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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1924-06-19, Page 7INC EIV1TCt, :;VISITORS fid" SEE SHAKESPEARE WILL Casual etrollexs for 'rho hurry Peet a It4naieaearcet bullet• lag with arc grnpouing feciirle •hy Sir Witiiazn .Clhanahere know that Somer- tiet irttpe 1 the place where vital etettletien tend Probate records for the United ICingdole are deposited, says as London despatch. Moist of the visitant, however, know only vag'zely' about this vast treasure house Rad they etre the people who pay a .shilling to look up the records, of births, deaths. and marriages, and sit in a dingy little room while the entry ;they want le e�earched for in the enor. nanous fireproof vaults that contain 150,000,000 names. Some few pene- trate a still dingierroom where wills and lists of shareholders can be ex- amined. It is probably better foe tile peace of mind of Somerset House's custo- dian that a is not widely known that upon payment of a shilling fee a visit- or •can have Shakespeare's will shown to kiln. It is, Somerset House's most treasured possession, an was brought ett'the other day for inspection by a party of special overseas visitor's who dgh the Strand nest to It in value, the tittle group of privileged viaaltors .saw:, :the eidleii. Made by Lord Nelson in hie diary. on• the eve of. the Battle of 'Tratelr aa, which weir found in an escritoire .a year after his death, In Nelson's Iarge fleu,rislaing handwriting one may read how' he left "Emma, Lady Hamilton, as a legacy to ray'Xing and to my ooun- try," expleinirlg how Be'ilLadyship had helpedin a certain political move. The Duke of Wellington's will, dis- posing In thin, fine handwriting of about $2,600,000—an enormous for- tune for the times -explained that the hero of Waterloo was making it be- cause "an attempt bas been mads last night to assassinate me." Dr. Samuel Johnson's. will and G1adetone'e will, written by himself in a little green - covered notebook, with special stipu- lations'that "on no account shall any laudatory inscription be placed on me," were also examined in turn. Tbue story of a sailor's• ill, found by a diver, in a metal box 300 years after it had been cast into the sea and brought to Somerset House to be proved, fascinated the party.. "When were making one of a series of Yi54.8the will was placed in the box in 1666 to historical London, arranged in aid the parchment on which it was writ - of Ding Edward's hospital fund. • ten must have been large," stated an official, "When it was 'taken out it had shrunk considerably, but the writ- ing was perfectly legible." The wills, of soldiers: and sailors In the great war are a class, to them - The poet's testament is written on a eheet of yellowed paper, Written over with the decisive writing of a Strat- ford notary. It is, of tourse, kept un- der glass, but it was not so protected soon enough.. Decisive as was the. selves. One is elate pho•tograph of a girl with the "words written on it, "AIl to her," which was proved from the handwriting, and a will which a sailor wile was killed in the Battle of Jutland had engraved on the back of his identification disc and which was legally proved. poet's ualtgraphy, it le mostly unde- olpherable now except the famous eleus:e in which Shakespeare left unto his unhappy - wife, Anne. Hathaway, 'My •second best bed with the lanai. ave." Lying near Sakespeare's will and Cities. Jerusalem is like a tower in the East; The name lifts upward like a soaring cry; It is a banner flung against a darken- . ed sky; .A broken feast. Dead Babylon is porphyry and old wine; Spent lust made gorgeous like a pois- oned rose; A princess of the royal blood, who goes To lay her offering on a ta•tnted shrine. Biskra is like a silver moth, and Capri tells • - Of sappbro sky and water, and pink she:l]s. Palermo is a sculptured dream, and Thebes ory To heedless oenturtes hurrying by: "You will not stay, as we stayed, to grow old; alhis awful head. was Pharaoh --be- hold!" Tyro goes wrapped in purple like a king. Old thoughts in lavender exhale a breath, Through long and beautiful remember- ing, That spell the name of. Nazareth. Some towns are fountains; some aro wells; §gyule iso" music; Delhi smells. 0f musty fabrics sewn with gold, .end very old, And there are ruined cities, half for- got, That fell before the Vandal and the Cloth, And one there was that bred Iscariot— Accursed of all the ages--Kerioth. —Mary Brent Whiteside, His Mother's Spirit? } ]ittle boy, six years of age, re- ettntly ran away from his Biome in p•ersa.—about twelve utiles from t les -to esca e .rola hie step mth- ) ftpD ft er, who ill-treated tiro. 'avkng searched for flint in vain, his Lather -informed the pollee. Soon Pas- ff ,n alino was discovered at Naples with hie grandmother. The latter told hew, a few days before she had heard a knook.ing at the door, and, on open- ing it, slut had aeeu, to her astonish- i)fntt her small grandson standing atone, • Parrot Sense. - "Aha!" said the head clerk, "I'm. glad to notice -that you're arriving punctually now, Mr. Sl000nabe." . "Yes, sir. I've bought a parrot." "A parrot? What on earth far? i told you to get an alarm clock." "Yes ---1 did. But after a day or two I got used to it, and it didn't wake me. So I.got' a parrot; and now, when I go to bed, I fix the alarm clock and put the parrot's cage on to of it. When the claire goes off it startles the par- rot, and then what the bird says would wake up any body," Brain -Food Stuff Again. let Neighbor—"Why ase, you chas- ing my cat and calling her a dumb brute? She's a very intelligent ani- mal!" 2nd Ditto --"Well, if she is, madam, it's because she's just eaten my bowl of goldfish, I'cl like you to know!" .Automobiles, large and 'shall, may cri>wd him out In the big cities, but when it comes to fording the Grand' Parkes River at Mount Robson Park, British Columbia, the horse issti14 mighty useful, as his master will testify. Bright, But Slow. The inhabitants of the New Forest, one of the few woodland regions left in England, are truly Arcadians. The English novelist Mr. H. A. Vachell, who lives there, writes in Fellow Tra- velers that there are men and women there who have never been so far from home as Southampton, the principal city of the county. During thewar one of the ancients asked Mr. Vachell, "Whatever are we gobs' to do wi' the Preaches when, we've beaten un? He believed England was fighting the hereditary enemy! Mr. Vachell tells another story. An old man was asked . whether he had ever been to London. "Aye, that I has," he piped up cheer- tly, "They comes. to me an' asks me ;o farm part of what they calls: a dep- gitation. `Lard loos 'ee,' I says; 'I stint got no closes fit for Lunnon town,' I says. `Never you mind,' says they; `do 'ee come along wi'us. An' 1 did. "Well, we all marches so grand an' gay down that there street they balls Regency Street, when all of a sudden- like a gert, 'cd -faced man atop of a bus yells out: `Halt!' Course we halt- ed, and then he says. `How in blazes do they keep the crows aft the wheat when you fellers • coxae to' town?' "We was oudeniably down -scramb- led, we was; but a very notable ans- wer blowed into my yed just a fort- night afterwards. 'Twas ' in November when we eves marchin' down that there Regency Street, and' in Novel• ber there be no wheat to keep erowss off!" Egypt Feared Cat Sorcery. The belief tet cats were connected with sorcery and were the preferred attndants of witches is said to have originated in Egypt. Gray's Church No peont hi the 'English tensile is better known or more frequently quoted, perhaps, than is Gray's "k11eg'Y Written in a Country' Churchyard." Many, a person who Can quote pass- ages from it or even- recite the whole poem frcxu memory is, however, ignor- ant of the fact that there is a particu- lar .Churchyard described in the poet's verses and a scant few are aware that this "country churchyard" and the church which stands within it—the •brciugh.t you here?" she asked. chorale whose "ivy mantled tower" "A woman," answered Pas ualino, was the secret bowerof the moping owl wonzaaa? „" tt —ate both in danger. The church.- 'Q4'1rai: 1"1 don't' em!! paid ibe child; 'Ihe then told his grlancinxother that be had ran away because his stepmother beat ..??, but had got frightened, not know - r where to go. While he was wan- e,. about th' trees' of Averse a wan - t:044 bent e streets let vftOtti u came up to him and took hire e • hand, Without speaking, she } t d him on to the electrle tram ir'rxins• between averse and Naples, i Ungpins. lit is closely to her alt the way. Nettles she led hini to hisgrand- , nlotliers honse, knocked, gave hini klse•, and lett him. "Had you never seen her before.?" asked too wondering graudmctber. "Never, but able was: like that," said the hoe, pointing to a, petograph of Iris own mother that steed` en the table. His mother had died when he .wee only a tow moths eld, Man Morrie to Tomb Who Once Boxed King's Ears. 'The man who ones) holed. King George's ears has died in London and tette belled at Alveietpko, XIanrpshire. He was the Rev. Ralph Vonabies Wil- son, a naval Chaplain, who served on the warship on which King George Was a midshipman, The then Prince offended they chaplain; who adthiixis- tenet] punlehn'iorat on' the spot., yard of losing its country aspect and the eburch of crumbling into ruin, Saint Giles Church M -in the little. hamlet of Stone Pages, about twenty miles from London. 11 is rapidly changing from a country eiblago to the suburb of a great city and with the change are coming all diose things or which ae• the benuty of therural as distinguished from the suburban. The long and ngly tentacles of a great aomriiereia1 city are reaching' toward Stoke Pogee, , and It is gradually bo - swallowed aap. ,New. and Incon- gruous buildings ete fiat encro..rhing upon tact Mae where. the poet ' nearl two centuries ago s<r.w hi.lre lowing bend" winding elowlyo'er the lea and "the p.htgluuan" Iaoxn word lnodding "hie weary " way. The church itself' is little short et a wreck.. Tlro tower is to -day supported by proteanscaffolding, and enles s immediate steps aro takent:o repair it. it :must' cone down, for it is .already tinder sentence of removal. • To the southwest of the old church: is air oblong brie k tomb,' where the body of the poet rest... Thisalone y"axl Should ',he :o sufficient incentive to The Reason for Sunburn. Moatpeople have the mistaken idea that sunburn is caused by "tlie heat of the sun." This. is :incorrect. San- burn is caused by the uitralvfolet rays, which constitute only seven per cent. of. sunlight. Nature herself provides a feria of protection against the ultra -violet rays, for when a person le exposed contin- ually to sunlight he will find that af- ter seeeral attacks .of sunburn, the skin becomes tanned or freckled. Tan and freckles are simply the natural pigment which nature provides as a yellow screen through which the ultra- violet rays cannot pass and se real injury by continued burl. People with tend will get severely .: times before they ca tan or freckles, which kins aany. at of a yel- low screen to keep out the ultra violet or burning rays of sunlight. �1 •- In Blackstone's Memory. Amei;•ican•Iawyeee are preaeni ne to London :'a Iffc size figure in bronze of William Blackstone, born in Cheap- side in 1723, whose codification of the English comman law e hire to bo -regarded as, the u e legal systesne` in l inglish er mune tiee. Coal Saved by Wat - er, The 'combined coal consumption of Ontario and Quebec, the provinces without a native coal supply, for 1922, was 15,405,000 tons; the coal equiva- lent of water -power development in the same area is 21,358,000 tons. It will .therefore be seen' that but for the water -power in use these provinces woitlel require 3.,763,000 tons per year or considerably more than twice their present -consumption. Stones Al I -A iWell.Known eo A t Lead ,8 +tf%)rrr ,Il the follrxwldlg -ev-eryyane koetre, he le en enthuaelaetic golfer, andel on l n he wag/ s'tending en o platform at Peddle—Ow wattlap•g tor' a •tr.a,lii to Wfudstrt f az !nig abetx'aetedty along the platfervxt itre :Suddenly-espled a cork Ser front of. hint:, Apparently oablivioue to .his sure= roundinge, he .gripped tale exquisite umbrella in both hands andein a pro- per golf attitude made a etr'oke, ,He sent the oork spinning, but itrtfor+tu to-; His One Wieh. As roost peoplo are aware, they grow cabbages etx feet lti ,,lz in the Chaotttel •i Iatads. This; be way= of introduction to a story, It eeacerne 'ptiinarll,y' Mr. Cozopston. lYlacrkentie,' the uoveliat, vale e?wnas theisland of Herm, one of group. One day, Mr. Mackenzie, aceonxpa.u- led by a friend, croaa•e4 from hie 'tiny kingdom to what Ile calls the of Jersey."maln- tendy ,of his umbrella snap-; ,� atel the he.wdle While the's'e ho clzanc,ed to overh'ear an American' tourist streaking lienar• pe'd 'off, and the greater partet it fell agingly of tiro big Jersey cabbages. on the line, ioa'r n,g only tine fcrrnies "Why, 4n Southern California, where I live," he said, "alt vegetation is on A.4131114,1* gigantic scale: Out there we have lilac bushes fifty feet high." "1 wish I cciutd lilac that, was Mac kenzie's whinetical comment, uttered in an undertone to his friend, Ready Wit; , One of ,the' stories told recently by Mr. Winston Churchill concerns the time when he 'cultivated a moustache. A sprightly damsel accosted him one day with the- remark: "Mr. Churchill, I Ince your na.oustaclie as little as I like your political views.," "Well," replied Winston, "as you are never likely to conic in.gontact with either, it doesn't matter much, does It?" • Balfour's Bad Stroke, Among the stories told in regard to end In his beaade, His loots of blank ntnazememt caused• rt good deal ox amusement among the people on the platform who tied witnessed the incl dent. Such is Falme. There are many good tales concern- ing Charles. Dickens, the great author. One of the best is told by the, famous impersonator of Dickens' chaaacters, Mr. Bransby Williams, a-nd'ls, coneern- ed with a eonversation he overheard between two gallery bays outside a theatre where he was appearing. The two ware studying the names on a poster at the •d'oor; and discussing the various artists., when ome of them suddenly asked: "Say, Bill, who's this 'ere Dickens?" "Wot, don't yer know?" said lea pal. "Why, 'e's th' bloke wet writes, the patter for Bransby Williams," Whid Faces. The winds that blow where none inay see Pour different faces show to me; The North wind is a buccaneer With long, hooked nose and cruel leer, Who sae the main on a pirate shin, Pistols and cutlass at his hip. Teangun, calm, is the wind of the South, Like a gentle nun with a sweet, pure mouth. Singing alone in the cloisters dim. (Have you not heard 'her vesper hymn?) A- rollicking lad is the Western wind, Roaming the world to seek ant] find (Sandaled with faery sboon his feet)-- Strange worlds to see, strange folk to meet. The East wind is a woman old, Shroudedin thick mists 'gainst the -cold. Weaver of weird, wild epelis is she, Tears fn her eyes oontinually. The winds that others may not see These different faces show to me! --Matta V. Oaruthers `tn, oath's. Com. penton. Labor Saving. "You should strike out for yourself, my son." "But it is a good deal less work, dad, to let the umpire call the str-iles." Doing .the little things uncommonly well is the surest route to big thine. eset b " s By F, L. MINN3QERODLi. niche in Westminster Abbey or 'a marble mausoleum ,in any other spot, The whole poem seems to live in these, quiet surroundings.. There is the English landscape, there are the fields of grain, and the woods .which bring to mind the lines: "Oh. diel the harvest to their sickle yieyld. . How bowed they woods beneath their sturdy stroke!" But we look further and see the buildings,g•oiug up and hear the ham- mers of the builders and realize poig- n.antly that unless the happy meadows where crows still graze, meadows dial adjoin the churchyard, are reud:trod immune from ibo cncroactnecnts of new buildings that .the chane of the place must suffer stverely, '.!`o -day Stele 7'ogc.; k not ' far•froru the mad- ding crowd's ignoble strife." To -mor. row it may be in the midst of it! So many changes have been Cro 9, wrought in the surrounding countr.Y: wrote the Elegy while sitting. In the that this quiet church and churchyard l yard of Saint exiles Church, it is seem today like a rare and beautiful known that the poet was many years piece ef-old-Le'liioned jewelry display -lin writing it, hut it is not hard to con- ed on the same velvet -green plash' lance yourself that the picture of this with 'more; Modern creations. The quiet countrysde seen from the village latest) where Gray's mother lived at churchyard remained constantly in the West End Farm—scarcely a mile dis• mental vision of the poet and was the taut ---has been added to and, made inspiration for many, if not all, of the modern. Most of the old landmarks fine lines the poem contains. have disappeared, been modernised, or The fact that Gray lived at Stoke their 'beauty detracted from in ;Boole, Pages, haat his last resting place is other way, within that country t'.hurchyard wlaiclz Tho.olil•est part .of t1:i3 church is hie poem has made famous, is sufil- about six -hundred years old. There dent reason for preserving it as near er° huge wooden beams on the teach' ly as tt was when be roused there that, th a certain knowledge, ' have nearly two centuries age —in the t;vi• been in their place for four hundred light of a summer's dray. To the years, Who t'solemn lr'oups have pass• poetry lover it is holy ground. and as ed beneath them during the centuries) such it shcutd never kuow net Raiiging high in the old church are ing ugliness of a city :Areal., nor the tho arms oY the Penns and many an-; leuc;es rattle of x trolley car. It outer famous' family, l should be kept undefiled teem the tem-_ NO one believes that Cray ac'tnally i tality of our rrhod,ern oivitixaeon. To butld a factory or'an apartment house • or, a r'ow'; of dwellings in tli ' meadow "d a'ning the country ehurelhy ar'd of {fray elic:'gv tt'ruld fell little short i;t cracyy sacriicgo. A movement le ore feel to raise a sue tteient sum to repair the eburebb and 1 buy, a few acres of meadowland ad- jo]nIng the churchyard hi order to forestall the enrreaallurierrt ct the; builders, T..'ngland wears. under her guise; a deep sentiment for her liter-; .try men and more especially hear poets.', The limo is Altort, hut there ie littler; doubt that funds will bo found to main- iain this shrine iu ninth taf its old- time simplicty and bcecrty; to pre 'Naf'rve it fronr, "the madellug crowd." i Why? • lovers• ,of poetry everywhere to conic Here are '.'r' r of u r v to tlx rewire at the tur•entend church e a .i; cul, .c . rr rlt r-rrolni, he in their ber•sons end at the ;same ti' and churchyard. It le 'a mare fitting g Iyttrinl plaoe for Gray •tran would be a ,lames' Perk, London. 'S''a uarg Mrs, Brown. i)1), it I only f knew what to do with baaleet i rel 'tVn"ltiti inter sclrool ebil;lren loris' t" ai of Neighbor (visiting) ) .,"'•_ l ld h (v s lug May, tin winning back their, health' in St, met. frown, :Minn. you get a book of I instractions .with it 7" • 1 . The Reason Why. "Shall I spray my fruit trees?" •Cev- tainay; my friend, spray away ---the mare the better; afterward go oat and kill a few .mores birds; then resume your spraying! The more birds you kill the more. you will need to spray your trees, until finally, no doubt, you will be compelled tontee the spraying machine all the time or raise no Eruct, Strange you have not thought of this befoaee, Do you not see that des- troying the insect -eating birds de- pr1ve,s your trees of 'their protectors and gives full sway to hordes of greedy marauders that are sure to ruin them? —vihen will you learn wisdom'? Not long since wo visited a beauti- ful toweethat was ones noted for its stately overhanging elms., all along up- on both sides of the bread streets waved their banners of living green. Now they stand, nothing but bare stubs twelve or fifteen feet in height -not a branch to be seen! Upon ask- ing the reason of this wholesale des- truction we were informed that the trees became so diseased that they had to be thus treated to save them! "A kind of white, wooly, sticky stuff grew out all over the branches, and we lied tto cut them of!" Jerusalem! Think of that?—velli you? . Whene, few grains of common sense, and . a little reading, would have tariglat the grave city fathers that a part of these same branc%s applied smartly to the shoulders of the bird -killers would have cured the evil and saved the trees t What are our public schools for but to instill into the minds of the young a knowledge of ,every -day thin•gs? — alas, in too many instances it might be said of their would-be instructors, "no have gat; how can get?" These same "sticky, wooly 'mesa - tuxes" are one form of the aphis, a paaut devourer, and a dainty rnorsel in the larder of the feathered tribes. Left to their care it would seen disappear, or rather, had the birds been spared it would have been kept under con- trol and 'doubtless entirely extermin- ated. At best the reign is brief, for soon they .assume a new form and leoality. Spare the birds and save your fruit, How Big is the Pacific? Few people reallee the inunense sine of the Pacific Ocean. Comparing it with the Atlantic is like contrasting the Grenadier Pond in High Parr To- rontc, with Lake Simcoe. The Pacific is almast a hemisphere at water, and it is startling to think that, if the whole land surface of the globe could be fitted together like a jig -saw puzzle, the resulting surface would not be as extensive as this one oeeari3 e few figures will show this. For lnstanee, the well -traversed route from Liverpool to New York Is 8,050 miles, but from Yokohama to Valparaiso, a similar southern trend, heroes the Pa- cific, the ci;stence is 0,840 utiles, Across this ocean's' .narrowest part, namely, front Vancouver to Yoko- :alna; is 4,260 miles. The Pacific stretches from the Aro- lie Ocean eo the antarctic Ocean, and eontains reve.nty- million square miles c:f area, in thie vast area are tens o:t thouciuids of islands, some little larger than a tete common, and others. which would be called large elsewere hat are dwarfed by their situation.. Work on Rheihns Csithedral Has Begun. The Work cif i'ebuildiug the wary ruined Pheinas Cathedral has steeled as a retina of John D. Rocketcllsr .Ir.'s girt ref; e1,f)fi0,of0 for repo' r to ilre :aura. Scaffolds are hurriedly being built emend the building, while :,sores of worlsanen are busy with stoiae 'end • inert are Postponed Politeness. Martel and been told that ,tt was. not polite 10 tar: the laic biscuit cit the plate, but the tauter morning at breakfast b11s 4111 as she tcadted'tor. it: "Ob,' mamma, I'nx alnro,;t 'tervtel! 1 three :1 won't be matte to -day; i'11 Watt 1111 setae day 1's,e tat hung;'y"