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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1955-09-15, Page 3GwQ-n-dol%n.e P. Clevoke Never, as far back as I can remember, haveI seen so many people looking so completely whacked out as during this sum- mer. With the prolonged heat, of course. Those who are not red and perspiring are white and listless, after many nights of restless, or little sleep, And ap- parently people are the same wherever you go -town, country or Lakeshore-inoffices, stores, factories, farms and homes. Houses may be insulated sand protected from the hot glare of the sun but little can be clone against the humidity It seeps in everywhere - dampens your clothes, the bed -linen, walls and furniture. Outside there often seems to he a nice breeze tilow- ing but humidity climes with the breeze. - And the remedy? Beep work- ing and forget about it - the heat, the humidity and all that goes with it. Brave words - and of course most of us 'keep on working. But forget that it's hot -ihat's another story. 'io.cter, it may be one consolation to realize that to Ontario we aro all in the ,acne boat and that grumbling absorbs more energy than acceptance There used to be s• philosophic expression that was popular many years ago. In times of stre,s people would say -"Oh well. there's worse trou- bles at sea" That Was in the c'.ays when shipping hazards were fir greater than they are now. Today we might well sav - 'There's worse troubles in the States." When we hear of Penn- sylvania and four of the other States devastated by such ter- rible floods, we immediately think how little we have to --?" ` grumble about. The heat will pass and if it is all we have to contend with we should be thankful indeed. I suppose, instead of com- plaining, we should concentrate on making working conditions as painless as possbile for those about us and to give a thought to the dumb creatures that hap- pen to be our responsibility, It is easy to be short-tempered and "take it out" on those with whom we work or live; to insist on perfection at a time when per- fection is practically impossible And what of the animals -the cows left out in a shadeless pas- ture exposed to the merciless sun. Shade cannot suddenly be provided in fields where there ra .are no trees but surely the barn- yard could be left open during the heat of the day. Cattle will always make for a shady spot, even if it is only the Ire -side of a building. That was something I noticed when hying from Mon - MERRY MENAGERIE "I wouldn't mind his smoking if he'd just stop that litho rou- tine!" treat to 1Vialton Airport ---certain sections of the country that were so ruthlessly neat and tidy. No hedgerows, very few trees, cat- tle pasturing in wire -fenced fields. And how much shade does a wire fence give? Then we have our domestic animals. Have they access to drinking water at all times? Even a cat likes water in hot weather. Are dogs tied up un- necessarily or confined in a place without shade? Our latest dog - Rusty - came from a six- roomed house in a new sub -di- vision. The reason his former owner let him go was because, except for an exercises. period during the evening, the dog had to be kept either tied up outside or shut up in the house. Mostly he was in the house. He is a big clog and it was during the first hot spell the people realized it would be impossible to keep him. Fie was getting bigger all the tune, inclined to he cross under confinement, and at odd times when he broke loose the neighbours complained - and probably with reason. Now Rusty has therunof the farm and is proving to be a good - watch dog. He is very rarely tied up, and is quite easy for us to handle, but he won't allow strangers to take any liberties. I am sure he must be much hap- pier than he would ever have been in a sub -division. His for- mer owners were doing a kind- ness in letting him go. If only there were more like them. A small house and lot is no place for a big dog. Not in Ontario, anyway. In England it is a dif- ferent matter. Over there dogs don't have to be tied up. It must surely be a canine paradises, Every second - family seems fp' own a dog but in spite of the, fact that confinement is not legally necessary the dogs seer;) to be very much under control. Of course they have fraternity gatherings on the street, and oc- casionally like to bury a bone in a neighbour's garden, but since so many people keep clogs there is little complaining. Per- haps one reason why the dogs give so little trouble is because most of then) have good pedi- grees. Naturally a person own- ing a well-bred clog isn't going to take chances on having it hurt or stolen. As a result it is properly trained, fed and cared for. Speaking of creatures of the animal world I hear the Lon- don (Ontario) district has been invaded by large insects called "the Praying Mantis"; a preda- tory insect that destroys many of our more injurious pests I have always been attracted by the Praying Mantis. It has an in- teresting history which includes legends and superstitions eman- ating from the ancient reeks. who thought it possessed super- natural powers. It made its first appearance in Ontario in 1914 - its numbers have increased con- siderably since that date. AUSTRALIA'S "WIRE I gravely doubt whether wo- men were ever married by cap- ture. I think they pretended to be: as they do still. -G. H. CHESTERTON Time for work -yet take Much holiday for art's and friendship's sake.. -GEORGE JAMES DE WILDE -- --- 7. Iteeste4 7. Outdoor authority game e. Photographic S. Comelier Path 1. Pronoun 9. Camel's hair 0. Head cloth covering 10. rtubbish 7. Bury 11. Finial on a 8. Kitten pagoda 0. Give 17. Pegg -shaped information 19, lerofit 1, Volcanic 22, Sprite matter 28. I-Iarmless 2. Server 24. Destiny 3. Rounder 25. Beards of 4. Palm leaf get 1n 40. Born 26. American 6. Ra fish Indians letter CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACn0Ss 53. Antlered 1. Noise- -animal :7. Depend 53. Otter DOWN 1. 1:cetaurant 2. Indigo plant mnkinc device 4. 195111' R Sour 12 t,ilerart frngmeuts , 2. Anodyne 4, Walked i. Ardor 6. Auricle 18. Wings 14 Woodwind •instrument 10. [everg•t•een 1 rte. 16. Salt of carbonic meld 18. h'nothall team 20..rirat woman 21 ltonm about. 22 Sunshine slate 36 On 23 Buddhist sacred dlolect 29 At present 30 'Rocky ninnncie 31"[endeavored 32 N'ea'ative tirefix EE, Yale 74. Trove 33. Mare - turkeys se. Trashionsble circle 9E, Moccasin. E9. Insect's aka 40. Violent agitation 43. Devises 47. Paddle 93. Sheltered 99. Congers 80. Pl,lpv fruit , 2 8 4. 5 6 7 �`Q' B 9 10 11 12 j �;y13- ?2244• 2y y14 kh'C Ig tib gam; 17 is 19`20}:�y.,4. T 21 1 23 24 25 23 27 0. 2$ - -s.' ' 29 lr 3031 u 32 33 4. 34 n3 3b 37 .38 ?iyn '\; .)+,::.'.,4 .eg 39 ;;40 • 4i 42 43 44 45 49 xk'e 51 Answer elsewhere on this page, ONE YEAR LATER - A new hurricane -proof steeple stands atop historic Old North Church in Boston, one year after Hurricane Carol toppled the old one to the ground. The new steeple is an exact replica of the original one from which Paul Revere got the lantern signal for his famed ride during Revolutionary War. About Helga" " The Il ovab a Goose Millions who tante!' the Ed Sullivan television show were amazed at the lifelike actions of "Priscilla" the goose that acted as a "stooge" for Max Bygrave, the English comedian. 'Writing in' "Answers" Jack Kenrick tells about Priscilla's "insides" - better known to his friends as Harry Cranley. a s, 4 Priscilla is certainly uncan- nily realistic, and it is ack- nowledged in the theatre world that Harry Cranley has no rival within miles of him. Although he makes all types of animals for other perform- ers, Harry sticks to the goose for himself. He has done it for fourteen years now, and he has really got it down to a fine art.. "You can get more out of a goose than any other animal," he told me. "Horses, donkeys, and -others of that ilk are- ex- cellent for comedy, but the goose is the most expressive and human of them all." Harry, five feet, six and a half inches tall, is the tallest animal manipulator in the business, and Priscilla, of course, is tailor-made to fit him. But it is an acutely uncomfort- able affair, all the same. Harry is doubled down to three feet all the time he is inside the skin, and it is sweltering hot. His line of vision -is less than two and a half feet, and it is almost impossible for him to see where he is going on the stage. He has to feel his way about, but he also has a pretty good mental picture of the stage set- ting. He never rehearses in the costume, and can therefore memorise his way about, But things do go wrong, of course. When appearing in Man- chester one year, he was chas- ing the Squire up a rostrum, and when turning round to make his return he mistook his footing. Plunging over three feet, he crashed into a lamp and hurt himself sb badly that he was covered with blood. The children in the audience cried out when they saw him fall, but, of course, they couldn't see the blood, Harry carried on in acute agony, but he had to be put on his feet first. "When 1 do fall over," he ex- plained, "I can't possibly get up on my own. Whoever's on the stage with me has to help me up again. Most actors, of course, react quickly. Harry's most embarrassing ex- perience was when he and one or two Other members of the cast went out of the , theatre during the interval while play- ing at Luton. They misjudged the time, and Harry was almost due on the stage when they got back, He broke all records in mak- ing the change( and he always has to remove his street clothes first because he works only 111 a singlet and trunks). He wad- dled on to the stage in the nick of time, and then suddenly real- - ised that he had forgotten to put the webbed feet on. Priscilla was complete except that a pair of very human -looking socks stuck out! "It meant," Harry- says,"that I had to crouch -down. very low all the time, se that I could hide the feet from the audience, I thought my back was going to break before the scene was over.' It often feels to him, even after fourteen years of the work, as though his back is going to break. That is the worst part of his job. Apart from that, and the heat, Harry loves it, "In fact," he assures me. "I almost forget that I am a -.hu- man being once I , get on the stage. I seem to take over Pris- cilla's personality completely. i think and feel just as if I were the goose herself, and, believe me, when she is crying, I really am crying underneath the skin." He has six strings to mani- pulate when he is on the stage. Two of them are for the eyes, two are for the wings, one is for the tail, and one is for the beak, Remembering which ones to pull at the right time called for a lot of concentration at first, but Harry manipulates them in- stinctively by now. Priscilla talks, and Barry has developed a special goose voice of his own, It's something of a combination of its own voice and Donald Duck's. More than once, as a matter of fact, he has been referred to as being in the same class as Donald. Harry inherited this animal impersonation act, from his fa- ther, who donned various ani- mal skins for pantomimes for almost half a century. Harry himself began on the stage as a straight comedian, but he help- ed his father to make the ani- mal skins, and gradually be- came so interested that he eventually took over the Pris- cilla guise. Now he is so closely asso- ciated with the goose that he is booked up for years ahead. Next Christmas season, for instance, he will be at Coventry, and the following year he will be at Manchester. And negotiations are already in hand for his 1958- 59 season, which will probably be at Dudley. He does occasional other work during the summer (he has a small acting part as well as the Priscilla role in "Charley Moon," for instance), but he finds that his time is fully oc- cupied with making skins for other performers, And Priscilla has to be re- made every year. The actual frame lasts about five or six years, but every summer it has to be covered with new material and fresh feathers. They are genuine goose feath- ers, too. Cleaned and bleached, every one is sewn on by hand. They overlap to a depth of four to five inches, and, in all, 3 lb. of feathers are used. Harry has never worked out exactly how long the job takes. He completes it over a space of three or four months, and it's a labour of love as much as any- thing else. And Harry, of course,has a nickname, He is known to everyone, including his own family (he has a son and daugh- ter), as "Goosie." WHO WON? Starlings were a source of real annoyance to Mr. W. S. Carpen- ter, of Kentucky. He has man- aged to scare them away from his home, but victory was a costly one. His double-barrelled shotgun went off prematurely as he closed the breech while prepar- ing to fire at them from an up- stairs window. The shot played havoc with water pipes running round the room; the escaping water cascading down the stairs leaked through the floor and telling to rooms below. Mrs. Carpenter, believing her husband hadshot himself, col- lapsed and had to be taken to hospital for treatment. Dragged Horse Up Thr = Flights of Stairs Tales of a Screwball Rooming House Householders who think ten- ants can be queer folk should try running a rooming house in the United States. Gerry Ney- roud, a British journalist, who has lived there thirty years, once did so on New York's Low- er East Side, His first tenant was an old German music professor who moved into the ground floor with lour grand pianos, five bull fiddles, two big and four little drums, some huge curly brass horns and a "cloudful of harps." He then had a large wooden sign fixed over Mr. NeYroud's lovely red front door announc- ing: - Music Museum. World's Greatest Collection. Instruments of all Ages. Demonstrations Hourly. Admission One Dollar. It was quite a job evicting the old gent, who'd spent all his money retrieving the instru- ments from storage and had none to pay for removing them. Neither -had Neyroud, so the ground floor was inoperative for two months. Eventually transferring his playthings to a new museum in Long Island City, he left Ney- roud as a memento a French horn he didn't need. "I,haff no more devind to blow him," he explained. It was used to play the "Wed- ding March" - rousing indig- nant complaint from a young man upstairs who was sleeping off a hangover - when a mid- dle-aged couple, newly-wed, took the professor's rooms. Another tenant (public ac- countant) paid a month in ad- vance, but took umbrage when, six weeks later, Neyroud• hinted that he was behind schedule. He'd want a substantial rent de- duction, he said, if he were to stay: the flat- was altogether too depressing. "See what I mean." he said, asking him in, - Neyroud found the floor and walls painted black. From dark purple door to littered desk, cluttered kitchenette, dish - strewn dining -table, tumbled studio couch, and up the wall and halfway across the ceiling were flesh -pink rubber foot prints. "Who did this?" Neyroud asked "I did," said the tenant. "After all, when in Rome you know . . His next tenants, Neyroud says in a book abounding, in laughs -"Americans Are People" -were a young couple who did batik work (the printing of coloured designs on textiles by waxing parts not to be dyed) and choked his - plumbing out- let by pouring melted wax into bowls, basin and bathtub. The repairs cost him the two months' rent they paid in four months' tenancy. Then came an engaging young gent who was carted off to all=" mony jail before he'd paid any rent at all. When he telephoned asking for some necessities, Ney- roud packed a suit -case, adding "as a cheery piece of symbolism" a slice of stale bread on a rusty, almost toothless hacksaw blade, and handed it to two scowling jailers. Early next morning he was called for and himself carted off to the jail. Laid out on a desk before the two grim jailers was a jailbreaker's outfit consisting of the hacksaw blade (minus its bread) two nail files, manicure scissors and a packet of safety - razor blades. Did he admit, they asked, smuggling these instruments to a prisoner? Did he know that aiding and abetting a jaiibreaker was a criminal offence? Evident- ly it was the rusty hacksaw blade that rankled. Wasn't it an insult to their fine jail to ima- gine that a prisoner could slice his way out with that? Only after abject apology was Ney- roud freed, His reputation as an easy mark, he says, spread a stubble fire, and the Bohemians ganged up on him. One arty couple from Boston made the nights hideouu with revelry and threatened him with a brick when he bawled his protests up the stair well. He hired waterfront goons to throw them out after they'd pinched the milkman's horse and dragged him up three steep flights of stairs to their studio to serve as model for General Sherman's charger. Then there was Stefanos O'- Toole, who kept a live sheep In his bathtub, ready for the Greek Easter rites; a little Dutch vio- linist who kept his late wife's ashes in a coffee -can on the mantelpiece but had lost the lid, so they became heavily adulterated with cigarette stubs; a bootlegger (main sources of supply the Atlantic liner stew- ards) who made a lot of money, lost it in the crash, and ended up as bartender in a Third Ave- nue beer joint where he swelled his salary by manipulating the cash - register,. a pastime he called "playin chunes on the Jewish pyeanner." Two strapping - young men with bronze badges and blue - black automatics came for him one day, and he winked at Ney- roud as they marched him off, presumably for fourteen years at least. An hour later, however, he was back. "Them feds was a couple crazy kids," he said. "Wanted to play it straight. Held me while they knocked off a load of Scotch I was bringing in off the frog boat. Wouldn't listen when I told 'em I got it all fixed with the office. Now I gotta buy the stuff back from the feds." He then 'phoned Prohibition H.Q. to protest the double-cross and negotiate re -purchase, but didn't get it back because those "crazy kids" were hijackers impersonating federal agents! The difference between a hu- man being ten years of age and one fifty years of age lies alto- gether in the matter of toys. -AUSTIN O'MALLEY MERRY MENAGERIE 0-8 (baa .feria wi!,`,..,.... 'Well, there's no Iaw against ME being a Davy Crockett fan]" Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking AV5r^ ei.1321 A n a 5153 3 3 1 a '00 53h Ial 1 1 5 1ft©n1 .I OOd x(13 1v0©i 4b3H N N M ON O d N 0 Offita 05 '13 2i 0.1. Odn ROLLING DOWN TO HELL'S GATE - Where the mighty Fraser River 'boils through a narrow canyon - Hell's Gate - on its way to the sea; the Canadian National Railway's crack Super Continental slows down to a five -mile -an -hour 'speed. Fish ladders have been built to enable the salmon to surmount e rock -fall and proceed ,up river to spawn. The silver -sided homecomers' are .plainly seen making their way up the artificial staircase near the point where the picture was made.