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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1945-04-19, Page 3THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1945 114 c, seedless raisins 2la. tsp. Magic Baking' c.shortening Powder c. honey 3i tsp. salt 3 eggs, well beaten X tsp. vanilla extract c. sifted all-purpose 9¢ tsp. lemon extract flour Rinse raisins; drain; dry on towel—cut fine with scissors. work shortening with spoon until fluffy and creamy; gradually add honey, while continuing to work with a spoon. Add beaten eggs, and blend. Gradually stir in sifted dry ingredients; beat with spoon until smooth. Add extracts, raisins; stir to blend. Bake in greased, lightly floured 9" x 5" it 3" pan at 300°P. for 2 hours. MADE IN CANADA t$ 0 Sat What Is Your Pet Superstition The place is somewhere behind one of our far-flung battle fronts. The characters are any three sol- diers of the• United Nations. The go- ing has been hard. Weary men are snatching a brief rest, taking.time out for a smoke. "Light, fellow," says the Ameri- can, "or are you superstitious about three -on -a -match?" "0f course not," is 'the invariable answer, "but just the same, I'll light my own. No use in tempting fate, you know." Three -on -a -match. Death to one of three. Here is superstition Number One of our global war. For almost a century, fighting men the world over have avoided three -on -a -match. And now, as superstition reborn of war fears reaches a new flood tide, three on a match rises to the top of a wave sweeping through our armies. in action, our training camps, our evil. Superstitious beliefsare Mere- ly the outward expression of fear. "Superstitions have 'forged them- selves into chains which impede our progress. They color our language,. jeopardize the development of med- ical science. All too frequently superstitions ac- quire a practical or factual angle and so bed themselves even more deeply. Such as the case with three- on-amatch." It became firmly entrenched in the'. British mind during the Boerr war, when thousands of Tommie& tell vic- tim to the deadly accuracy of Boer marksmen. Three -on -a -match all too frequently spelled' death for one of the three, for the flashing light of a match at night made a perfect target for keen -eyed Boers shooting to kill, Three, according to Miss de Lys, THE SEAFORTH NEWS and thirteen to be good luck, and deserving peasant. To the mahar- fore, those wishing to travel by this c ontrar y attitude crops up tribe ajah's everlasting amazement and plane must, in cases, spend half and again in relation to Many other distress, the charm worked, and in a an hour getting to the airport, and superstitions. ! year the peasant returned, strong as -the same length of time at the end, A somber chapter in the endless an elephant, at the head of an army of the flight 'to get to the required book of superstitions is the chapter to oust his former ruler. destination. This, for alights which on jinxes. In recent months our war l In the language of superstition, are not transoceanic 'or transeontin- industries have reported an untold good can conquer evil, so for each ental, is a great deal of trouble and number of accidents among "acrid- bad luck superstition, there can be waste of time. ent-conditioned" workmen, workmen found an offsetting good luck super- i If one wishes to own a plane, then who believe that they are jinxed, stition. Charms and mascots belong the questions of expense, of parking who are sure that disaster awaits on the good side of the ledger. In space, and accommodation for the then. Tribal lore once again yields this group we ' find many familiar privately -owned plane are serious the basis for the jinx phobia, a sup- and homely little customs, such as considerations.* erstition so strong, says Miss deLys, knocking on wood, crossing the fing- But perhaps, more important to that it produces fatal results, a fear ers, and turning a hat or cap back- the average individual, Mr. Sikors- so deep that the fear comes true,. side -to: Servicemen, so they have Icy feels, is the ability required to In contrast to this grim note, told Miss de Lys, are staunch sup- fly an ordinary airplane. Landings, many superstitious beliefs are rich in porters of this turning,the,cap, take -offs, steering, unexpected dif- colorful and amusing. detail. Take, around belief, little iso most of' ficulties in the air, make all but the for instance, 'the charming fantasies them realize that they are carrying very youngest and boldest fearful of lying behind lucky pieces.. Miss de on an idea which found favor among purchasing and piloting airplanes for Lys has found that practically every is not the only number playing a boy in uniform carries a lucky piece part in many of the superstitions —a four-leaf clover, a rabbit's foot, which run rampant during war years. a coin with a hole punched in it, or h with In Friday the 13th, an unlucky day perhaps an elephant^hair charm. Why ddo superstitions always re - avoided alike by workmen starting a The four-leaf clover is quite s9m- vive and flourish in i'time of war? new job and .generals leading their ply an earthly manifestation of the The answer can be found in the re- men into battle we find a blend of solar compass, which man discovered two numerical superstitions. cords of a student of superstition, I when he followed the sun from ris- an amazing young Frenchwoman, The day we call Friday was the ing to setting, from East to West, Claudia de Lys, who has travelled seventh day according to the ancient , and drew crude lines, a double cross the earth to track down strange be- lunar calendar, the lucky seventh. I•t to indicate directions. The Druids fiefs frequently hidden in primitive was a day of no work, of worship, in popularized the clover idea, and soon tribal lore. Her rows of steel files short a Sabbath day to early man, this rare little plant was endowed carry data on more than 80,000 For centuries Friday remained a with magical powers, superstitions which she has catalog- good day, a holy day. But somewhere 1 The punched coin, a favorite of ued to date, and each day of the war along in the Middle Ages when the servicemen, can be traced back to seesthese files growing and expand- flame of man's intelligence flickered the days when early man ranging in low, Friday got mixed up with the along the seashore found pebbles Miss de Lys spent her 'teens and overwhelmingly evil number thir- j with holes punched in them. - In his early twenties in the Far East, and teen, and a good day became a bad simplicity he believed these to have she rates a Ph.D. in anthropology day.' been worn by a sea -god whose prot- from the University of Calcutta. Her Thirteen has had an unsavory re- i ection he, weak mortal, would ac - search for knowledge has carried putation ever since that misty eon quire if he, in turn, wore the peb- her far off the beaten track, fro- when man first learned to count. Us hies. quently into danger. She is now settled in New York and at work on an encyclopedia of superstitions. "'Fear," says Miss de Lys, "is the basis of all superstition fear of the unknown, fear of disaster, fear of ing his ten fingers and two feet, l England reports a run on eleph- which he thought of as units, he ar- ant -hair charms. Faith in these ent- rived at twelve. Beyond lay the un- ertaining lucky pieces goes back at known, the unpredictable thirteen. least 3,000 years to a certain wilY Conversely, of course, there are maharajah, who bestowed an eleph- those few who believe both Friday ant -hair charm upon a worthy and AFTER VICTORY, WE'LL STILL RE ' ffi i, • ?SOP LS Kt call S1°D will t nada s peacetime ea6ea only of all Cuarr SAO Canada's xthe s, effortslus the }.0 bwt mashy A more workers, an ''nf°sb sides. Y,vbo e or employees worker; at know$. ovexeeas, ex 3.0* there is mportant for work.--wait'ng, work to do after liip the wax.. THERE'S lots of work to be done. We are eager to get at it ... The war interrupted the normal expansion of Boll Telephone service. 4s telephone materials grew scarce, more and more people had to wait their turn. Today, the waiting list is nearly 70,000. Just as soon as men and ;materials are again available, these deferred applications will be filled. Work will be resumed on conversion to dial telephones, on rural expansion, on extension and improvement of present services, on rebuilding our normal back -log of reserve equipment. �n 4etif a Setvhe..• okdoeflootis to. aka. 8/ H. H. P. JOHNSTON Manager. F. the centurions and elegant nobles of ancient Rome, No story of superstition revitaliz- ed by war is complete without some mention of mascots—human mascots or talismans or chams, and animals, the latter beloved by armies since history has been written. When the soldiers of Rome tramp- ed the roads of Gaul, pet mascots were popular. One of the legions of Vespasian boasted a mascot eagle caught in the Australian Alps, which had been trained to ride on the standard of the legion in place of the traditional golden' eagle. In an- cient Egyptian paintings we find cats riding in war chariots. Statuary dug out of the ruins of Babylon shows trained lions and leopards, mascots of the Assyrian kings, charg- ing into battle. Marching men of this generationcarry with them a strange assortment of cats and clogs, goats and pigs. And many a ranking naval manrefuses to put to sea unless his black cat is aboard. A curiously accurate outline of history could be written in the fan- tastic phrases of superstition drawn from each age and each nation. But the real task that lies ahead for ser- ious students and researchers, such as Miss de ys, is the debunking of these misbeliefs which cloud our' thinking and confuse our emotions. The Family Air -Car personal use. With the helicopter, on the other hand, any average, middle- aged person, whose reflexes are none too good, can fly with perfect ease and safey. Anyone, that is, who can drive a car, can fly a helicopter. The direct -lift machine which Sik- orsky ikorsky envisions as our normal mode of transportation in the near future, has characteristics which can. of be claimed by any other type of con- veyance. It can hover, ascend, and descend vertically and at any speed which one may choose. It can back up, go forward, sideways, or stop with absolutely no forward motion, merely by manipulation of a control stick which is as simple to manage as the clutch or brake of a car. The hazards of the unknown al- ways look more dangerous and com- plicated than do those of something with which we are familiar. When we are out on the roadway speeding along in our automobile we are too accustomed to the man who slithers by within an inch of our door, or the one who comes tearing over the crest of a hill in the middle of the highway, to really fear the consequ- ences. Such hazards as these will never be met in our helicopter in the vast skyway. And, according to the inventor, there will be few, if any dangers whatever to combat or look for. When landing, the driver of the helicopter does not have to gauge height and distance, or look out for telephone poles or trees or hay- stacks. For he descends vertically, and needs the smallest of landing places before shutting off his engine and stepping out on to the ground. If the engine should suddenly stop short in mid-air, the pilot is,still Safe for a clutch- automatically •disaii- gages the engine fl'oin the rotor blades which continue to swirl round and round lay means of the ail' pressure itself. and. with all the other controls remaining as wnG. the helicopter descend, safely and calm- ly from any altitude. So long as one has good eyesight, no particular hear ailment. a desire to see the world and live away from the hurly-burly of crowded eities, the helicopter will be the train. of etreeteal' of the future. And --fen. the price of a car. with '•:.race to house it. and sono place torso ---it is yours—for the slur;''. Ten years from now your place of work may be in the same city. But your home may be a hundred or more miles away. The helicopter will be a universal node of transporta- tion as the streetcar is now, and not in the least more dangerous. A helicopter school bus will de- scend smoothly and rapidly in front of the door and the children climb aboard. In a minute the machine ascends straight into the air and is off to a school maybe 150 mules away. Likewise you will go to your place of business in your helicopter. If your wife accompanies you. she inesy leave you in the city and go on to visit another town some miles"away. She will be as safe, or safer, than if driving a car. The helicopter "airway," in the vast expanse of sky all round her will be tilled with other women and girls, and inen about their business. Probably there will be two or three heights at which they manipulate their machines depending upon their own particular preference. Them will also be a few general rales to follow, The helicopter could actually be enjoyed today—in 19.13, if the world were not first intent upon the des- truction of evil. The helicopter, to- day, is being used in all manner of ways which cannot be made public. When one realizes how easy it is for this machine to stand still, or hover, with equal safety in mid-air, how it can lower a rope to the sea, how it can aid, exhausted seamen to climb aboard, one begins to have some idea of the ways in which in this war, this invention of Igor Sikorsky is aiding in our fight against the Nazis. But it is to the helicopter's use in civil life after this war that the inventor himself is really looking. Designer of several military and civ; ilian airplanes, and now engineering manager of Vonght.Sikorsky, a divi- sion of United Aircraft Corporation, Sikorsky declares with unbounded enthusiasm and not a moment's resi- tation that he believes the building and maintenance of helicopters will become a flourishing industry within ten years after the war, He says that he can offer a helicopter which can be used by the" average person, with- in a year after peace is declared. There are, it seems, several rea- sons why we shall all take to this strange -looking machine for travell- ing after the war. One is that while most of us would like to travel by plane, it has, so far..been too expen- sive for most of its. Again, the speed at which , the, modern plane flies makes it Necessary to have a large runway, and. airport for taking off: This :necessitates locating such :air- ports end runways ,soiree distance from the cities of Anieritbt There' Seeing By Ear Why a blind man can walk along n street and. without the aid of •:ish- ,•r his stick or a passerby. stop .1.: ,l before a blank wall, has long been a puzzle to doctors and laymen nli'ce. Most popular theory: the blind are aided by a mysterious "sixth sense" which develops after the onset of blindness as a compensatory faculty, After making 1,500 experiments, Dr. Karl M. Dallenbach, acoustical expert, of America's Cornell Univer- sity, was certain last week that lie had found the real answer. Two of Dr. Dallenbach's students, Wilton Cotzin and blind Michael Supa, took part with him in the ex- periments. Covering their bads com- pletely with cowls, all three marched forward towards a screen, walked around it without touching it. As the seeing and the sightless all scored full marks on this test, the doctor's first belief was that the blind man's skin acted as a sixth sense, helping him to feel the air pressure as he approached a solid object. As a test, all three covered every bare patch on their bodies, but Supa still appeared to have some advan- tages over the other two, was more. confident and assured. It was noted that he could step as far away as 15 ft. from the screen, walk slowly around it without com- ing into contact. When the experimenters covered their ears they got their first real clue and when they removed their shoes the mystery was solved: It was decided that leas of sight, is compensated. by extra hearing. When a' blind man walks he can hear the faint echo of his steps. As he ap- ,p>rg;tichee rSend ollr4c1;041e echo is Softened. The sixth sense- is merely an acutely developed fifth sense.