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The Brussels Post, 1955-03-30, Page 2Fantastic Cures, Foiks. Believe In. Thoughts On Books By Famous Writers . . . e, PLAIN HORSE SENSE By k. (ROC) VON PiLlS Toys Are Up-to-Date New toys displayed at the 52nd annual. Toy Fair indicate that manufacturtrs are in step with the times, Typical of the many toys are those shown below, Pemonstratinci, them are Kenneth McKee, 64, and Jill Montini, $. There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry, —Emily Dickinseel. A. gOod book is the erecieue life-blood of a master spirit, em- balmed and treasured up on; purpose to a Life beyond Life. —John Rooks are the treasured wealth of the world, the fit in- heritapce of generations and na- teens, —Henry David Thoreau, Books have always a secret influence on the understanding;- we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; be that reads books .of. science, though without any de- site. fixed of improvement, will. gepw more knowing; he that en- tertaine himself with moral or eeligious, treatises, will impee- ceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offer- ed 1.6 the mind, 'will at last find a lucky moment when it is dis- posed to receive them, —Samuel Johnson, Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils. strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. —William. Wordsworth. Of making many books there is no end. —Old Testament. Even the world itself could' not contain the books that should be written, —New Testament. Every age bath its book. —Koran. Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the .nearest to us, for they con- tain our very thoughts, our am- bitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to truth, 'and our persistent leaning to- ward error But most of all they resemble us in their precarious hold on life. —Joseph Conrad, If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. —John Ruskin. gala Kenny provides the sound effects as he fires a "rocket warhead." Based on the Army's mobile atomic cannon unit, the toy has a "target range" of more than 35 feet. The soft plastic nose of the rocket shell' is designed for, maximum safety. 40"4 When we are collecting books, we are collecting happihess. —Vincent Starrett.. It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part, the rest.are lost in the' multitude. • —Voltaire. solution to the producers' prob- lem that even when, they act together their bargaining power is tar less then that of the big buyers. Another weakness of the pres- ent system is, the concentration of ale powers in the hands of the government and govern- ment appointed boards. This makes the system subject to political considerations and may, at. times, provoke decisions in- fluenced by political expediency. The only answer is direct marketing by self-governing bodies of producers with con- sumer representation to be established by separate Acts of Paella/melt and to operate under the supervision of a. Minister of Cooperation. Recommendations. The present session of the Legislature may be too far ad- vanced to re-vamp the whole system of • farm marketing and existing marketing schemes may have to get along for another year under amended legislation.. However, farm organizations can urge the government to 'establish a new department to take charge of all cooperative activities including marketing of farm products, and they can be- gin right now to prepare their proposals' for new legislation to be submitted to next year's provincial parliament. This column welcomes criti- cism, constructive or destructive, and suggestions, wise or, other- wise; it will endeavour to an- swer any questions. Address mail to Bob Von Pills, Whitby, Ontario. Diamond As Paperweight The maxleethig of farm prod- ucts is primarily the responsi- bility of farmers. As the indi- vidual farmer has practically no bargaining power when deal- ing wth the big corporatione which buy most of his products, farmers must band together for collective bargaining and coop- erative marketing of their prode vets. Although this principle has quite generally been recognized, farmers have not been given the ilepportemity to put it into Opera- tion. POWER. TOO NARROW The Ontario Farm Products Act, provides for a Farm Prod- ucts Marketing Board, appoint- ed by the government, with mar- keting schemes for various com- modities administered by local boards, subject to the approval of the producers concerned. The powers conferred on the Board under the present Act are narrow. The Proeincial Board has power to arbitrate disputes, investigate costs and marketing methods, establish price nego- tiating agencies, set m minimum prices, register producers, li- cense buyers and processors, and may delegate all or any of these powers to a local board. In practice, however, price fixing powers are never dele- gated to a local board or even used by the Provincial Board. All the schemes under the Act (about 24) provide for negoti- ation of minimum prices be- tween producers and buyers or processors. If they fail to reach an agreement, they may ask the Provincial Board of arbitra- tion. This process is slow and cum- bersome, especially if processors deliberately delay it. It has hap- pened that before an arbitra- tion board bronghtdownan award, the crop had -been har- vested, and sold by producers for whatever price they could get. The great weakness of the Act is that "regulation" is simply authority for collective bargain- ing and that it provides no The images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books; exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.' —Francis Bacon. In Books lies the soul of the whole Past Time . . . All that Mai-Ached has done, thought, gained or been: it is 'lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men. —Thomas Carlyle. For'hooks 'are more than .15boks, - they are all, the life The very heart and core of ages- past, The reason why mep lived and worked and died, The essence and quintessence of their lives. If a 'book comes from the• heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and Author- craft are of small amount to that. —Thomas Carlyle. Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No bar- rier of the senses shut 'me out * from the sweet, gracious dis- course'of my book-friends". They talk to me Without embarrass- ment or awkwardness. —Helen Keller. —Amy Lowell. The first time le read an ex- cellent book, it'esfo me just as if I, had .gained .a new friend. When. I read ceier%.book I.have perused before iteeesembies the meeting with aneold one.. —Oliver Goldsmith. Jill kneels beside her new doll and 'joins it in prayer. The, pajama-clad toy recites 20 seconds of "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. God bless mommy. God bless daddy. Amen." A built-in recording mechanism makes it all possible. Attacked By 3,000 Wild Bab pros A book is like a garden car- e ried in 'the pocket. —Arab Proverb, Old wood to burn, 'old wine to drink, old Mende to trust': old books to read, —Alonzo of Aragon. Far more seemly to have thy study full of 'books, than thy purse full of money. -John Lyly. Latest unofficial estimate of the vast fortune of the 70-year- old Nizarn of Hyderabad is that it amounts to about $85,000,000. He owns four palaces staffed by 35,000 servants but leads a life of comparative austerity. The Nizam's jewellery is worth at least $25,000,000. He never travels outside India. He goes fol-a daily drive with his wives, —guards and retainers, rarely goes to the cinema and does not possess a radio set. He is often called the world's richest man. Much of his time is spent writing poetry. He usually wears peasant clothes and al- ways eats sparingly. Yet he pos- sesses a collection of gold which includes a table service for 150 people. Since his state, occupying an area of .83,000 square miles, was taken over by the Indian Gov- ernment, the Nizam's powers have been much reduced, but he remains today , an important figure and so wealthy that he is reputed to use a large diamond as a paper-weight on his desk. There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. —Tennyson. ' wifialEb" OF EROSION Old tire casings are -uplanted" on this farm near Engleviood, in hopes of harvesting a,crop„ of precious soil which WaPid :Ordinarlly b,e blown away by spring' Storms. But what on earth is half so dear — So longed for — as the hearth of home? —Emily Brent& MAGNETIC SMILE—What makes these choppers different 'isn't a matter of , appearance. Their magnetic appeal for prospec- tive wearers comes from small, U - shaped magnets buried in back, portions of both plates. Magnets oppose each other in polarity, forcing:plates to make a snugger fit S with' the' jaws. Displayed before the Chicago Dental Society, they re. design- ed for mouths especially hard to fit. '1'. To be a poet is to tem a soul so quick to dieceeee that no• shade of quality escapes, it, anti so quick to lee] that discern- Merit le but a hand playing with, finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion: a soul in Which knowledge passes instan- taneously into feeling, and feel- ing flashs back as a new organ of knowledge. Not only was his ordeal highly unpleasant 'and monotonous, but t for the ,most of. the time his feet , were in a puddle of water, As geed a way as any of catching a cold, you might think. - The-pbstrnan, however, found it helped his bronchitis, although everything else had been in- effective. Is his experience so surpris- ing? It happens that he was in a caere where e Druid's temple once stood, near the very.site of, the ancient altar. 'Here, ancient Britons once worshipped' and practised': their magical, rites and' here, too, inane. of ethe people:e who sought shelter fromethe air raids found their,. rheernetism and asthma relieved, Does this ancient temple re- tain something, something not understood, which benefits cer- tain people? Perhaps: If it does, it wouldn't surprise my friend the doctor. Science is a matter of proven facts, and there. are plenty of fads still awaiting die- covery. —George Eliot. AND IT IAA TOO An unidentified, 'eifiteeerietetedied litdbet* chose recent tektig' fhdepehd6ficd Day to Oaltif ,iii:: -Confederate '66016..4[f:4 604 legend , blank e'ieti6dieed Topeka, Xeitie uNdooLy ..Hsoin .a hdpless teefeedely, 64- the gbjt .d Aviation neineers" battalion; stationed at teedeee Eneleitide Will be theJfar from proud ,paSSessor .of-this. shield at the end of The Lenten .season. To be dWcieded to the compettly having the Poorest cliereh-atteeidethee. 'record during. Lent, orders are that 'the shield Must be displayed ..in a 1prominent place for two weeks fallowing presetitcitiOn. Says Chaplain Thecicleese J. Klein- Plans: "We Waht instill in our troops the fear of the tard, Giving them the devil it only triddentaV N'ot long ago, at his home near Alton, Hampshire, ,child had _ WhOOping cough. moth, er re, fused medical aid. "You can keep your drugs and medicines," she said flatly, "I believe in the old remedies." .She put a dead mouse in the child's. shoe--and: he recoveredl This was one of the fantastic cures quoted by Mr, Peter Opie, who collects material abottt folk-lore, in a talk to the Royal Society of Arts. And as recently as last September he eleclaeee that in this supersonic age "magical" cures are still widely practised. Warts, are still chaemed away by means of charms, I was sitting in a public7house with a well-known doctor and hap- pened, to mention to him Peter ()pie's, comments. A man who was sitting at the same table overheard me and_ leaned over to say: "And let me tell you, it works. Nothing would get rid of my warts 'until a cpuntrywoman epplied the sap of the willow herb to them, making the. necessary signe. And my warts went almost at once. I asked the doctor what he made of that. "It doesn't 'sur- prise me," he replied, "I've been in- practice for over forty years, and I've learned not to laugh at strange cures." In many parts of Ireland there's an even stranger cure for warts: Six pebbles and a small piece of silver (usually an old threepenny- or a sixpenny- piece) are placed in a small linen bag. This is then ,dropped in some busy thoroughfare where it is certain to be spotted, picked up and the silver piece extracted and kept. Whoever finds the money gets the warts, and the original side feret is cured! Another method is to steal a piece of meat, apply it to the wart, and then bury it. As the meat decays the wart is sup- posed to disappear. Irish butch- ers regard this practice with disfavour. Strange and magical cures are part and parcel of folk-lore, that vast accumulation of belief and experience which comes down to ,us over the centuries and in- cludes ideas which took root in the dim and distant past. In some parts of England it is still the custom' to slit a young ash tree and pulling its sides apart,' pass a baby through the aper- ture so that, it will never have convulsions, I'd have thought it more likely to give the baby convulsions, but country people insist that it works, writes Den- nis Gardens, in "Tit-Bits." In Connemara, Ireland, the peasants still practise an ancient cure for whooping cough: For a child to be cured it is necessary for the mother to collect some water from a running stream, give the child a drihk and throw the rest of the Water back into - the stream from 'which eit was taken. This must be .clone ,before sunrise on three • successive mornings. On the fourth day the child should be cured. In some countries the belief still persists that ague 'can be cured by Weapping.e spider in a raisin and swallowing it. In Lin- colnshire it used to be the prac- tice toe nail three norseshats on the foot of, the. bed' of the sef- lerer. A less convenient remedy for the same' complaint, used in Suffolk;" was to gp to the ceoss- roads at 'night, alone, drive a nail into the ground and, as the clock was '"striking midnight, walk backwards away from it before. the chimes had finished. You lost the ague, but the next person to step on the nail caught- it Since this has to be done by one person on his oWn, when nobody else is abeeti. . hard to.. say with .certainty whether the practice still sere vives. But many students of felk-lore claim that it does, bee cause nails have been found driven into the ground at coteil- try crossroads; and what other motive could there be foe that? Sometimes, when you are in a park or out in the country, you May see'somebody trying to catch a leaf as it falls froth the tree. I've often doee the same thing for fun, and the people you see may be just amusing themselves. Yet many country people bee lieve this is a certain cure for Colds. If any have foetid this effectiVei suggest they send dee tails tO the Colds 'Research Cen- tre where, after yeaee of costly and painstaking Tesearch, the teed for the common cold seems' as elusive as ever. Seine old customs are 'dying Out, and it is probably jtiet as well: Putting goose dung On your bald head to gto* hair might have been. snore effective than pleasant; and to 'deed a sought by ehaVitig. off the Vide tinee hair and petting the Cut hait on to a bush 'seems- to be ,substituting one nuisance for" an.. other. A belief in magical cures Wee demonstrated ' as recently'as 1952e by a POstilitin :Who . eat, In a dark, .damp hole in, the ground, Chieleliiiret ,Caires, from ten until flire p.m. every day, 'bider lie Ore hil *Mathis! cuers must be beaten off at once. Sometimes this'can be done suc- cessfully. But often the troop will attack and a battle ensues before the hunters are left with their captives. -' - It was onesueh an occasion as this that a party of hunters came - near to losing their lives. The trap had been set, perhaps rather recklessly, in the territory of a huge troop, of baboons esti- mated to be 3,000 strong. No sooner had the door been closed on a number of captives than the rest of the troop attacked. To „the hunters it must have seemed like a nightmare as the savage hordes with bared teeth and erect manes,' and uttering terrible screams, rushed upon them. Despite their firearms and cudgels, their position was cri- tical, though sbmehow they managed to 'get away, Mete quite suddenly, the at- tackers transferred their atten- tion to the trap. With concentra- ted fury they flung themselves on it, reduced it to a 'complete wreck, and departed with their released fellows, Even when the would-be res- cuers are beaten off, {bete still remains -the highly datigetoue taelc ot roping the captive§ and removing them One by one to separate- travelling cages ready for their journey overseas. If one should 'break out, woe be- tide the unfortunate peesen who - Meets it, Babeeils seem to have an un- canny immunity to poisons. On one occasion a captive baboon escaped from its'cege in the hold of a ereeeel bringing it over from Africa, For three days it ye- iiteitied at large, then the hunter- in charge and an assistant were lowered IMO the hold to attempt to detect' it with nets. As they dieted it around the htlbter etunibled and fell. to h entieneht the eaVegeeeetise was on hie and, his legs .and hands were badly Mutilated bee fore it dbuld be beaten Off, Both Men Wake etietiteitily rescued: POielething. 'thew suggested at, the 'safest Way of ,avoiding fur, ther troUble, and halk.pint .Of *Welty cOntaining,enOligh *Urn. to kill ten 'men was lowered ii 'to the The bilbeion ,plOint,thr drained the — iihovirfM: riot !hi ,lightest eYnifittenii Of itletrOt Size and savagery in animals seldom go together. Some of the smallest animals are extremely vicious and practically impose „sible to tame, while large api- malseare often quite docile. For - sheer savagery, baboons take some beating, although they're only the size of a fairly large dog. Capturing them alive alive is a risky' business, often more dangerous than catching a rhinoceros of a lion, The efficiency of baboons' ,col- lective s e curl t,y organization might well be the envy of United Nations. They are very tociaily- minded animalee going about in troops sometimes numbering several hundred, The old males rule the troops with Victorian severity, Monepolizing all the females and administering cor- poral punishment tee the younger members at the slightest suge gestion of misbehaviour or dis- obedience. These old males are brave, too, and are quick to rally round any member of the troop in danger. They have been known to beat off even the formidable leopard, sometimes sustaining extensive injuries without retreating. Professional hunters whose job is to catch animals alive for zoos,have had many uncomfort- able and dangerous experiences trapping these savage but loyal Members of the money tribe. Be/ore a trap can ;be set the , troop must be carefully watch. ed and its drinking pools dise covered. Then all except one are barred With thorn bushes, TO attract the baboons to the remaining pool, all kinds of favourite foods are scattered around. After a few de:ye a bee, ket-work cage made of saplings is bladed in position and baited, e a long cord being attached to the Opeh door. Soon a troop ap- reeleelie§ to drink, and in go serene Of the members. A pull on the card; and tile deal' closes with a bang For a moment the taptitres sit petrified With terror, then Pen, detrionitun breaks out UnhOlY etteeint froth Within are aft- ineeeed with equally 'blood-cur& ling yells 'froth without, as the feet of the troop attack the 'Leap. to release their tOttitadeS, For the hunters' flits- it the, crisia: Iz a short tithe the trap be deiholishede The' WatIcf ,bd"fea,