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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1961-12-21, Page 7These Birds Are Cruel To People The Royal Society for the Pre- vention o Cruelty to Animals in Brisbane, Australia, was tailed upon recentlyto investigate a complaint ofbirds being cruel to humans. The birds ; were Australian kookaburras and the humans were Mr, and Mrs. C. 3. San- ders, of ,Brisbane. Kookaburras, large bird, with • sharp beaks, are protected and cannot be killed, Their coma, n name is the Laughing Jackass because of their call, which be- gins with a chuckle and enols with a hearty laugh, "They're no laughing matter to us," said Mr. Sanders, com- plaining to t h e "They're dive-bombing us." At dawn and dusk, Mr San- ders told the X ,S.P.C.A., about thirty kookaburras perch, out- side his house and dive-bomb his, plastic gauze window screens, peppering them with holes and frightening. the San - tiers with the noise they make, Baffled R.S.P.C,A. officials, dodging the swooping birds, sug- gested that Mr. Sanders should leave hs house open, encourage the birds inside and then catch them. Mr. Sanders didn't think much of the idea, "We tried that," he said. "All that happened was that rhe birds cameinside and bombed our mirrors." TEETH FOR TOOTH - Ken- neth Cone, 10, holds a rare molar of a large mammal known as the Desmostylus Hesperus, which Jived 30 mil- lion years ago. The tooth was found in a rocky bank in the Seattle area, It Is All Right To Be Left-handed Are you right - handed? The chances are about twenty to one on that your right hand is much stronger and more skilful than your left. Yet both hands look alike. Why, then, has the human race since prehistoric times always had such a preference for the right hand, and scorn for the left? Although medical science has reduced this almost instinct- ive distaste for left-handedness, the age-old dislike is still evi- dent in many of our social cos:. toms. The proud;Tuaregs -of the Sa- hara Desert `cling to this super- stitious convention. These Arabs will never pick up food with the left hand, for they consider it unclean and liable to poison their meals: This tribal taboo may make' you smile, but remember the last time you. either gave or attended Al formal dinner, In the name of "Social etiquette," a good hostess always seats the guest -of -honour to her right, Even the reason why a woman keeps her wedding -band upon a finger of the left hand is signifi- cant. Originally, rings were worn as a charm to ward off evil spir- its believed to approach from the left! Today, the natives of Mexico's San Bias Islands won't let any lett-handed woman serve food. Tradition there holds that such a person would cause the meal to spoil. And in Tehad, West Af- rica, the "(look -billed women of ,the Oubangi never feed their children from the left breast. Statistics indicate . that only about eight per cent of the world's population is left-hand- ed. But medical authorities have iouncl that the overwhelming majority are right - handed be- cause of social pressures -rather than from natural physical causes! The choice of being right- handed seems to be forced on us early in life. Many appliances and implements are made for use by right-handed people only. Some types of scissors and tools, fishing rods, golf clubs and hockey sticks are typical of items designed for the right hand. A left-hander has to go to the ex- pense of having a special set made. Before the advent of automatic weapons, a left handed soldier was often in very real danger because of the difficulty of load-• ing his right-handed rifle. ' Our language -written towards the Ir^)'t - is from earliest times full of praise for the .right hand "God and my right; "Right :must triumph;" "You did the right thing;" "On the right hand of God" Take, too, the Latin. for left - "sinister." While4rom the French we got our word for clumsy, "gauche," But the Latin for right-handed gives us "dexterous," that is, skil- ful, adroit, In politics, of course, Right and Left have their own particular auras of good' and bad. With such a continuousinflu- ence for a right-handed world, it is small wonder that only in re- cent years have children ceased to be forced to change from left-. handedness, At many schools they were made to.. write with the right hand and at mealtimes to eat and, drink "the right way round." Then psychiatrists found that such forced right -handers can suffer extensive emotional dam- age, often causing actual mental illness. • For, it your left hand is strong- er than your right, it generally means that the whole of your left side, including the brain, is naturally more developed than the right. A psychological study recently completed in Baltimore revealed that both human and chimpanzee babies have no particular pref- erence for using the right or left hand, writes Sidney Allinson in "Tit -Bits." This only becomes evident af- ter the age of two. It might be an excellent thing if all youngsters were encour- aged to be ambidextrous, If you are equally able with either hand, your skill at games, for instance, is likely to be con- sidered enhanced. Indeed, the left-handed often come into their own at sport - just look at the success of "south- paws" in big-time boxing, left-, handers in baseball and the cry- ing need for .football players with a "good left foot," From all the evidence compiled in the last few years, it seems the socially -accepted right hand may be nothing more than the outcome of tribal taboos. Yet, altiough the original meaning of this• custom has long been for- gotten, it still influences many. aspects of human activity today. We always, for example, ex- tend the right hand in friend- ship. Although the reason may be that most of our friends, in the days of old, also carriedtheir chief power on the dexter side. Some families have no ears, no washing machines, no televisions. They just have money in the bank. FUSS 'N' FEATHERS -- Visitors at Regent's Park Zoo in Lindon, England, were 4tartled to see this angry look on Pete the, pelican's face cis 17e flapped his outsize wings. NEW RED SCHOOLHOUSE -Reminiscent of a scene in our schools a generation or two ago is this picture of an English language class in Moscow's Public School No. 1, Pictures with English captions (a bird, an apple, etc.) line the black- board, Above it are samples of English script. In this Russian school, all the children except those in the first year not only attend English classes but study world geography and English and. American literature in English, TIILFARN FRONT Jok12u4ea. Results of a three-year test at the Canada Department of Agri- culture's Research station at Lethbridge throw light on the merits of mechanical harvesting versus rotational grazing. They do not yet indicate any substantial increase of beef prod- uction from mechanical harvest- ing -the delivery of the clipped forage to confined animals -but the experiments are continuing. * * Drs, R, D. Clark and D, B, Wilson reported on the compari- son of the two methods of feed- ing at the station, using irrigated pasture, of smooth brome, or- chard grass, creeping red fescue and white clover. Hereford year- ling steers of about 600 pounds weight, were placed on the pas- ture each spring and rotated over three fields for •the tests, A for- age harvester was used to obtain the feed for the animals ex- cluded from the pasture. * w * The data on beef and forage production are given in order for the years 1958, 1959 and 1960, the first being for the grazed pas- tures and that in brackets for the mechanically harvested pasture: Beef production per acre in 1b.: 513 (739), 656 (549), 696 (716); Dry matter yieldper acre in lb.: 7100 (5772), 4785 (4633), 7091 (5764). Average daily gain in lb,: 2.20 (2.48), 2.72 (2.67), 2.13 (2.1.5), Length of season in days: 112 (107), 102 (103), 103 (103). * * * It seemed reasonable to expect that the grass would grow better when animals were not trampl- ing it down and fouling it, and also that the animals would gain faster when confined and fed all that they could eat. Por these reasons the good showing in beef production per acre for the first year was not surprising. The lower beef and dry matter yield from mechanical harvesting in 1959 were however, contradictory and unexpected although similar declines after the first year had been reported, without satisfac- tory explanation, from other tests. * * * Drs. Clark and Wilson studied another experiment under way at Lethbridge and found that higher yields were obtained when the forage was cut to leave a 2 - inch rather than a 4 -inch stubble. The reason for the low forage yields in their own test then be- came apparent -the, forage har- vester was leaving about five inches of stubble. The difference was particularly noticeable early in the season -the grazing pas- tures being ready for use Iwo weeks' before any cutting could Upsidedown to Prevent Peek ;ng ounmmuern l be done on the mechanically har- vested fields. Slower warming of the soil under 'the heavy stubble probably was an important fac- tor. * * * The forage harvester also bruised, leaves of the grass stub- ble, delaying their recovery, In the following year the machine's flails were kept in a better cut- ting state and the stubble was cut to a height of two to three inches, The decrease in dry matter yield from the grazed fields in 1959 was attributed to insuffi- cient irrigation and nitrogen fer- tilization and steps were taken to counteract these conditions and to make certain manage- ment improvements. Higher yields of beef and forage were obtained from both methods of .harvesting in 1960. The dry mat- ter yield in the grazed fields was obtained from cages in the fields. The stocking rate for the test was 3.4 steers per acre. Reduc- ing this rate and dresorting to various management practices could extend the length of the pasture season. * * * Still not convinced that beef production per acre was at maxi- mum level the researchers plan- ed further refinements for 1961. Some of the planned innova- tions; a 6 -field instead of a a- field rotation for the grazing cat- tle, excess growth early in the season to be harvested as hay and fed back later when growth slowed down; for the clipped craps fertilizer application of 50 horn 50 pounds of phosphorus pounds of nitrogen per another .33 pounds in July; fields to be flood -irrigated up to six times. * * * Advantages of mechanical har- vesting found were: less fencing required, watering and supervi- sion of the stock and manage- ment of the 'grassland made simpler, Disadvantages were: ISSUE SO 1961 high outlay for a harvester and self -loading wagon; the necessity for daily eutting; the difficulty of harvesting in wet weather the labor involved at a time when labor is much in demand on the farm; need for a well -drained feedlot and extra bedding. * * One conclusion: For the small operator the gain from the high- er yields of mechanical harvest- ing is wiped out by the cost of elipping. Fires That Cannot Be Put Out People in a South Wales min- ing village were shocked, recent- ly, to see smoke and steam and eerie gusts of bluish flame leap- ing out of the ground. Experts were called but they could do nothing to extinguish the fire which was raging beneath a large coal tip, Putting out these subterranean fires, which are often found in the neighbourhood of coal mines, has often proved extremely dif- ficult, In Lancashire an "earth fire," as it was called locally, blazed for years. Another underground fire near Wednesbury, Staffs, was at one time likely to eat its way beneath the suburbs of the town, so a watchman was appointed to warn people away from the danger area. One night the fire caused a great inass .of earth to collapse and the watchman was drawn down with it and burned alive. It was reported, a few years ago, that in a score of different places in Britain underground fires were smouldering. "Some have been alight for years and are imitations of vol- canoes on .a small scale," wrote one reporter. "The fuel in most cases is coal," An important junction station near Swansea was for some time rendered useless by an under- ground fire said to be burning in old chemical and metal refuse. The platforms were hot and the whole station was poisoned by fumes. A Midlands town suffered severely many years ago from "a slow burning" which went on deep beneath its foundations. It threw out fumes of deadly gas which half -poisoned many people. Of all subterranean fires those fed by shale oil deposits are the longest lived, Some time ago a newspaper- man visited near Baku, on the Caspian Sea, the site of an un- derground oil fire which, he said, was alight when William the Conqueror landed. in England. wNAY SCIl00l _LESSON ll.r Rev 11 i4 Warren, 13.Il:., 133). Good Tidings of Great Xoy Luke 2:1-16 Memory Selection: The angel said unto them, Fear not: for be- hold I bring yon good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all People. ' Fou unto you is born this day in the city of David a S a v 10 u 0, which is Christ the Lord, Luke 2:10-11 The birth of Jesus was the greatest event in human history tip to that time. It was great be- cause the Son of God had con- descended to became' man, It was great that a child should be barn; having no human father, Mary's becoming pregnant during her engagement distressed Joseph until an angel appeared to him in a dream and 'told him that she had conceived of the Holy Ghost. He proceeded to marry her but knew her not as wife until after Jesus was born. Mary and Joseph raised Jesus in accordance with the Jewish law. On the eighth day he was circumcised and thus brought of- ficially into the Abrahamic cov- enant (Luke 2:21). About the 42nd day of His life, He was pre- sented to Jehovah in dedication, a ceremony practised by parents for the first male child born into the family, This was a require- ment by God, since His sparing of the first born in Egypt when Hesent the final of the ten plagues upon the land. At the time of this ceremony, Mary also made the required offering for her own purification, giving of the two prescribed sacrifices the one especially provided for the poor of the nation (cf Lev. 12:8). Evidently, the home in which Jesus got his early religious nur- ture was poor in this world's goods but rich in devotion and piety. From history we learn that even before the Jewish could write, he was expected to mem- orize the Shema, a creed com- posed of 19 verses ' from Dent. 6:4-9; 11;13-21; and Num. 15:37- 41. These were written out, par- ticularly by boys, after they learned to write. At the age of six, Jewish boys were sent to school which usually adjoined the synagogue. Attendance was compulsory. Jesus came to save us from our sins. This was the good tid- ings of great joy. Jesus who died for us, rose again and lives for- evermore, He will save all who come to Him. m CROSSWORD PUZZLE 8. Part of the 34. Woody foot growth Unripe 37. Append 19. Pertaining to 40. Prolong dawn 41. Bacchant ilan 11• Fat of swine er-v 48, !U'arlyn g ACROSS 3. ; a god 18. Share 45, Outdoor gnme4. verge made20,Thiolty40. ray at,iped 5. City on the22. Throw 11ghtls id Adriatic by mountain 21, Sene141e 47. Fr, river y Coagulastreams 114. Qer, elver 48. Time snit 12. Adnm's;tool: 0. Adiective 26. Solemn82,I:arrow inlet18. Fetterprefixmean-�pomlae84.Harem rodm14. Brown iing twice28• Transparentd.insect's egg18. Sweet sioqn 6.Textilestraw 30. Isms ofclover 50, Asit etanda17.Stupid0 pin* 81. Chins and (mus•) 58. . (C'(r Dh splice I. eros of 112.5n7 89. delreeeCab,) 71. Accompany 28. Diverse $7. L''ternity 28. Peat 89. Htgh:ni t 1. Business Salam 93. Salamander aa 6, Winter peril 39, Verywleeman 88. Syllable at hoe1tntton 39. Dwell 448. 2. PaAnyablnoye 44. Parted 40, half 49. Pro and - -- 80. River Island 81. .'Ever (poet.) 83. Short jackets 87, Our,) country (ab 88.. Secure 80. Redact 01. Second small- est state (ab.) 82. Lacking bl•lghtnese e8, Po]Yn, ohestnVut tt Fuel t. Jap, sash Answer elsewhere on this page IN THE TREE TOPS -•- Mounting casualty list showed a number of paratroopers hospital.- lzed in Fort Jackson, S.C., cis a result of quickening winds which swept most of 1,200 jumpers into trees dieting a mass jurnpr a part of exercise Apache.