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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1958-12-11, Page 3Money and Crime in Great. Srita41 The British way of life, it seems to me, is changing in a manner that may be more ap- parent to an outsider than to the British themselves, In no way is this more ap- parent than in the Changing ways of using money -or of misusing it. A quiet revolution in what wage earners do with their pay.T already is under way. As never before, the average Briton is be- ing encouraged to open a bank account -not necessarily a sav- ings account, but a checking ac- count, for the payment of bills and such like. This is being en- couraged as •a matter of prestige and convenience. And people here in profusion are indeed opening new accounts. The banks, moreover, are making personal loans easily available to the "little man" or average customer as never be- fore in the postwar era. Where bank managers formerly turned a frosty eye on all but the most affluent in search of an over- draft, now the man of modest means seems positively welcome. The stock market, until quite recently the preserve of the weal- thy, now also is being made at- tractive to the mass public. There is a plan to encourage employees to buy shares in industry. There also is a scheme to sell shares on hire purchase (the installment plan). The Daily Mail headlines, "Small Man's Flutter -25 Per Cent Down, Two Years to Pay." .And a current cartoon stresses the point by showing a cashier in a company cafeteria totalling a customer's tray: "Sausage and mash, cuppa char, rock cake, and 'arf a dozen. associated Portland •cement ordinaries." Some of this may seem mild stuff in Canada and the U.S, But it's new and fascinating here. It looks as though the Tories are determined to make capita- lism so attractive to so many Britons that they couldn't pos- sibly consider a change in the direction of more socialism. To working-class Britons, the bank used to be a formal place, inhabited by men in striped trousers. The workingman pre- ferred to do what saving he could in a savings account at the post office and to use an occasional postal money order. The stock exchange was even more remote. Now it seems that the inside of such sacrosanct institutions is to become more widely known. Yet one would be mistaken to view these developments as BEANS SUIT - Soybeans in the wheelbarrow, left, are part, payment for the suit Elmer Mallet is trying on in Mexico, Mo. Clothier towel Hagan, fit ting the suit, offered $2.30 in trade for every bushel of beans - during the town's annual soy- bean festival happ'h,'ng entirely in a flurry of good will and prospertiy, There Is a downside, ton, and it can be summed up in a phrase -theincrease of crime. London banks are .as much in the news these days for being robbed as for' opening new checking accounts and making personal loans. The epread of robbery with violence is mak- ing headlines with chilling reg- ularity, writes Henry S. Hay- ward in The Christian Science Monitor. There is an increased tenden- cy to pay employees by check, but all too often the payroll still is inoveti in cash. In this coun- try, payday still finds trusted men carrying large sums of cash in briefcases through crowded streets afoot or in taxis. They have become all too tempting targets for robbers. Such band- its, moreover, have shown less reticence about using guns -in a country where the police trad- itionally are unarmed Crime is up 14 per cent over last year. Law-enforcement agencies are striking back as best they can. Courts are imposing heavier sentences on bank robbers, on cosh (blackjack) men, misbehav- ing teddy boys, and assorted juvenile delinquents. In this connection,. the Home Secretary has ordered an inquiry into the causes of the sharp increase in drunkenness, particularly among young people and in large cities. Here, too, thh British are liv- ing through a change. The post- war concept of being more leni- ent in administering punishment in schools and courts flourished here, as in Canada and the U.S. There was reluctance to punish. Even schoolmasters who caned their pupils could be and were fined for assault. Nowadays there is a consider- able tightening up. Schoolboy assault cases tend to be thrown out of court. There are fewer easy sentences for crime. ' But there also is emphasis on better means of rehabilitation and on penal reform. One of the larg- est and strictest prisons has ac- quired a woman psychologist for the first time. And, as noted above, the causes as well as the penalization of drunkenness are receiving attention. Yes, before our eyes, Britain is modernizing itself. But not always easily. Everyone Skis In Norway With Norwegians instructing the fine points of the art at most of the world's ski centers one might wonder if there are any skiers left in that country. The answer is simple. Subtract from the population of Norway those who cannot stand on their feet and you have a fair count of the skiers. Yes, in Norway ev- eryone skis at every opportun- ity. The butcher; the baker, and the candlestick -maker join the manufacturer, banker, and roy- alty in this their national sport. It all began in prehistorjc times and we can get a good idea of the early days by visit- ing the Ski Museum at Holmen- kollen, near Oslo. It is the world's first museum of its kind and its well -exhibited collection dates back 2,500 years. Jacob Vaage, director of the museum, showed us several hundreds skis of many types. Skiers are main- taining the museum as well as making scientific studies of the ethnological aspects of the his- tory of the sport. In addition to skis, their fastenings, and other related gear, the museum contains the polar equipment used by Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen on their fam- ous polar expeditons. . Most of us who have had the opportunity to see high-ranking ski jumpers have wondered just what sort of individual could shoot down one of those tower - like slides and then toss him- self up and up into the sky until he seems no larger than a bird - CROSSWOR PUZZLE 1 ACP.OSs 3. For 1. Painter 4. Demon 7. Velocities 6. Ary 13. Lodger6. Crossbeams 14. Package 7. Meavy nada 11.'fhr object 3. 010ss Sheet 36. Nut confection 6. Tiefore 15. Thus 10.Out of 10. Trmtrh 21. call forth 22. 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Italian river 1 2 3 { 5 6 Q9dO13 7 8 9 la 11 12 13 ' Vd5'i'Cl3N0H` 14 C1 VM 3032it1Vll'a3A0 IS Il) SVN3at+.a 17 sa813W a 10 d' 19 1 d 20 63dV'S.,Sdfl'dtS 21 -au 22 3 3r 23 I l:1 3 d 14 2 :4< 25 0 5; 26 N I 1 'd 2i d 27 18 D8 Vdr 28 Va ' •y 29 30 11t1't( 1 311:"..T.• 32 O:Cp 33 34 35 j 36 37 38 34 40' 41 43 44 45 46 47.5, 48 • 49 21a 50 • 51 52 53 54 55 66 10 4 «. Answer elsewhere on this page SEEING THE CITY - Archbishop Makarios, exiled Greek -Cypriot leader, is standing on the balcony of a hotel 'n New York. He is there to support a United Nations plea of Irdepedence for th British colony of Cyprus. The Archbishop is facing Central Park. Wayne Smith, corn -hog -beef fanner, switched on the electric lights in what, in the old days, would have been called the barn- yard. (We had found his place in the last of the twilight as we travelled down the gravel road,) What we saw was what farm people speak of as a "beef fac- tory." It was a street of large white buildings behind the farm- house -buildings to house live- stock, machinery, feed, Four modern blue -glass silos towered toward the night sky, * a * "Like to see the steers?" asked Mr. Smith, relaxed after his day's work. He had changed from work garments to sports clothes. Another switching on of lights. Here were the white-faced Here- fords, some 250 of them, all in a partially covered feeding lot 40 feet by 140 feet in size. They live here during the entire year's feeding period, never going out to pasture. "Land here is too high -some of it sells for around $700 an acre," said the farmer. "Too expensive to use for pas- ture." • • a Costs are figured carefully on this 400 -acre, business -managed farm, writes Dorothea Kahn Jaffe in The Christian Science Monitor. "Since we modernized we feed twice as much livestock in half the time with half the labor," Mr. Smith said, "With our self - unloading wagon I can feed 200 head of livestock in five minutes. Counting the loading of the wagon from the silo, it takes about half an hour." a * • "How long would a job like that have taken in your father's day?" Mr. Smith made a mental computation. "Well, I suppose it would have kept two men busy a half day or so." • a * Labor coming as high as it does now, minutes count on the farm. To save man-hours, Mr. Smith built feed bunks all around the steer enclosure. He and handles himself with just as much ease. Surely he must he a cold, hard, calculating person to gamble so with life, and en- joy it. It was Sigmund Ruud who first showed me how wrong I was. As he walked into the room I could have taken him for any- thing but one of the world's greatest ski jumpers. He is not large of build and is so well proportioned that there is none of that muscular, athletic air about him. If, while he was up in the sky with the birds, he ever worried about landing right side up, his friendly smile shows no trace of it. , , It might be assumed that the Norwegian sport of skiing con- sists of watching a few experts. This is not the case, To begin with, Norway is full of what we might call experts, and the win- ner of any meet is never a cer- tainty until the last score is tabulated. Another factor is that Norwegians are much more interested in all-around skiing than in following ane of its branches. Besides the jumping, you will find those who favor the downhill and cross-country races or the slalom, but most of them like to take part in all branches cf the -port.-prom "Norway, Herne of the Norse- men," by Harlan Major. Copy right; 1957, by Harlan Major. drives a tractor around this en- closure, drawing an unloading wagon which automatically drops silage or moist ground corn into the bunks as he goes. a a a The loading of the wagon is also automatic. Mr. Smith led us into one of the farm build- ings and showed us outlets at the bases of two of the silos, With the turn of a switch he opened one of the outlets and ground shelled corn began to pour onto an augur shaft. The shaft in turn emptied the grain into the wagon. No hand labor was required. Mr. Smith smiled. "Farming really isn't hard work any more as it used to be. We even feed the hogs automatically, You can hear them now, lifting the lids of their feed boxes as they help. themselves, It's music. You know every time they eat they're mak- ing money for you." a a a In the old days you could tell a farmer by his gnarled hands. Mr. Smith's hands are not toil worn; they are those of a man who pushes buttons, makes en- tries in record books, signs checks, handles a steering wheel But he works hard, even so; a man has to put in a full day's work along with his two helpers if he is to feed some 400 to 600 head of cattle and 700 hogs a year, and grow 30,000 bushels of corn to feed his livestock. What Mr. Smith meant was that farming today does not re- quire the hard physical labor of pitching hay, shucking corn, spreading manure, and doing .otherchores his father had to do. a a * Mr. Smith takes full respon- sibility of management although this is not his own farm. It is owned by the heirs of a well- known Chicago business man, Louis Block, a chemist, who en- gaged him originally to operate the farm on a salary basis. Like the man from whom they in- herited the farm, the present owners are glad to leave deci- sions to this farmer of judgment and experience. * n * There are many important business decisions to make an a farm of this character. New silos of the glass -enamel type which we noticed on our arrival cost around $10,000 each. There are four of them on the farm, to- gether with two of the old-fash- ioned concrete type, loaded and emptied from the top. Should the latter be modernized? a a a "I can't see putting any more money into them," says Mr. Smith. "We'll use them a while longer, and then get silos of the new type." There are decisions also to be made about the type of cattle to purchase for feeding, and these decisions can spell the difference between loss and profit. * a a The Smiths don't think they are typical farmers, They attend church in the city, have city friends, and are somewhat urban in their attitudes. But they are not unusual, either. There will be more and more Wayne Smiths as the trend toward business farming continues. Shape of Trousers Follows Hemlines Trousers are the equivalent of the woman's hemline- as hem- lines go up and down, trousers get wider or narrower. They have been fashionably narrow for ten years now. Why? Here's past history in a nutshell. Cloth trousers, as we know them, first came about in the early 19th century in England, but protective leather coverings somewhat similar were also worn by early Britons. The Ro- mans, by the way, looked upon them as effeminate garments. They preferred the loosely - draped toga, But remember, the climate in Rome is hot. Varia- tions of wool trousers have been worn by the working classes for many centuries. But it took the French revolution to elevate therm to the ranks of the govern- ing classes. Popular with the peasantry, they became the uni- form of Democracy. Without them, you were marked for the guillotine. In England, wool trousers had a rough time until they were socially accepted. Students at Oxford and Cambridge were marked absent in 1800 if they wore them to class. Even the Duke of Wellington was barred from an important ball in 1814 because he was wearing them. We take the fly -buttoned front far granted. But did you know it first appeared as late as the early 19th century? The knife- edge crease at back and front, which is the way wool trousers are pressed today, was first in- troduced in 1900. Until then, trousers had been creased at the sides or pressed cylindrically. King George V resisted the new style and wore his pants with side creases until his death. It took a long time for turn - up cuffs to gain acceptance. They still aren't as papular in Europe as in North America. You don't see them on worsted tuxedo trousers; perhaps be- cause they already have their own useless piece of ornamen- tation, the sills braid. This braid is a throwback to the days when tight trousers had to be button- ed up the sides of the legs, and a silk flap was attached to hide the buttons from view. Buttons disappeared when trousers took on their present-day appear- ance. The need to conserve precious wool fabrics for use by the arm- ed forces during World War II brought about a government regulation making trouser legs narrower. And they've stayed that way ever since. Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking 9so13SJt:-a3d0"El-9 Q9dO13 "''1.1Oppj 39 '.031111bgasstia Vd5'i'Cl3N0H` C1 VM 3032it1Vll'a3A0 SVN3at+.a sa813W » ; 0 -9 d' 1 d V44:."?; 63dV'S.,Sdfl'dtS -au 3M• 3 3r 5 I l:1 3 d 14 3N•A3tidV5 0 5; 3 N I 1 'd 2i d 't4E3 18 D8 Vdr Va 00'ti S43'3dS5 11t1't( 1kk1JNDAY Sulool LESSON By Rey it. baretay Warred B.A., B.D. Jesus' Power In Human Life Mark 5: 1-13 Memory Selection: Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee. Mark 5: 19. Is there such a thing as demun possession today? Many mission- aries have told of cases and cures similar to those recorded in the New Testament, Dr. Elwood Wor- cester, an able psychologist and a scholar so liberal that he does not believe in any real miracles, says, "I believe in the possibility of the invasion of alien spirits only because of evidence 1 could rot evade" after ten years of in- vestigation (Was Jesus an His- torical Person? page 55.) Neither were his investigations made in the Orient. He quotes with -ap- proval the declaration of the Harvard psychologist, William James: "That the demon theory will have its innings again is to my mind absolutely certain." The story in today's lesson shows something of the power of demons so that he became a greater power than the devil. He delivered the man from the demo sans that he became a witness for his Lord. One sad point in the story is that the people were more con- cerned about the money to be derived from hogs than the welfare of this man. They asked Jesus to leave. But is it not the same today? Many are more concerned about deriving profits from the sale of liquor than pro- moting the welfare of their fel- lowmen. The rising tide of alen- holism, accidents, crimes and di- vorce stemming from the use of alcohol does not deter them from their eager effort to sell more liquor. Dr. Andrew C. Ivy, head of the department of Clinical Science, at the University of IIlinnis Col- lege of Medicine, and a world authority on alcohol says there is a growing awareness that alco- holism is "a self-inflicted disease, a form of self-deception, a form of immaturity," Alen h o l i s in stems from just one thing, stresses Dr. Ivy -the use of alco- hol. He does not overlook the need to deal with contributing causes, but he regards the tend- ency to trace alcoholism to per- sonal weaknesses, rather to liquor itself. as merely the :sophistry of liquor salesmen. Jesus Christ the same yester- day, and today and forever is able to free us from ail our sins. Let us repent of our sins and believe on Him. NO DUTCH GARDEN - Built b1 a Dutch immigrant in 1879, this restored windmill no's stands in a city park at Wo mego, Kan. la's one of onil two such Holland -style wino machines known to have beer built in Kansas. COMEBACK POR THE AUTOGIRO - The autogi ro, a novel aircraft of the 30's combining the virtues of the airplane and the helicopter, is being put back into production because its designer believes it was aheadof its time. The Kellett Aircraft Corporation says the new autogiro will debut this winter with deliveries expected next spring. The machine can fly az slow as 20 m.p.m. and cruise up to 120 m.p.h. Kellett's original autogiro is shown above ire; 1931.