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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1962-08-30, Page 3l arm Workers Had To Be Musicians When the Russians overran eastern Europe they ended a feudal way of life whieh had re- n'lained unchanged for centuries. In Poland, as in nearly all the nations now behind the Iron Cur- tain, a few lived in incredible luxury, and the rest were at their service, Novelist Cecil Roberts visited Prince Ladislas Radziwill before the Second World War, In those days the Itadziwills were one of the largest landowning families in Poland. As Roberts' landau halted be- fore the great doors of the castle, >x major-domo struok his staff on the floor and six footmen carne running to attend the new ar- rivals while four others lined the staircase. An orchestra of fifty played during dinner, and the novelist remarked on the expense, "Oh no, it doesn't cost me any- thing except the conductor's salary,"'explained the host, "You see, these are all my gamekeep- ers and estate workers, They don't get a job unless they can play an instrument, "It's only the old tradition, you know -as when Haydn ran the orchestra of my grandfather's friend in his castle in Austria, But so far I haven't found a Haydn!" Roberts made another strange discovery while staying at Czatoryski Castle In Poland. At two in the morning he heard a piano being played superbly, He got up and stole down to the music room, where he found the pianist was a young man in a white silk dressing -gown, The only light in the vast room carne from the moonlit snow out- side and two candelabra on the jfano, For half an hour he stood ust inside the door, entranced by the music and the eerie setting, then returned to bed, The next morning he asked who the mysterious pianist was, tes he had not seen him in the house party, "Oh, that is my young cousin," said his host, "He's mad, and lives in the east tower. At night he comes down to play the piano -- when everyone's in bed." It was in this castle that Roberts tet the Polish chapter of his book, One Small Candle, Another great house in Poland was Lancut, the chateau of Prince Potocki. "It had 200 bedrooms, a vast ballroom and a private orches- tra," Roberts said, "The prince entertained regally. Almost ev- ery crowned head in Europe had stayed there, ele was well-known in England, where he bought his horses and luxury cars, In the Second World War the castle and vast estate was sacked by the Russians, the great portraits end treasures, were lost," Last year a huge equestrian portrait of an earlier Prince Po- tocki turned up at a Rome art exhibition. "It was lent by the courtesy of the Leningrad Gallery. At last the family knew where the por- traits had gone!" A Polish host with a peculiar habit, Roberts recalls, was Count Iiarroch, When he entertained guests at a long table the talk was apt to become very loud, which annoyed him, He kept a handbell by his plate and whenever the noise became unbearable would ring It vigor- ously for silence, Visiting Dampierre, the French castle of the Duc de Luynes, Roberts was astonished to see In the centre of the great hall a plain deal table and two kitchen chairs, writes Trevor Allen in "Tit -Bits." When he asked about this curi- ous exhibit the young duke ex- plained that during the Revolu-, tion one of Isis ancestors and three children were imprisoned in the Temple, awlaiting execu- tion, With the table and chairs, the duchess rehearsed the children ' in mounting the scaffold, so that on the fateful day -they would behave with composure, The first chair represented' the steps; the second, placed on the table, the guillotine. Roberts well remembers the Chateau de Rambouillet, the country mansion of the Presi- dents of the French Republic. "The nearest I ever came to death," he said, "Was at its gates," He was with Count Armand de la Rochefoucauld in his new sports car, going to visit the count's uncle. Speeding along a straight ave- nue in the dim evening light they did not see a sharp left bend ahead. A huge brick wall and big iron gates suddenly seemed to leap at them, They sped straight on, crash- ing through the chateau gates, tearing a hole in them, and were flung to the ground from the smashed car amid trees in a dark forest. He thinks they both lived be- cause of the low build of the car, which went under a heavy cross- bar of the gates, An hour later they arrived at their host's house in a hired car. Roberts was un- scratched, the count had only slight injuries. The next morning the count carne to his room and said; "You were in great form last night after dinner, You held us all spellbound for a couple of hours." "But I never said a word, as far as I remember," Roberts replied. "Oh yes, you talked without a break for two hours about your travels, You gave us a wonder- ful evening," Roberts then realized that he must have been suffering from shock or concussion, For him the previous evening was a blank. The American Press magnate, the 1 a t e William Randolph Hearst, lived in a castle built in the wilds of California. When Roberts paid him a visit he noted that when guests arrived at the gates they were asked whether they wished to proceed by car or rail, so vast was the estate. Their bedrooms were all "peri- od." If a guest slept in an Italian Rennaissance bedroom, with ap- propriate old masters on the walls, his breakfast was served by a footman in the costume of the time, to preserve the illusion. Cecil Roberts was seventy in May, but no one would guess it. Last year he travelled right round the world to gain fresh material, The care with which he creates authentic backgrounds for his work has made his books outstanding. His latest novel, Wide is the Horizon is one of his hest. Politician -One who approach- es every subject with an open mouth, ISSUE 33 - 1902 CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1, Father 4. Detecting device 9. Small swallow 12. Lyric 18. Baconian' 1.1. Black cuckoo 15. Pall to follow suit 17, 1{Ing Arthur's abode 10• Macaw 20. Ot1-ylelding tree 21, )dsprit do corps 24, Bodies of soldiers 27. Some, inde£inttely 28, 1lcron 20, Burmese demon 8J. Small fish 22. Elongated f1eb 39. Asfar ae 24. Pool (Scot.) 86, Di terming 88, remnls salmon 89, Treasured up 41. illacufue 43. Small tumor 4, 11roo»p 5, C4raclous 8. lamented 1. Have being 2, side by suds 4. Uncle Tom'p Mend 6, O02n clothier 8 Backslide 9. Reception room 10. Daughter of Cadmus 11. Bowling club 16. Period 66. Father of 12, Cameroon?' Rachel tribe 57. Border 21. Household DOWN servants 1. Click beetle 23. Bit of gossip 2, Summer (Pr.) drink 20, 'Urged 8. Tenfold 24. Cont with an 4.Intertain alloy 5. tag. country 26. I)ucharlstic festival ves el 6. .Execute 26. Small rocic 7. Turkish 29, 01,0 't-nanp 1 en111111e oder fob is s v 9 36. Derby hat (British) 36. Of the intellect 37. U, S. naval officer 28.1110re costly 40. Brazil. coin 42. Praotloal Joke 46. handle roughly 46. Medieval money 41.High In Ouido's scale 43. The nnhoor 49. Icing of 31 413.,, 00, River barrier +9. :4!hor1,, river 9 '10 Il I2 I5 19, 12 20 21 01 31 34 32 29 22 '�• 3s AO 76 1F 25 26 79 3r 30 ev 0'•`• ro• a4 37 if 38 w 4s ,1N4 q. 51� fil Answer elsewhere on .this page SLIGHTLY SALTY - Mountain resembling a huge iceberg actually is a solid salt mound formed from mineral.water flowing from the earth at Nuevo Viscaya, the Philippines. TIILFARM FRONT Joka, Ottawa isn't the only plane where the "farm problem" is a perpetual pain in the neck to the government, The following ar- ticle by Helen Henley, Farm Edi- tor of the Christian Science Monitor shows that in Washing- ton too they have their troubles, "To make farming profitable without government c o n t r els, and to establish free markets for farm products" is the aim of a proposal just launched by the Committee for Economic Devel- opment. Its plan, says the CED, "if vigorously prosecuted over a period of years," would reduce government agricultural spend- ing by $3,000,000,000 - or about one-half of present federal farm expenditures, Some aspects of the proposed program, which would switch assistance for farmers from a protective to an adaptive ap- proach, could hardly be more controversial. But the CED Re- search and Policy Committee, which 'prepared the statement "An Adaptive Program for Ag- riculture," has brought together into a single focus a number of possibilities which at times have been considered or attempted in a disorganized, piecemeal way. Critics will point out that the CED, composed of leading busi- nessmen and educators and des- cribing itself as "non-profit, non- partisan, and non-political," ap- parently includes in its member- ship no farmers. Perhaps this very objert:vity• has enabled it to come up with proposals likely to be welcomed by some as a realistic approach to problems which up to now have defied the diverse efforts of tarmers, econ- omists, and politicians. A review of the tangled pile- up of present farm programs, and how they got that way, how- ever, presages a rough road ahead for anything as bold, de- cisive, and comprehensive as the CED proposals. In brief, the CED program for agriculture adjustment calls for measures which would expedite the movement of farmers into other lines of work by offering retraining opportunities and fi- nancial assistance during a five- year transition period, During this period, government price supports would be figured on a different and gradually declin- ing basis to remove incentives for continued overproduction and finally would 'cease. And during the transition period, an expand- ed Soil Bank and a Cropland Adjustment Program would re- move from production additional acreages which might otherwise contribute to a further build-up of surplus crops. CED'S premise (which is sup- -ported by numerous economists) is that a chief croreason for high p surpluses and low farm prices is that too many people are continuing to farm in an era when improved technology makes it possible for many fewer farmers to produce the needed abundance of food and fiber. Taxpayers actually are subsi- dizing, in the present farm pro- gram, many more farmers than' they need, and are, in effect, perpetuating surpluses, The CED plan would trans- fer one-third of today's farmers to other careers. Government supported prices at artificially high levels have delayed or prevented the rapid movement of farmers out of farming which the CED consid- ers essential to a prosperous ag- riculture. A first step toward solution, states the CED, is a generally improved labor market which would offer sufficient opportun- ities to' attract farmers away from farms. Simultaneously, the CED calls for educational programs which would substitute for the agri- culture vocational courses, now widely offered rural youth, a different type pl vocational training to ptei.are boys and girls for jobs in industry. It favors "federal aid to pub- lic education below the college level in the low income states." It declares that "public and pri- vate policy should take dual ac- count of the ,national needs first, to reduce the number of people committed for their livelihood to farming, and second, to raise the national educational attainment, by measures to bring the partici- pation of farm youths in higher education up to the national standard." a M, One of the principal objec- tives of the new Manpower Act, states the CED, should be the retraining of farm workers de- siring to leave farming. Further assistance could be provided by expanding the Federal -State Em- ployment Service to rural areas on a national and regional basis rather than local only; and by expanding the present farm labor service to include placement in off -farm work. Loans for departing farm fam- ilies should be provided but should be "given once only for the purpose of leaving tanning," Next, the CED proposes a Price Adjustment Program w h i c h would allow an adjustment price on crops to permit the total out- put to be sold domestically or in commercial export markets with- out government subsidy - and to yield for farmers remaining in agriculture an income "equi- valent to those earned in the SMALL SMITH - Kip Ken- nedy, 5, uses a man-size shoe rasp while getting Charley Horse shod, nonfarm economy." Concluding its recommenda- tions, the CED states; "It is our further central conviction in formulating the farm program we hay: put forth here that the resources employed in agricul- tural output can only be brought into balance with demand for farm products if farmers get the right price signals as to how much and where to invest and produce." Only in a free market, it is generally agreed, does price have a chance to perform that vital function of signaling how much should be produced. Many, both in farming and out of it, fear a return to the free market in agriculture. They ate convinced this would mean chaos and disaster. But some farmers who feel confident they could survive the adjustment period - though they admit the transition would he "rough" - have been saying for a long time they would like a chance to try it. SCtI00! IESSON By Rev. 11.13arciay Warren, B.A., B.A. Good Tidings to the Exiles Isaiah 40;1-11; 52:7-9 Memory Scripture: How beauti- ful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace. Isaiah 52;7, Today's lesson is from Isaiah, another of the major prophets, In point of time we revert back to over a century prior to Jerusa- lem's fall. At the time of the captivity, Isaiah's writings had already become a part of the Jewish culture. One can well imagine that they were among the valued scrolls carried with the captives to their servitude in Babylon, What a comfort they must have been to them there. In the book of Isaiah there is a significant division at the 40th chapter, It seems that a new spirit entered the prophet as he wrote the remainder of the book. This section is dominated by a great spirit of anticipation. Joy and courage take hold of the prophet, These strains can be found in the first 39 chapters, but not in such a sustained and exalt- ed manner; This difference with- in the book of Isaiah has caused some to suggest a second Isaiah as the writer of the latter half. There is no manuscript evidence to support this theory. The dis- covery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has revealed that prior to the time of Christ, Isaiah was one united book. An explanation of this triump- hant theme can better be under- stood by a study of Isaiah itself, Chapters 36-39 tell of the inva- sion of Judah by the Assyrian host under Sennacherib. Heze- kiah, the king, along with his advisers and Isaiah, the prophet, prayed for deliverance. Over- night, the deliverance came. The angel of the Lord smote 185,000 soldiers that night. 11 was an opportune time for God to reveal through Isaiah, the nature and triumph of the corning Messiah and His kingdom. In these day: of perplexity, we need the eonrfort of Isaiah's mes- sage. On one occasion when there was much to discourage I came upon 40:31: "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." With such promises there is no excuse for us not being joyous triumphant Christians, Isaiah's writings must have been of un- told benefit to the Exiles in their captivity. Q. When a wedding is called off, what is done about the wedding gifts received? A. The girl must return these to the donors with brief and tact- ful notes of explanation. The only exception would he it the bridegroom died before the cere- mony, and then the bride, if spe- cifically urged to do so by the donors, may keep the presents. Upsidedown to Prevent 42M11,Eigli- ©ail r EJ�kI t cit w i'�im I1 ► :14,-' *.. © ©©©D©©L ER*, N M �, V�0®CJO ©M®OQ i e ®QCT©Q ©© • NIMIE e ©©er;B 1�1}f� ' V 001 ®l OM J p i ©DOCEI is illEtililifiourio OiaEl1i20 �� CONFRONTATION The Rev. Martin Luther King, centre, and the Rev, Ralph Airer- nothy, left, are confronted by Albany, Ga., Police Chief Laurie Pritchett as the integration• ist'leaders sought an audience with the city commissioners over racial problems, The mere were arrested for, among other reasons, congregating on the sidewalk.