Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), Saturday 1 February 1936, page 10


LITTLE-KNOWN ADELAIDE

Link With Explorer

BESIDES the statue of the explorer which stands in Victoria square, there is a memorial to John McDouall Stuart on a tablet affixed to the

southern wall of Carclew. Montefiore Hill, the residence of Sir Langdon Bony-thon. "Carclew occupies the site of the residence of James Chambers," the tablet reads, "whence the McDouall Stuart exploring expedition started on the 25th October, 1861, on their successful crossing of the continent of Australia. Members had mounted at the house, and mounted on their horses, filed out of the north-western gate. The wall now surrounding the property existed at the time. "Erected by the Adelaide City council. 1928." The sufferings of this explorer befofr he reached the Tnr?g.n Ocean, and on his return, are well known. He never completely recovered from them. He returned to England and died in 1366. He was rewarded for his journey with s grant of £3,000 and 1,000 square miles of grazing country in the interior, rent free for seven years. "The Beauty Aspect of Health and Living." By Josiah Oldfield. London: Chapman and Hall.—"Every woman who wills," says the author, "may be happy, may be healthy, and may be beautiful." Happy and healthy, yesbut beautiful? Dr. Oldfield goes far to justify the whole statement by showing the interdependence of health, happiness, and beauty. It is all a question of obedience to Nature's laws. "Our body is built up from our food, and from our drink." Correct dietin? will slim the excessively fat, and fill out the skinny. The gross can be refined, and the feeble strengthened. Attention to the requirements of physical health will ensure for the plainest woman rich glossy hair, a velvety skin, and a peach-bloom complexion. Not the food alone, of course, should be right; there are other necessary conditions, such as cleanliness and exercise, concerning which the author gives useful advice. Nor is only the body to be thought of. "The spiritual moulds the material. Thought transforms matter. The secret of beauty therefore lies in the soul, the character, and the thought. By rightly using these, the body will go on steadily growing Into the beautiful. Bad tempers create ugliness, and bring on the wrinkles of a witch. A smiling good nature develops loveliness and the crinkles of an angel." As a health guide this book is of an unusual type. While scientifically sound, it is not in the least dull or heavy reading. Brightly written throughout, it conveys most attractively a mass of valuable information regarding the way to health, to keeping young, and to acquiring beauty alike of body and mind.

"Tales from Timbuktu." Collected and retold by Constance Smedley. Witn pictures by Maxwell Annneld. London: J. M. Dent and Sons.—This new and cheaper edition of Miss Smedley's "Tales from Timbuktu" Is well printed, bound, and illustrated, and its attractive appearance befits the richly varied fascination of its contents. It consists of a dozen tales told about, and to, a Prince of Persia who travelled to Timbuktu in search of new sensations. These stories reproduce Persian, Chinese. Korean, Manchurian, Tibetan. trajfliTniriar^ Egyptian, T^nffir, calabar, and Chilian folk-lore. "We all love color," says the author, "and the colored people bring a great splash of brilliance and interest into life." She notes, especially, the love of justice shown In these simple tales from many lands, and the admiration accorded by colored people to brotherly affection, devotion to parents, generosity, and fair treatment of the weak and helpless. These qualities will help to make a sound foundation for the new world which she believes will some day arrive, when "all races will work and play together." We recall the late Lord Dewar's motto, "There's a good time coming, boys; but it's a good time coming." Miss Smedley's optimism Is less impatient; perhaps even Italy's invasion of Abyssinia has not seriously shaken it, since this outrage is condemned by all the rest of the world.

they know some of the soldiers to whom the angels appeared. The heavenly vision was quite as mythical as the "20,000 Russian soldiers" who were supposed to have passed through Great Britain on their way to France, but they are*just as firmly believed hi at the present time. Just about the same time a humorist on the staff of a London evening paper invented a jest which also was widely accepted as a fact. He wrote that a British soldier, seeing the inscription displayed by the Germans, "Gott mit uns" (God with us), and, translating it phonetically, exclaimed, as he displayed the knitted hand-warmers sent out by kind ladies at home. "I've got mittens, too." This harmless joke, only intended as such, was accepted as fact, and printed as such in papers all over the world. Finally, the humorist's effort came to rest in a book of war reminiscences, where it was told as a real incident of trench life. ? ? ? ? GOME years previous to this, an irresponsible member of the staff of another Amprimn paper vfrote a "spoof" story describing how all the BTiimal? in the New York Zoo had rot loose and were roaming about in Central Park. It caused widespread alarm, especially among mothers who bad sent their children to play in the park. The life of the scare was only a matter of hours, as the story was promptly contradicted. But it had taken too firm a hold of the Imagination of the public. For years inhabitants of New York could distinctly "remember" when wfld beasts were prowling about Central Park, and even the measures that were taken to get them back into their cages. However, a story need not always be in print to be firmly believed, both at the time and long afterwards. Birmingham people on one occasion assembled in then- thousands to see a feat by a mysterious person known as "Springheeled Jack." It was given out that, by the aid of contrivances fastened to his boots, he would leap from the roof of the Market Hall to that of a church some distance ay/ay. ? ? ? ? QP course, no "Springheeled Jack" appeared to make the impossible leap: it was simply a rumor set on foot by some fun-loving medical students. But for all that, it passed into local history. and up to a little while ago, it was possible to meet inhabitants of 3imiingham who firmly believed that the 'eat bad been done. But the most extraordinary instance of fiction being accepted as true occurred in connection with Edgar Allen Poe's weird story, "The Facts in the case of M. Valdemar." The auth-ir wrote it avowedly as fiction, it was published as such, and accepted by every sensible reader as such. However, everybody knows that Poe had a great knack of trivir.s verisimilitude to his most wild and fantastic creations. A learned FrencJunan, the Abbe Miguet, came across a translation of the story, and actually embodied It, as a genuine case, in a oook vhich he wrote upon animal magnetism!