HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1949-08-18, Page 3Prince
Can Laugh
By Richard Hill Wilkinson
A week after I established resi-
dence in Seabrook, Ray Quimper,
my next door neighbor took time
off to drive me around the town and
ehow me the points of interest.
Toward evening she stopped his
ear before a driveway that led up
to a huge brick house on top of
Drybridge Hill. It was the only
brick building in town and could be
:seen for miles around. I had won-
dered about it since the day of
eny arrival.
"The home of Prince Alexander
Moiseeich eborin," he explained.
I looked at him curiously, sensing..
that this was a proud moment for
Ray. He had saved the brick house
until last, like a child relishing the
last morsel.
"Of course," Ray explained fur-
ther "he has a city home too, But
the fact is he spends the greater
part of his time out here. He craves
solitude."
"Are you sure? I mean, wouldn't
it be fitting to let the an know
you're glad to have him as a cid-
nen?"
"We've tended to that," Ray, said
importantly. "Three days after his
arrival a committee made up of
loading citizens waited on the
prince and extended him a formal
welcome." He regarded me sagely.
'We're smart enough not to an-
tagonize .the man by pestering him
'So death."
011 the day of which I write
wasremoving storm windows from
my house, for spring was near and
the day was bright and warm. The
prince came strolling along my
street and stopped, oddly enough,
M the end of my drive to watch. I'
• percieved him front the corner of
my eye, though gave no indication -
tint I had seen. After a momett
se two, much tomes satisfaction, he
•turned in at the drive and came
slowly toward me. At this precise
moment the stepladder on which 1
Was standing tilted precariously and
tilt window 'elves removing threat-
ened to tumbTe to the ground.
I uttered a cry of alarm, turned,
percieved the prince as if for the
first time and shouted to him for
Md. Involuntarily, he leaped for-
ward and steadied the ladder until
I had descended.
"Phew!" I grinned. "That was a
'dose call."
"It was indeed," he replied.
"Would you mind holding the lad-
der for me ori this window over
here?" He seemed a little sur-
prised, but agreed to lend his as-
sistance. He proved as good a
helper as I could have asked for.
Three windows I removed while he
steadied the ladder and helped me
lower them to the ground. We
chatted amiably about the weather.
Presently the task was done
and I turned to him, grinning.
"Thanks a lot. I don't know how
I would have managed without
you."
"Really?" He seemed to appreci-
ate my compliment. "Frankly, I've
enjoyed it, not only the work, but
our little visit." He hesitated, "You
are new in town, aren't .you?"
"Comparatively," I said. "It's a
mighty nice town, Folks are all
like yourself. Ready and willing to
lend a hand when help is needed."
I smiled happily. "The fact that
I know your name, Prince Alexan-
der, proves a little theory of ,my
own."
He stared in astonishment. "You
know who I am? You knew when
you asked me to help remove the
windows?"
I nodded. "Your philosophy and
mine have a good deal in common.
Prince. And that is, that you're no
different from the rest of, us. I'd
even venture to say that you are
quite unhappy living up there in
your castle so far removed from
everybody. To prove that I am
right, I'm going to ask you a ques-
tion. Tomorrow I'm going fishing,
How would ybu like to come
along?"
"I'd 'like to very much,'" he said.
"But we must keep it a secret from
the rest of the people. It would, be
a pity to destroy their illusion."
I , agreed, Winking at him know-
ingly, and the prince and I then
and there shared a hearty laugh.
Men To Judge
Home Baking
For the first time in the C.N.E.'s
history, the judges for the home -
baking competitions will be men!
And because the top prize in the
applepie contest is $100, Mrs. Kate
Aitken, C.N.E. Women's Director,
has scoured the country for the
group of men best able to pick the
best cake and pie out of at least
hundreds. She has invited the mem-
bers of the Ontario Bakery Pro-
duction Men's Club. They will come
from Hamilton, London, Bowman-
ville, Brantford and Toronto.
All 16 male judges will have to
sample hundreds of apple pies,
fruit bread, white bread, date end
nut loaves, angel cakes, shortbread
and all the other varieties of home -
baking that attract the attention of
thousands ateethe C.N.E. each year.
So far most entries are for the
$100 apple pie. Butter tarts are next
in popularity among contestants,
with bran muffins, third, and white
bread, fourth.
How Edgar Bergen Got
His Start
Edgar Bergen Made his radio
debut in 1936 when he managed to
engineer an audition for the guest
spot on the Rudy Vallee program.
The sponsor declared audibly that
anybody who thought a ventrilo-
quist could hold a radio audience's
attention was screwy as a bird dog.
Bergen was so nervous that he al-
most dropped his precious Charlie
McCarthy and muffed several lines
in the scrip. The sponsor chortled
derisively. An assistant waved a
copy of the scrip at Bergen and
said, "Here's your place." Bergen
nodded and the assistant moved '
away. "Hey," yelled Charlie, "let
me have a gander at that scrip."
Theyoung man wheeled about and
unthinkingly thrust the scrip before
the wooden dummy's eyes. The -
sponsor stared at the spectacle, mut-
tered "I'll be damned," and ordered,
"Make out a contract for the guy."
The Turtle
The turtle lives 'twixt plated
decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In 'such a fix to be so fertile,
—Ogden Nash
They Taste Things With Their
Why do house flies get into the
molasses? Because, say a couple
of bug experts, they taste with
their feet.
Dr. Hubert W. Frings, associate
professor of zoology, and his wife,
Mabel Frings, found in intensive
research that the end segments of
the legs of flies were taste organs.
They also learned that the
shorter hairs of the pads on the
end of the proboscis are taste or-
gans. The longer hairs are used as
sense of touch organs.
House flies were only one of 23
species of insects examined by Dr.
Frings and his wife in their study
of taste halts.
Possible taste organs of the in
sects were touched with fine glass
needles, bearing either water, sugar
solutions, or a salt solution, after
control tests were made.
Cockroaches while unable to
taste with their feet, were found
to have taste organs in three other
places—on feeler -like appendages
protruding from the mouth, parts,
on a fold on the floor of the mouth;
and a part of the Hp. ,e
The roaches paid no attention to S
sugar water when these organs
were removed. But they were able
to find dog biscuit or other food
particles.
"A pearently," Dr. Frings hems
mented, "they have a keen sense
of emetl,"
Feet
Taste Test on cockroach:
Not like a fly's foot.
There's A Boom In Barn Painting --Painting the barn is no
longer the chore it used to be. A spray -painting service has
developed this aerial telescipic boom. which eliminates ladders
and scaffolding. Now it's a one-mj
an ob.
•
Has -X-Ray, Eyes
' 19 -Year-old South African stu-
dent has recently caused a sensa-
tion with his "X-ray eyes" which
enabledhim to "see" water, gold
and oil in the form of light rays.
What is the secret of this strange
faculty? Probably very much the
same power as that possessed by
the water -diviners of old and the
"dowsers" as they are now called.
Dowsing is now believed by many
otherwise orthodox scientists to be
a purely physical response to radia-
tion, the reaction being caused not
by water but by oil, minerals,
archaeological relics, and even being
used to determine the sex of eggs.
The theory is that everything has
its own wavelength and • that the
skilled dowser is a person sufficiently
susceptible to those radiations to be
able to act as a kind of "receiving
set". Certainly the famed Japanese -
chick-sexers now have strong rivals
in these people who, by suspending
something personal like a wedding
ring on a piece of cotton over the
eggs, can with a high degree of
accuracy determine their fertility
and sex of the unhatched chicks.
There are also dowsers who claim
to be able to-- determine both the
sex and personality of a person
from a photogeaph. and to state
whether the individual is alive or
' dead. Others undertake to locate
water, mineral deposits and ancient
relics by hanging their pendulum
over a map of the district! There
is even a French shoemaker who
tests the quality of a hide in this
way before buying it. The best
leathers apparently produce rays
which are directed due north, so
if you are doubtful about your new
pair of shoes, try a dowsing pendu-
lum over them!
There is nothing. so fantastic about
the boy with the X-ray eyes. His
"divining" faculties are, po doubt,
more highly deitloped than the
dowsers who still work either with
a rod or with a bead suspended on
a fine thread, to which is trans-
mittteiti the vibrations set up in the
muscles of the arm.
Recent Floods
In Australia
The area worst affected by. the
. flood waters was in the north of the
state where the Hunter River broke
its banks and four towns had to be
evacuated. in the vicinity of Malt -
eland, Singleton, and Cessnock five
inches of rain fell in one day, and
the river rose forty-five feet. Com-
munications broke down, and some
areas were completely isolated.
Several families sat on the roofs
1 of their homes waiting to be rescued
by police boats, and at Maitland
forty people lived in motor 'buses
'parked on the railway bridge near
the station.
With the lack of milk, meat, and
fresh vegetables, there was a run
'on tinned foods, and many of the
stores which normally stock these
goods, stacked to the ceiling, dis-
played "Sold Out" notices. In sever-
al households people were reduced
to cooking on kerosene stoves afid
eating by candle -light.
Disasters of this kind usually
bring to light several human stories.
There was the story of the express
train saved from en almost inevi-
table crash •by the initiative of a
father -and his son who, by one of
those strange turns of fate, hap-
pened to pass an embankment that
had Just subsided.
The father telephoned the local
stationmaster, but it was already too,
late to stop the express by means
of signals. The only hope was to
stop it themselves. Father and son
ran half -a -mile along the track
gesticulating wildly to the oncom-
ing train; the train was going fast
and, before the driver could halt
It, it was on the brink of the wash -
away where about fifty yards of line
were suspended thirty feet above
the ground. A few seconds more,
Sitd the express would have plunged
lee' feet Into the valley.
ENGLAND, 1847
I see her not dispirited, not weak,
but well remembering that she hu
seen dark days before; indeed, with.
a kind of instinct that she sees a
little better in a cloudy day, and that
in storm of battle and calamity, she
has a secret vigor and a pulse like
a cannon. I see her in her old age,
not decrepit, but young, and still
daring to believe in her power of
endurance and expansion. Seeing
this, I say, All haill mother of na-
tions, mother of heroes, with
atrength still equal to the time;
still wise to entertain and swift
to execute the policy which the
mind and heart of mankind requires
in the present hour, and thus only
hospitable to the foreigner, and
truly a home to the thoughtful and
generous who are born In the soli.
So let it be! So let it be!
—Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Real Heat
When you think its hot, consider
Azizia
-That's a town in northwestern
Lybia, about 25 miles south of
Tripoli, where the highest temper-
ature ever recorded under standard
soared to 136.4 degrees, notes the
1922. On that day the thermometer
conditions was taken on Sept. 13,
National Geographic Society.
If you prefer to Confine your
research on heat extremes to North
America, visit Death Valley in
southern California. An official
reading of 134 degrees has been
taken there at the United States
Weather Bureau station on the
Valley's edge. Even higher tem-
peratures, ranging up to 150 de-
grees, may occur in the low-lying
interior.
THECAE. FRONT
JokiliaLszett,
I wouldn't know how to pro-
nounce it and If it wasn't written
plain and clear on the sheet in front
of me, how to spell it, Anyway, the
word is "chemurgy" and, according
to the same sheet it means "that
branch of applied chemistry devoted
to industrial utilization of organic
materials, especially farm products."
s. *
Noah Webster, and all the rest of
you dictionary makers, move over.
1 think I've had itl
* * *
Anyway, it seems like these
chemurgic chemists have been mak-
ing history, although that's no boost
because so did Hitler. They took a
look around and saw that prairie
farmers were setting fire to millions
of tons of straw every year, and it
worried them,
* * *
So what did two of thein do but
• get busy and develop a new. method
of processing wheat straw into high-
grade paper and pulp -board. This,
their press agents inform me, will
place insulating board made from
straw in a position to compete with
similar material made from wood.
*
Thus, the next time you feel like
putting out that camp fire, lest you
burn down a few thousand acres of
wood -pulp forest, just don't bother.
The chemurgists have it all under
eontrol.
e *
Carl Miner—it says here he's a
"chemist" not a "chemurgist" but
probably he's working hard for hits
second stripe—sought to find out
how waste corncobs and oat hulls
could contribute to better living.
(And what a sequence that willl•
make in a movie, with Carl going
up and interviewing oat hull after
oat hull, corncob after corncob,
saying, "What can you contribute,
etc." only to have George Raft or
Betty Grable pop out and frustrate
him.)
*
Anyway, Mr. work on these mate..
rials—not Mr. Raft or Miss Grable
—and discovered that they would
give out with a chemical called "fur-
fural." It has become an important
ingredient lit the manufacture of
petroleum, nylon, synthetic resins
and antiseptics, it says here.
* *
Which is O.K. with us, too—al-
though we can't help thinking what
a swell College Cheer you could
make starting with furfural. "Fur-
fural, fural, chem—ur—gee" and so
on. Still, you can't have everything.
* * *
Out in Idaho a potato -growing
community is richer by five million
dollars each year simply because of
a new industry which manufactures
white starch from culled potatoes.
Our informant doesn't mention the
chemurgists in regard to this, but
—judging. from the general tenor
of the communication—we would
take it that they should be credited
with at least an assist. Personallys
we like our potatoes French fried,
culls or not; and whenever we think
of white starch there comes a re-
membrance of a Chink laundryman
who used to take a mouthful of it,
spray it over a shirt he was working
on, and then iron the bosom to a
high, glossy shine.
*
But we are getting far astray
from our point, if any. And in the
next paragraph we are thrilled to
see a mention of this wonderful
Dominion of ours—the greatest
country in the world, populated by
the most forward-looking and intel-
ligent people ever known, although
George Drew and George McCul-
lough would probably have some
mental reservations to that last
clause.
*
"In Canada," it states here, "the
national chemurgic committee of
the Canadian Chamber of Commerce
is knee deep in cheiurgic research
with the National Research Coun-
cil." It probably serves them right,
and we only hope it comes off more
easily than the oil a young lady of
our acquaintance, aged ten, got OR
her fair skin when she went knee-
deep into the limpid waters of Lake
Ontario, in the vicinity of Sunny-
side, the oil being it would seem,
a by-producet eg modern chemical
progress.
* * *
At all events our thanks to the
ehemurgists and their press repre-
sentatives, for their assistance in
filling up a column. Right now, for
no good reason, we feel like wind-
ing up with our favorite—printable
—story.
4,
It's the one, of course, about the
city visitor who was sitting on the
farmhouse verandah. To his anon-
iehment he saw a horse out in the
field romping around, butting into,
trees, stumps, fence posts and every
other sort of obstacle available. "MT
goodness, is that poor horse blind?"
asked the visitor.
* * 4 ,
"Not a bit of it," answered det
farmer. "He just don't give a
damn."
TOO FUSSY
A man with a lot of baggage
stood cussing on the Albuquerque
platform. "S'mattter?" asked the
station agent. "I had to get that
Super -Chief," was the explanation.
"Averaged seventy an hour for
ninety miles and busted two springs
—and then 1 miss it by a Dingle
minute." "My goodness," comment.
ed the agent. "Anybody seeing the
way you're carrying on would think
you'd missed it by an hour!"
seseeill
etfA%seapel,eiZeielehegetss.,WoOlnielSpee
ea:44.0,1;,!:ititseL
FAMILY CHEATS DEATH AS GIRL
BRAVES BLAZE
Ethel Dawson, 15, of Orono, Ont.,
It was 4 A.M. when Ethel Dawson awoke,
choking and blinded by smoke. Seeing
flames, she rushed to the next room and
snatched hex. two young brothers and sister
from their bed. names were everywhere as
(she guided the children down the stairs and
outside. Carrying young Dick, she tried to
calm the other two — although her own heart
THE DOW AWARD is a citation
presented for acts of outstanding heroism
and includes a $100 Canada Savings
Bond. The Dow Award Committee, a group
•of editors of leading Canadian daily
newspapers, selects winners from
recomnzemlations made by a natiornfly
known rpm's organizmiwi.
prevents tragedy as home burns
pounded with fear for the children's safety,
Re-entering the house, she aroused her
parents. Less than 5 minutes after all were
safe, the house was a mass of flames. "We
have Ethel to thank for being alive," said
Mr. Dawson later. We are proud to present
THE DOW AWARD to Ethel Dawson of
Orono, Ont
lowam
41.1147.1110110
•))-"-<-44$4(4*':
DOW BREWER' t. MONTREAL
ak-RtOR.
—ara
se
a
is
a
5
4
4
4
4
4