CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 206, 31 July 1937, Page 8

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer.”) We read that there are signs that the once-popular “dicky” is returning to favour. Another popular front. Dad wrote to his son at college: “I’m sending you the £lO in addition to your regular allowance as you requested in your last letter; but I must again draw attention to your incorrect spelling. ‘lo’ •'js written with one nought, not two.” « * * « »

Mocker, the last survivor of dozens of army carrier pigeons that served valiantly with the American Expeditionary ‘ Force in France, has died of old age in his private cote at holt Monmouth, New Jersey. Twenty years old, Mocker was a hawk-beaked red bird splashed with white, and had carried 33 official messages for the 77th Division,. and had lost an eye in the service. lii company with other birds who served with distinction he will be mounted and placed in a special case at Fort Monmouth. Mocker’s origin and lineage are uncertain, but it is known that on September 12, 1918, after a well concealed German battery had inflicted frightful punishment on the Americans and broken their lines of communication, the men tossed Mocker into the air with the location of tho battery strapped to its leg. Twenty-five minutes later tho bird flew into the station 27. miles behind the front line, its head a mass of clotted blood and. its left eye missing from the socket. Within another 20 minutes the American artillery had silenced the battery. Since the war Mocker had lived in comfort at Fort Monmouth, his sole companion being Wilhelm, the German bird found in a German dugout during tho St. Miliiel drive. Wilhelm still bears a leg band marked with the Imperial. German crown and crest, showing he was bred in the Royal Bavarian lofts in 1917.

With Japanese shipping establishing a direct service to New Zealand it is interesting to note that every vessel owned in that cowitry is a “Maru.” It may be tlie Chichibu-Maru, or the Asama-Maru, of the something-else Maru, but it is always a maru. Like a great many other things Japanese, this word is linked with an ancient legend or two. According to one of these legends, a fair messenger from heaven, named HakudoMaru, descended to Lord Taito-slu and taught the art of shipbuilding. This is said to have happened in China 4000 years ago, during the reign of the Emneror Kotei. Another legend traces the source of the term to Akumogira-Maru, a deity who was supposed to live under the sea and to whom is dedicated the shrine of Shiga on Shiga-shima Island. Some authorities maintain that maru is always added to the name of a .Japanese ship because the word, as a noun, means circle, or ring; as an adjective it means round, complete, perfect,' or all-embracing. Now, ancient Japanese boats were round in shape, with hide stretched upon a wicker frame, and maru may have been attached to names of vessels in its literal sense of round or circle. Scholars relate that mam long ago, in the seventh century; was commonly used as a term of endearment. Parents called their children Hiyoshi-maru and Usliiwaka-maru, just ns we call a boy named John Johnnie, or Fred Freddie. The word was applied not only to persons, but to things, as a sort of term of endearment. During the feudal era it was applied to swords, to musical instruments, and to the circular section of castles, all of them objects regarded with a sort of reverential affection. The first recorded use of the word as applying to a ship was in 1691, when Hideyoshi, a great national hero, who had been known as Hi.vo-shi-maru in boyhood, built a navy for his expedition to Korea, and named the proudest vessel of them all Nippon Maru. The custom perists to this day, and modern Japanese shipbuilders habitually add maru to the name of any ship. There are other theories concerning the exact shades of meaning of this fascinating word, but the one just outlined appears to be the most satisfactory and enlightening. It is one of the most natural things imaginable that seafaring men should affix a term of endearment to the name of a ship. * * * * *

The Butantan Institute, better known as the “Snake Farm,” was founded at Sao Paulo in 1899 to prepare serums against bubonic plague, then prevalent in the neighbouring port of Santos, states a Rio de Janeiro correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. When that scourge disappeared it began making serums to counteract animal and vegetable poisons, which cause many deaths each year in the interior of Brazil. Later it turned its attention also to the preparation of vaccines against gangrene, tetanus, typhoid, smallpox, and other diseases. The institute receives each year from local bodies and public-spirited individuals throughout the country many thousands of poisoning snakes, lizards, frogs, centipedes, scorpions, and other insects. In exchange it distributes serum and vaccine, with instructions for preventing and curing the diseases which are endemic locally and all kinds of mineral and vegetable poisoning. More than 100,000 ampoules of serum and 10 times as many tubes of vaccine are produced annually. The serpents are kept in a series of grassy corrals surrounded by ditches and low stone walls. Trees are provided for the climbing varieties, and stone hutches shaped like beehives, with one small opening near the ground, are scattered over the lawns to serve as living quarters. Curled up in the sunlight one see Brazilian rattlesnakes six feet long, with foxlike heads and diamondshaped markings; brick-red “surucucus” with black, triangular patches and protuberant scales “urutus” with horseshoe markings, and every variety of coral snake. The great “jararacussus,” members of the Bothrops family, 10ft. long, congregate down by the water’s edge, and the bird-catching “jararacas” lie stretched along the boughs of the trees, their colouring scarcely distinguishable from that of the leaves. These are the principal pojsonous serpents of Brazil. The venom is extracted from the adult snakes at Butantan tiwee monthly. The attendants, their arms and legs protected by leather sheaths, walk unconcernedly among the hissing, spitting reptiles, catching their victims in a leather noose at the end of a long pole. The poison is drawn by pressing the fangs against a class receptacle. It is then injected repeatedly during six months into horses; which have been immunised, after which the animals are bled, and the plasma is refined until only the clear serum remains. Since the institute was founded mortality from snake-bite in Brazil has decreased from 2.6 to 1.1 per thousand of the population, and the percentage of fatal cases has dropped from 23 to less than 4 per cent, of the number treated.