falling at four o'clock from clouds that had been "seeded" at three o'clock, he said. Nobody between the two towns' concerned- seems to have argued very much against this federal claim but that does not mean everybody was con- vinced. EIsewhere, the press said there was "no bluffing" about this sort of thing, which suggested the 'press were really sold on the whole proposition. One paper explained that the idea was "to bring the rain down when and. where it was wanted." Ansi that's about right, according to the best rain -making authorities. Any ramp maker, in fact, who does not base his whole theory and practice on that proposition isn't doing any more than just fool around with the weather. The government has now an- nounced that federal rain mak- ers are "not yet ready to apply the results of the rain making techniques on any appreciable scale.'. Frankly, that kind of official statement is surprising,' if not to say, odd. For one thing, it does federal rain makers .very little .credit when people remem- ber - that federal experiments began over 10 years ago. Any- way, what. about all that rain that fell at four o'clock way out. west on sixdifferent occasions? On the other hand, ;the gov- ernment announced that federal rain makers were "pressing on." At least, that sounded more en-' couraging. The government pointed out that the rain mak- ers "now know a great deal about this (rain -making) pro- cess., The rain makers had "seeded" at least' 150 single clouds and had watched the subsequent de- velopment of rain. "There is no doubt of this," said' the official statement. "The theory and practice are well understood." While no university in Aus- tralia has yet invited candi- dates to proceed to a rain -mak- ing degree (R.M.), the theore- tical groundwork is being stead- ily laid, as the government statement indicated. For exam- ple, in what is termed Practical Rain Making there 'are all kinds of rain which the student must be able to identify -cold rain, warm ramp, non-freezing rain, supercooled rain, s h owe r s, patchy rain, ordinary drizzle and Scotch mist which, for prac- tical purposes, is fine weather, at least in the Highlands, writes DOFF OEM Er G1 h1 1r ©UM MOO !!IW 1 i M MOOD MOO ° OMB ®00®E1 MOO ONO HMO OMER JE ftWJ ]MM© MOM© OMMOM ©©M OMMO OH baa® ©goo Bo® Upsidedown, to Prevent Peeking Albert Norman in The Christian Science Monitor. Then there are aerosols or condensation nuclei, ordinary drops of rain, small drops, of rain, smallish raindrops, aver- age droplets, droplet's which are subaverage and . which can be classified` for accuracy, and the purpose of this discussion as. minims or the 50th part of a fluid drachm. On the cloudy side of things are orographic clouds, elongated clouds, clouds visible and invis- ible, clouds dark and light, clouds small and great and wet - looking clouds. The latter are most favored by rain makers, it 'seems. , It is astonishing how rapidly ramp making has established its folk story. The tale is recounted of a gentleman who was voted the sum of $9,000 by Congress for rain -making experiments over Washington, D.C., in the 'nineties. Nobody seems to know whether this allocation 04 pub- lic funds marked the origin of federal rain making in the United States, but the gentle- man's experiments failed to convince Congress and he mov- ed, it was said, to Texas. Very probably, the clouds were much bigger down there. e • But there is no doubt that the art of rain making is control. This aspect has been developed to its utmost in Australia and even the rain makers are con- trolled. It is really all very sim- ple. A certain govl'rnment de- partment (there shall be no names) evidently reads the pa- pers to see what farmers across the country are saying about the weather. And since farmers are always saying something about it, there is no lack of data on which to base official action. Having noted, for example, that a farmer in one part of the country reportedly said, "It is about time we had a shower or two," the department would weigh this observation against those of other farmers on the weather, When these were sorted in their order of significance, there would appear an order of prior- ity and federal rain makers would be routed around the country accordingly. After they had soaking rains in the wheat belt last year, the controllers of the rain makers decided that the government would conduct ne rain -making operations in that area. No doubt that was wise. Af- ter all, when a farmer has just the kind of rain he needs, he doesn't want the federal govern- ment tomfooling around with it. What they de with taxes is bad enough. AYSCfl00d LESSON By Rev: 11. Barclay Warren B.A., B.D. The Preaching Ministry of the Church Romans 10:14-17; . Ephesians 3:7-19 Memory Selection: Faith comer by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17. Last week we considered the teaching ministry of the •church. In a teaching ministry the stress, is upon helping others to .per- ceive the truth, whereas in a preaching ministry the stress 1s upon causing others to act upon the truth. The difference Is something like the difference between a Bible conferenceand an evangelistic campaign. The minister must be ready and ably to teach (2 •Timothy 2:24) and also do the work of an evange- list (4:5). The preacher needs to have the consciousness of being sent by God. Otherwise he . will not fully appreciate the value of the message of the unsearehable riches of Christ. Jesus Christ was poor in this world's goods but he was rieh in wisdom. "0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable arc his judgments and his ways past finding out!" (Romans 9:33.) 11 Is a living faith in Him who is so wise that gives us calm in this Sputnik age. Christ is rich in goodness. Paul asks, "Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and for- bearance and.longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent- ance?" (2:4.) There would be no hope for the sinner but for the riches of His goodness. He is rich in power. He can forgive our sins and purify our hearts and dwell inus by faith. This is even greater than His power in creating and uphold- ing the universe. "'Tie great to speak a world from nought 'Tis greater to redeem." What a message wo have for marl Phillips says in Ids trans- lation of 1 Corinthians 1:0i "The preaching of the cross, I know, nonsense to those whe aro involved in this dying world, but to us who are being saved from that death it b nothing less than the power of God." Let us tell it everywhere. s JUST US CHICKENS = A twisted and battered section of e chicken cage, complete with chickens, rests in a tree in Santa Rosa. It's part of a 3,500 -bird house which was destroyed by a freak tornado. The poultry farmer estimated that 1,000 of the birds perished or were injured in the demolished building. THIS ONE'S ON THE HOUSE -Farmington Township firemen are true firemen. They set this blaze, and form a standing•a +m only audience for the ensuing inferno. Townshipofficials decided that the cheapest wd 0 get rid of 1 1 condemned buildings was to burn them to the ground,