Dieting mine eye in this day's newssheet loti. "Truih":—a thing that catch
was some words of advice by an eminent French docteur in Paris on the right regimen for those who would live to a ripe old age. Wherein he did counsel us to eschew dieting but eat as much as we pleased of whatever we pleased; to be totali abstainers from water but take our fill of wine and albeit a cup of tee in the afternoon wd not hurt us. a g! of whisky wd do us the more good. Alsoe we might (save in a few excepciounall cases) smook to our heart's content, Which methought mighty good comfortable counsel and sensible withal. But Lord! How dis comfortably tantalizing a time for giving it, with all vinous and spirituous matter one to warr prices, in particular whisky to 17s. ¢ hotel and my wonted tobacco to 1s. 6d. an ounce. Soe if on the one hand I shall be drinking and smooking longevity, on the other hand 1 shall be drinking and smooking en-creased money out of a diminish purse. The mawing consciousness whereof, every time I fortify myself with those salutaire indulgences, were like me fears to take as many yrs off my life as the indulgences themselves slid add to it. However, upon a consideration that coven soe twere better to die a comfortable indulger than a discomfortable starveling, I am resolved (D.V.) to continue in them.
Publicizing A very distinguished member Properly \vrites Observer in "Horse and of the medical profession,
Hound." sent me a post-card he recently received from the U.S.A, Part of it runs Have sent you some sweets, lump sugar if you want more, let me know." This, I think, is a shocking reflection upon the shortage of news going from this country into America. I have heard similar cases of butter and tinned stuffs being sent to this country by well-meaning Americans. who have been misled by Dr. Goebbels into believing that we are, if not actually starving, at least in dire straits to obtain food. The official viewpoint is that we should abstain from carry-Ing out "propaganda" in the U.S.A. for fear of ntegonizi. public feeling over there, which is already acutely suspicious of any alleged attempt to influence the American Press, While this is so, and the atrocities being carried out in Poland are the best recommendation of the Allied cause that we could desire, the treatment of neutral journalists by the Ministry of Information leaves much to be desired. Bland official ignorance, dilatoriness, and a lack of desire to help are a few of the complaints which have been made. In Germany every facility is apparently given to foreign journalists to obtain information as quickly as possible. That is the reason why so many of the American papers carry their front-page news under the heading "From our Berlin correspondent."
Conscientious Recently when the Twenty-Objectors hat there were fewer Con-sixes registered, it was found scientious Objectors than there had been in any other class, intimates "Time and Tide." I thought it rather an encouraging sign. I do not mean that it proves that the young men of England are now beginning to take the war more seriously. They take it seriously enough; if one could say as much for some of the older among their elders the future would be brighter than it is, But it does suggest, I think, that conscientious objection, in its cruder mani-testations, is one of those complaints of adolescents from which most people. sooner or later, manage to free themselves, There is no particular reason, after all. why a young man who was born in 1913 should be more belligerent than one who happened to be born in 1919 or 1920. On the contr. you might expect him to be more paci for the last war is closer to his consciousness, and he was growing up during the Golden Aze of Utopianism, with the Peace Ballot as a kind of glorified twenty-firster. His younger brother, on the other hand, has scarcely known anything but the menace of Hitlerism: and provided that he was able to read the newspapers he could find little enough in the world about him to indicate that mankind was to be saved by a policy of non-resistance. If there is anything to be learned from the registration it is that the form of pacifism which expresses itself before Conscientious Oblectors' Tribunals is only a phase through which some young people have to pass. We are freed from the fear that a proportion of Englishmen are being born into the world with soft heads and with mean and narrow hearts.
The Blind The blind beggar, I am sure, feels Beggar freer and more independent as with his unbounded confidence in human nature he sits under a wall with a tin hung from his neck and awaits the charity of the passers-by than he would feel in even the best-run institution or sitting at home in a garret with his narrow expenses paid by a charitable committee, observes "Y.Y." in the "New Statesman and Nation." To be blind and poor is tragedy enough but I cannot help think ing that there are blind men who would be Bored, Cena measure if they were forbidden There was a blind man who used to sit er the the passive labour of beggary. approach to Hampstead Heath with a little square of wood under his feet on which he used to drum warmth into his toes on wintry days, and his cheerfulness was such that he used to make everyone who knew him more cheerful. Sometimes he would whistle—not too well—with his sightless eyes turned up to Heaven; and sometimes he would smoke a cigarette. And the day on which he did not assure you that it was a beautiful morning must have been a very foul day indeed. He knew, I have no doubt, most of his regular clients by the sound of their footsteps and so lived in the come-and-go of a large and friendly club. Would it have been charitable to drive him from of the street and to set him up in a lodge ing where his old acquaintanceship would never reach him? I am certain that he was more conscious of the stir of life on his beggar's stool than he would have been under any institutional patronage. Even a painter who loathed the spectacle of beggary once spoke of him as "the only beggar I ever liked." He died on Derby Day after what may have been—who knows?—a happy life.
History of It is not known when or how the Archery England, writes Observer in bow was first introduced into
"Horse and Hound." Its origin has been ascribed to Romans, Saxons and Normans, but from a very early period in the history of this island its practice was enforced by the powers who were in authority. It might be that from being a mere sport it was covered into one of the arts of warfare. Even in 1537 skill with the bow was still believed to be an absolute necessity for the defence of the realm, for Sir Christopher Morres was appointed an overseer of the practice of "artyllary that ys to vyt for long bowes, cross-bowes and hand gunnes," and a patent was granted to the Honourable Artillery Company, which used the Finsbury Fields in this connection, and for many centuries "the marks" of the H.A.C. archers were maintained in Finsbury. The care and maintenance of these Finsbury Fields lay in the hands of the H.A.C., but citizens often used their bows upon them as well as members of the Company. In 1590 there existed a Society known as the Finsbury Archers—perhaps old members of the H.A.C. who still followed the sport—and they held public shooting contests. The fee, in order to enter, was £1, and plate was awarded as prizes. Mr. P. Constable was the last Captain of the Finsbury Archers, and when the Royal Toxophilite Society came into being in 1781 he took with him the Catherine of Braganza Shield er plate which had belonged to the Finsbury Archers, Sir Ashton Lever was founder of the Royal Toxophilite Society, and he shot in the gardens of Leicester House, then standing in Leicester Square and somewhere about where the Empire Theatre stands. Sir Ashton gathered round him a number of enthusiasts, including the Royal Dukes, and similar Societies began to come into being in the provinces. There were open tournaments at Blackheath and Dulwich, but war put a stop to sport. of this kind for most of the competitors entered some military employment for the defence: of Britain, and their bows and arrows were put away until after the Peace of Amiens. By 1844 the sport had been revied to a considerable extent, and in that year the first Grand National Archery meeting was held in York.
Exposing In its war context waste means the Waste failure to make the maximum use for war purposes of the country's resources, and any body set up to prevent waste has a far more positive task than merely lopping off items of expenditure here and there, is the pointed comment of the "Economist." Fortunately, there is every sign in the second report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure that it is fully conscious of this—"the real problem is one of available resources, both of men and materials, and of their most economical use"—and it tries to find the means of securing speedy delivery of the right goods vather than of cutting down the actual money spent by the Departments concerned, Most of the recommendations in the report spring from this purpose, though, naturally, the object of eliminating unnecessary expenditure is also present and is reflected in the suggestion that a pool of qualified accountants and auditors should be created on which any Department could draw. Professionul knowledge and skill, in this and other respects, might have prevented the not infrequent cases where the final cost of factories, camps and other works has been as much as, or even more than, double the departmental estimate. But the worst examples of waste are the result of a lack of departmental policy. For instance, there should be constant pressure from the Raw Materials Department of the Ministry of Supply to moke contractors exclude any non-essential imported materials or home-produced materials in short supply, but there appears to be nobody to see that vigorous action is being taken, Similarly, the competitive bidding for engineering personnel, which is drawing the most highly skilled workers in the whole industry away from the manufacture of machine tools to less skilled work in aircraft factories, is being carried on in spite of the Control of Employment Act and the Ministry of Labour, Yet the manufacture of machine tools is at the moment one of the most serious bottlenecks of aircraft production. This double waste of unnecessary expenditure—hecause the terms offered as an inducement to the workers to move must increase costs—and of skilled labour will soon slow down the production of aircraft if it is not checked immediately, The Select Committee, unfortunately, can only expose such waste and make recommendations. The remedy must come from the Department concerned themselves, Enthusiastic Cyprus is a small country and Cypriots feels a natural sympathy for other small countries. On my travels round the villages as Commissioner, said R. St. J. O. Wayne in the "Listener," the chief complaint I had last year was that the Government seemed slow in giving the Cypriots their chance tọ do their share of stopping Hitler. "People object," the villagers said, "that we are too much inclined to settle our disputes with knives, Why not see what we could do to the Nazis with a bayonet?" In one village in the district of Pahpos famous less than two generations ago for its brigands, a man with a fearsome moustache rose to make a complaint, "Well what is your complaint?" "Why shouldn't I go and drink my coffee in Berlin?" The complaint was duly transmitted to higher quarters, and the first instalment of Cypriots have now been drinking their coffee in France, where they were the first British Colonial troops ta arrive. Altogether 7,000 Cypriots out of a total population of 350,000 have volunteered for vice, and numbers of them are now serving in motor transport, pioneer and labour battalions. Those at present in France are muleteers, and both they and their mules are as smart ud healthy as one could wish to see them. It may seem 2 little surprising, after all we have heard of the mechanization of the ar to hear that there are mules in France ut all, But even the most up-to-date wars do not always go according to plan. Roads may be destroyed by shellfire, and tree may have to occupy tions where there are no roads. They will want food and ammuni ud anywhere that supplies are required a quagmire of a road or at the top of a steep hill the Cypriots and their mules will be ready. They have been practising during the winter, and claim that they can load and manage more mules per man than any other unit in the British Army. In Cyprus there are still many journeys from village to village for which the mule or donkey is the best method of transport, and the Cypriot muleteers avoid the heat by France fo avoid observation by the ravelling night, it is y the enemy. Mules have a reputation for being able to kick in more directions simultenecislv tuan any other animal. But Cypriots are naturally kindly to animals and in their French village I found that they had some sort of understanding with the mules, If there is a small bana or track for them to travel on, they use little carts, but if it is only a bridle track, or none at all, a couple of crates are slung on to a special pack-saddle.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.