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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1957-07-04, Page 3Siamese Cats On very hot days .the beautiful jet -haired Siamese princess al- ways went down to a little beach where she could bathe un- observed, afterwards sunning her slim body as she lay on the warm sands, But sometimes she was haunted by the fear •that her priceless jewels might be lost or stolen while she was in the water. One day_the sight of her faith- ful and inseparable companion, a sleek short -haired cat with eyes of clear forget-me-not blue, gave her an idea. She carefully strung the jewels together and hung them securely on the eat's rather nusual-looking tail, where they remained until she had dressed and was ready to re- turn to the palace. So often did she do this from that day onwards that the cat developed an odd kink in its tail and that is why,; says an ancient legend - all the early Siamese cats had these kinks, or knots. Few people nowadays believe this picturesque ' but unlikely story, but everybody knows that Siamese cats were once regarded as sacred animals in their own land, and were only allowed to be kept in the royal palaces and temples. As to the kink in the cats' tails, there is to -day a difference of opinion about whether it is a good or bad point at cat shows. In Siam itself the kink is con- sidered to be a malformation and one that no good cat should possess. Many breeders and judges outside of Siam, frown if they see any trace of the kink, al- though it is generally agreed that a slight one at the extreme '• tip of the tail doesn't matter very much if the cat's other features are of the highest standard. These amazing little animals with jewel -blue eyes are cats in name and in appearance only. In disposition they are more like dogs. All cat -lovers agree that they have a wonderful personal loyalty and a dog -like fidelity which is quite touching. Some experts believe that the Siamese cat is the nearest exist- ing relative to the "divine" cat of ancient Egypt. In old Siam, certainly, it was widely thought that when a man or any of his family died, their souls passed. into the cat. That is why, after a rich man's death, a Siamese cat was fre- quently sent to the temple where it lived in luxury and splendour, lying on silken cushions and be- ing fed with the choicest foods.. Jewels, gold and priceless fab- rics were "offered" to these pampered pets. Whenever an old Siamese nobleman went ena long jour- ney he usually took a Siamese cat with hien in case he should die on the way. With him, too, went a specially appointed "cat woman" whose job was to feed and tend the cat and see that it slept warmly and comfortably at night. There are still Mohammedans in Siam who seriously believe that when Mohammed comes to earth again he will be reincar- nated in the body of a Siamese. cat. They are amazingly intelligent and sometimes almost human in. their ways and emotions. One Siamese cat I know, when he has failed after many gentle taps with his paw to make his owner • attend to him, leaps lightly up on to themantlepiece and -begins to sharpen his claws upon the treasured portrait of his owner's great-grandmother that hangs above it. Cat breeders warn that the Siamese can be .very destructive in the home. Their claws have been known to rip the most valued of soft furnishings, so it is advisable to train; them from kittenhood. An epidemic of whisker -biting broke out among Siamese cats in Britain about seven years ago and many potential show -win- ners were losing their looks. It was found that the whisker - biting usually started with a newborn kitten, The kitten nib- bled off the whiskers of all his brothers and sisters and then chewed off the mother's! One result of this strange epidemic was that whiskerless Siamese cats: were bumping against furniture and stumbling in the dark, because a cat relies upon whisker - sensitivity to gauge width for the passage. of its body. Although the whiskers grew again in six weeks, the constant chewing and pulling of the top lip widened the nose of many cats and, as Siamese cats should have pointer noses, the value of the whisker -bitten ones went down and prizes at shows were missed: One Siamese cat expert said: "Whisker -bitting is just like nail® biting _ in humans. Sometimes it is because, the whiskers tickle." NO , BUMPER JACK? - Towering nine feet tall, the world's largest fires are tested in the New Mexico desert before ship- ment to Saudi Arabia. The huge tires weigh one •and a half tons each, containing more than a half ton of rubber, 197 pounds of fabric and 27,000 feet of bead wire. They're de- signed to help move complete oil pumping stations across the Arabian sands. 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Historical 47. Dperiods rop Balt lightly 48. Self 41. Light repast 51. Dessert 2. Obstinate 15. Plural ending I 0 3 ?': q 3 6 7 Ei rj 9 Id 11 I?....*I7.:,:.:13 :hV :;. )4 (9 16 ;x;::17 19 4 -V:IiI; try 20 + 'I:::::;v:•....2::::, a 3 24• 4Z.25 26 P7 26rkrr ft 29 31 :e: ;i•;;%` 33 34 '%'`''. 35 36 3739 '+h{%`fio 41 i?{;'tii.42 444, S h 2 46 43 �f `.. _3. W 47 53 49 .544 49 '. so 01 52 5$2`C 56 %reel 'inswer elsewhere on this page, DUNKED DOLLY -With .a!(' the spring flooding, Dallas might think of water as a pesky '• nuisance. But Camille Pratt, 18, knows better: She 'escapes the •95 -degree heat with a frolic in the overflow waters of the White Rock Spillway. Free world farmers 'a, creasingly alarmed th United States, through the ing 'bulk of its agricultural' ur- pluses, may be forced . into r a mammoth program of dumping of commodities. joy This dumping (the export.: sale of grains, oils, or fibers at :p ices below the costs of production) they feel is already destructive to their interests. Their concern arises from theegrewingeworld comprehension that subsidized export sales can become, it'piess- ed hard enough, "a struggle'•iZ t between farmers, but between treasuries." In such a fight"➢'t'th y fear, they can only lost, as;ast the American dollar. * * 8 Such views, exprese ial. 'louder.chorus; through;;' tic channels in re forhied.^'a central 9a"' cussion at the tenth a meeting of the Inte'na oral Federation of Agricultural it ro-. ducers. They appeared as. `'the backbone of recommendations drawn up by 200 delegates ,from 42 farm organizations represent- ing 35,000,000 farmers in 26 lands. Weighing these lengthy recom- mendations and 10 full days Of probing discussion - in simul- taneous translation in English and French - farmer observers to the IFAP session see two,pos- sible outcomes. A world "um- pire" may be set up for : com- modity trading under the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as urged by IFAP delegates, to serve as a review board using public opinion, to check the actions of nations''ruled to be using unfair trading ,prac- tices. Secondly, a new decision of just how dumping should be defined for farm crop sales., may be added to the journals of;agri- culture. It would probe closer, to the real costs of productioii, Should world farm thoiking move in an opposite direction, shifting toward the conclusion that 'fair export competition is not and will not become possible in food and fiber, farmer, or- ganizations will urge their.ov-. ernments to propose that dollar - subsidized exports be !united somewhat by world marketing agreements, observers predicted. Under these cartellike under- standings, if achieved, smaller nations that rely on their:farm crop exports for, vital national income could be assured of re- taining an area in which they could see at a profitable price. * * * With most of the world's wheat surpluses now binned •on the North American continent clue to a cpmbination of good crops, increasing technological im- provement in farming, and gov- ernment policies, IFAP members heard the most detailed criti- cism of 'Yankee export policies from the United States' neighbor to the north, Canada. Other traditional wheat exporters, Aus- tralia and Argentina, and ex- porters by policy, France 'and Turkey, have been less affected, because they had had less to sell in recent months. * * * "During the present crop year," said Canadian delegates in the restrained words of diplomacy, "intensification of surplus dis- posal efforts by our competitors will, by all appearances, serious- ly reduce our exports and cut very substantially into commer- cial markets we believe, in the absence of very heavily subsi- dized competition, would go to Canada. This whittling away of our markets threatens to con- tinue into the future, with in- creasing severity." ' * "Surpluses existing today out- side Canada are sufficiently largeif they continue to be dis- posed of by methods used dur- ing the past 12 months, to gravely damage the Western and Cana- dian farm economies," Canadian spokesmen. added. Avoiding direct reference to the past years of government high parity price supports which most delegates have agreed, encouraged the •burgeoning American 'surpluses;''^ the Canadians noted: "The roots of the international commodity problems lie, to a considerable degree, on the nature of the do- mestic agricultural policies of the world's nations." x, 9 * Australian delegates pointed 'their comments toward their na- tion's need to export agricul- turalcommodities to earn cre- dits with which to buy machinery and industrial raw materials. These in turn are necessary, they said, if Australia is to as- sure a reasonable income to its many World War II and cold - war refugees - 400,000 in five. years. State treasury competi- tion, it was indicated, could wipe away this income. Echoing these views were dele- gates representing the Ameri- can Farm Bureati Federation, the largest American farmer organi- zation. Walter L. Randolph, AFBF vice-president and farm bureau delegate from Alabama, outlined the nationwide organi- zation's thinking in detail. N * "In our view," he said, "gov- renment policies which encour- age production in excess of and in advance of effective market demand not only depress farmer incomes but they create inter- national problems which at best can be dealt with on a very un- satisfactory basis. We agree that it is not fair on a continuing basis to' subsidize the production of surpluses of our export crops through policies which recite* government 'surplus dispos4 programs' to market the com modity," Net necessarily is the domes- tic sale price of a commodity al- ways a fair export price, Mr. Randolph argued. A fair price, he suggested, is a price not lower than "the price at which the production of the commodity was induced," either by the free market price or government programs, IFAP delegates displayed, keen interest in the "soil bank," con- cept as a device to reduce pro- duction without harsh farm- land effects after war prices or government support program have pushed crop production above market needs. Farewell Tibet One of the most attractive fea- tures in Tibetan life is the habit of going to meet, and; seeing off, one's friends. When anyone goes away, his friendsoften put up a tent on his road several miles out of the town and wait for him there with a meal to speed hire on his way. The departing friend is not allowed to go till he has been loaded with white scarves and good wishes. When he comes back the same ceremony is observed. It some- times happens that he is wel- comed at several places on his way home. In the morning, may- be he first catches sight of the Patella; but on his way into the town he is held up at tent after tent by his welcoming friends, and it is evening before he arrives in Lhasa, his modest caravan swollen to stately pro- portions by his friends and their servants. He comes home with the happy feeling that he has not been. forgotten. - From "Seven Years in. Tibet," by Heinrich Harrer, translated from the German by Richard Graves. In Rochester, ordered by a judge to leave town right away after he was caught in an at- tempted burglary, George Wil- liams, 22, was nabbed 14 hours later repeating the crime, ex- plained that he was looking for money and a new pair of shoes for the trip. Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking Mil©'E3F2E/P© OCC4 Elli3g1MIC2 'DlgQ ©na0-". ®1110©I1n©Q 000% DOM CIEOCI©©111MEM ®® 0©10EEO( ©©©® ®0©© 1] 131B©©YIw ©0larna00 ® 7©lilo©ELLL3©gi© Mid oo©oq .000 a©®a - oo©oo 000 3 7TiU)ibAYscnoot LESSON By Rev. R. Barclay Warren B.A., B.D. Jethro, a Practical Counsellor Exodus 18: 13-24 Memory Selection: Jethro re- joiced for all the goodness which the Lord had done. Exodus 18.$ One never knows what great events may hinge on a little act of kindness. Moses had fled from Egypt to Midian and was sit- ting by a well. He saw seven sis- ters, who were drawing water for their father's flock, being driven away by rude shepherds. His sense of justice was outrag- ed. He came to the aid of the young ladies. The result: Moses was later invited to the home where he stayed for forty years; he married one of the daugh- ters; he received the very valu- able advice recounted in our lesson; he receivd helpful gui- dance for Israel as they journey- ed through ,...,j+he wilderness. Numbers 10:31. D. L. Moody said, "It is bet- ter to set a hundred men to work than to do the work of a hundred men." This is especially true. in the work of the king- dom of God, When people have a specific responsibilty in pro- moting the work of a church they take a greater interest. It is a point in favor of the smaller church that a higher percen- tage usually have responsibility, By organizing Israel so that there are rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, Moses was able . to conserve his strength for the weighty matters. It was well that he was humble enough to accept and act upon the advice of his father-in- law. The men chosen were to be "able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetous- ness. • The apostles acted on the sane principle in calling for "seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom" to look after the care of the wide= and other matters. Paul wrote to Timothy, "The things that thou hast heard of r711a ? 72Qi ,rn Y a same commit thou to faithful glen, who shall be able to teach others also." '2 Timothy 2:2. We must share the good news e salvation which others and urge them to pass it on. Only thum with the gospel be carried t' all men. Each one teach one. Moses may well have said con- cerning the counsel received Jethro, ;"This was the best ad- vice I ever had." "For twenty-five years wife and I were ideally happy," said Bill to his companion. "Then what happened?" "We met," LIGHT UP BEN'S FACE -Behind one of the four faces of London's famed Big Ben, workers Eric Lucas, top, and Sid Harbour install one of the 56 fluorescent -type lighting fixtures which will illuminate the massive clock for the first time since 1954. The fixtures are replacing the ordinary electric bulbs previously used. SHIPS AT SEA - Britain's newest aircraft carrier, the H.M.S. Ark Royal, passed the square* rigged Mayflower 11 in the Atlantic Ocean while the carrier wcas en route to the International :Naval Review. The replica of the Pilgrims' shi p was sailing to Plymouth, Mass.