Golden Age, January 18, 1933
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Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
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in this issue
AFRICA
A CONTINENT IN THE MAKING ABOUT TOBACCO WORLD EVENTS IN BRIEF DOCTORS AFTER $65,000 "HE SHALL LAUGH”
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Vol.XIV - No. 348
January 18, 1933
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Over SOO British Ships Idle . . . 239
Humanity Going to Waste . . . 213
Whipping on Government Work ('?) 244
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
Ohio Has Coon Farm.....238
Why Pines Die in North Germany 241
Indiana's Industrial Gardens . , 243
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Atoms..........235
British Schools Study by Radio . 236
World Goes over Two Billion 3,lark 238 Decline in Perceptive Ability . . 239 Hungary's Licensed Beggars . . 2i0 What the World War Cost . . . 242 Ohio Methodists Favor Socialism . 246
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Santa Cruz Water Plant .... 236
Gold Strike in Venezuela . . . 240
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
Ottawa to Mexico in 12 Hours . Where the Easy Money Is . . The Flying Scotsman . . . . Planes to Cape Town . . . . Norman Says World Is Helpless
. 235
. 235
. 239
. 241
. 248
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
Splitting the Chemical Elements . 236
Glass Snow Would Depopulate World
Television to Australia .... 239
HOME AND HEALTH
What Science Says About Tobacco
Danger in Cosmetics
Doctor Killed by Own Prescription 240
Little Rock Doctors After
$65,000
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Africa — A Continent in the
Making....... .
350 Truckloads of Gold .... 241
Distress in Japan
Some Items About Arizona . . 219
Catalonia, State Within a State . 235
Spain Bars Titles......237
Finland’s Liquor Administration . 237
League Rapidly Going to Pieces . 241
The Road Tax in Mississippi . . 243
Belgium Invasion Planned by Allies 244
Cost of Governmental Services . . 245
Amnesty Without the Amnesia . . 245
Confused Situation in Germany . 245
British Account of the Battle . . 246
A True Child of the Devil . . . 246 “The Buffs'Great Day’’ .... 218 |
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
A Very Mean Editor.....235
Auty’s Words of Wisdom . . . 236 “Do the Churches Prevent Crime?’’ 236
Britain a Nation of Blasphemers . 239
Protestants in Asia......242
The Church — The Rock of Ages . 247 Seattle Company' Gets from Under 249 “He . . . Shall Laugh’’ . . . 250 “This Gospel’’ — In How Many
Languages?........255
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crL? Golden Age
Volume XIV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, January 18, 1933 Number 348
Africa—A Continent in the Making
In Four Parts — Part 1
MORE than one-fifth of the land surface of the world, but only one-twelfth of its population, lies in the head-shaped continent south and west of the Mediterranean and Red seas and the Indian ocean. From Cape Blanco in Tunisia to Cape Agulhas in Cape Colony is nearly five thousand miles, almost straight south. From Cape Verde in Senegal, at the back of the head, to Cape Guardafui in Italian Somaliland, at the turned-up tip of the nose, is about 4,600 miles almost straight east. The eye of this imaginary head would be about Khartoum, the capital of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan; the mouth at Zanzibar; the border of the Red sea would be its forehead; the ear would be in the Cameroon mountains, at the great bend, near the mouth of the Niger river, on the west coast.
In this article we hope to get better acquainted with this vast continent, associated with the earliest history of the race, and yet until recently one of the least known portions of the earth. The continent of Africa is 11,262,000 square miles, with islands of 239,000 more. Readers will find more enjoyment and profit in the study by having at hand a map of Africa.
In a general way we hope to go around the head from the mouth at Zanzibar east through Tanganyika and Kenya to Somaliland; north through Abyssinia, Eritrea and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to Egypt, just recently discussed in these columns; west through Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Rio de Oro to Senegal; then will come the west coast countries, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, Nigeria, French Equatorial Africa, and the Belgian Congo; and finally all the rest of Africa commonly called South Africa, and constituting the key to the whole continent.
On South Africa, as we shall consider it, we hope to have something to say about the Portuguese states of Angola, on the west, and Mozambique, on the east, and all the British states that lie between and to the south, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Bechuana Land, Southwest Africa, and the Union of South Africa, made up of Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Natal and the Transvaal.
It seems hard to believe it, but the island of Madagascar, off the east coast, is larger than New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois put together. The United States is a big country, but the continent of Africa is nearly four times as large. The area of the Sahara desert alone is two-thirds that of the United States, or about the same as the whole of Europe outside of Russia.
Why It Has Remained a Dark Continent
Peculiar' conditions have conspired to make Africa a country difficult of penetration. Its northern edge is one of the oldest inhabited countries of the world, but between that and all the rest of the country is the impenetrable Sahara. The ascent of the Nile was hindered by cataracts and by the sudd that chokes the stream just north of the equator.
The coast line is almost unbroken around the entire continent, so that there are few natural harbors. The coast regions are fever-smitten. In the interior are wild animals and, till recently, and even yet in some places, cannibals. Cut off from the rest of the world by mountains, seas and deserts, and burdened by the weight of his dark color, the black man has been left to himself, except as the whites saw fit to raid his country and take him into slavery. These raids were made by sea, mostly.
Escarpment mountains run nearly around the whole of Africa. These, like mighty battlements, shut off the interior and make the rivers largely useless for the purposes of navigation. Diverse languages have been a barrier. Native indolence, demonized medicine men, absence of roads, impenetrable jungles, all these have held the conti-
nent back from contact with the whites, and from progress.
The advent of the white man Jias brought the black man many sorrows, but it has brought him some good things too. French and British administrators have put an end to the intertribal wars that at various times have decimated parts of the Dark Continent.
Mohammedanism has been a curse to the blacks and has spread far into the interior; and it spreads far more rapidly than the perversion of truth which has come in the name of Christianity. The medicine man is still supreme in Africa. His intelligence may be measured from the fact that one of them ground up a phonograph record and gave it to a man who could not talk. The man got well! We have heard of persons who were vaccinated and did not get smallpox thereafter!
Natural Ability of the Blacks
On subjects with which they are familiar, it is generally admitted that there are no better reasoners than the black men. When following the trail of game they read accurately every break in the branches, every mark in the earth, every twist in the grass, every rustling of the leaves. They can even tell the kind of prey they are tracking, its height, and sometimes its sex.
By means of relays of wooden gongs the blacks in central Africa quickly send complicated information hundreds of miles. How it is done the white man cannot even understand; yet it is done. From time immemorial in certain districts the natives have been accustomed to working iron, making their own knives, bush hooks, hoes, and tomahawks.
Every new white man is at once given a name which describes him perfectly, accentuating his peculiarities. The white man’s machines are named appropriately, to describe the sounds they emit or the work they do. The African is nothing if not original.
The natives of Africa are, generally speaking, the most peaceful, most trustful, and best tempered people to be found anywhere. This would be apparent from the fact that there never has been an invasion of other lands by an uprising of blacks; nor has the black race in America ever given any serious trouble. It has had trouble, plenty of it, but the fault has generally not been of its making.
As elsewhere, the blacks do the hardest kind of work efficiently and uncomplainingly. In caravans a group of four Negroes carry their own baggage, one traveler’s baggage and the traveler himself, and make fourteen to eighteen miles a day. Porters on the mail routes carry fifty pounds of mail and travel twenty-five miles per day, sometimes for as long as twenty-four days in one direction. They are so faithful that in a journey of 600 miles they are seldom more than an hour behind schedule time, and generally less than half that. They make better time in the rainy season, when they can travel without the sandals which are needed in hot weather.
Happy and Childlike Dispositions
Those who have been much in contact with the blacks in their homeland describe them as having happy and childlike dispositions, as, indeed, is the case here in America. However, here they are only one in ten of the population, while in Africa the blacks outnumber the whites fifty to one. They do not brood over their grievances; they are not oppressed with discontent. They are admittedly much easier to govern than the Hindus.
If his master has beams or planks around the place the native will chop them up for firewood because they chop more easily than logs; the fact that they are valuable and expensive does not enter his mind.
The black man will submit to photographing his home and everything he has. Today a white man is safe almost anywhere in Africa, and will be treated with courtesy and kindness and be supplied with food. Even when hundreds of miles from a white face, he can count on a friendly smile and a salute when he meets a native or a group.
As in America (and in America it is not limited to the blacks), the Africans are inordinately vain, so much so that the world’s recognized market for second-hand uniforms, dress suits, etc. is in that region. A pair of trousers makes all the difference in the world in the estimate a man holds of himself in Africa, and in the estimate that others have of him. Put a pair of trousers on one who has never before worn them, and he at once becomes insufferably arrogant.
There are tribes in Africa where the women paint as badly as they do in New York city. This may seem incredible to one who has ridden in a New York subway.
The African natives, in some places, devote much attention to their hair and teeth, as others do elsewhere. Styles vary. Some of these natives stain their teeth blue, yellow, and purple, leaving a white tooth here and there. Others file their teeth in patterns. The style of coloring or filing shows at a glance to what tribe one belongs.
In some tribes the hair is plaited and wrapped with grass and clay so as to make the strands stick out “like quills upon a fretful porcupine”. Rings and bones inserted in the lips, nose, ears and cheeks make a belle look as badly as some New York women look when they have put on overmuch paint; i. e., when they have painted not wisely but too well.
Missions have not worked out for the African’s betterment. Taught by the mission schools some of the elements of the white man’s trades, the native breaks away from the school and obtains work in a railroad gang or in a mine, only to learn in a short time all that is worst in life. His habits become corrupted, his reliability and trustfulness disappear, and it is literally true that he becomes twofold more the child of gehenna than he was in the first place.
He gets other things than liquor from the white man that ruin his body and mind, and in many ways, where he is brought in close contact with the white, his childlike wonderment gradually changes into contempt as he sees the inconsistencies and selfishness that mark his white cousin’s course.
Animal Life
As might be expected in a country which has such a large area of rich soil, Africa has an excess of wild animals. Formerly there were many elephants, but their numbers have been reduced on account of slaughter to obtain ivory.
The story that the elephants have a 'graveyard’ to which the old ones go when they can no longer care for themselves is widely believed all over Africa and Asia, but is probably not true. The aged elephants stumble and fall and die from injuries, and in a trice the jackals, hyenas, leopards, lions, vultures, hawks and eagles pick the bones, and the natives gather the ivories and do not report their find.
There are still plenty of lions, too many, indeed, in some districts, where they have become man-eaters. The lions soon learn that with a few cuffs of their powerful paws they can break down the walls of a native hut and get a good meal without the trouble of looking for one elsewhere. They have even been said to board a moving train and enter a sleeping-car without obtaining reservations in advance, and, moreover, to do the very impolite thing of jumping out of a window with a passenger by the head.
On an East African railroad a lion recently boarded the train and chased a soldier through one car and into another, ignoring several other passengers en route. Luckily, the soldier delayed him long enough by slamming doors in his face that he was able to get his gun. The first shot finished him.
Occasionally there is a plague of man-eating lions in a district. In one area two lions devoured thirty-four natives. On one of these occasions they dragged a night watchman off the veranda of a white man’s home. The so-called 'spotted foot’ lions, i. e., those that have spots on the bottom portion of the legs, are considered the most dangerous type.
A lion kills only when hungry. At other times he may pass through a herd of other animals without touching one. The old lions are usually killed by jackals, when their teeth fail and they no longer have the strength to hunt. Lions, even in their prime, are often killed by crocodiles.
The Dreaded Crocodile
The crocodile is one of the most dreaded of all the wild animals. He has two teeth that grow upward through his nose, and when he gets those two teeth through anything in the way of meat it is good-bye to that meat. He commonly grabs his prey by the nose, stuns it by a blow of his tail, and drags it back to the river, where he drowns it; then he dives to the underwater entrance to his cave, and climbs upward into his dining room and enjoys himself. If the meat is partly decayed he gets a bigger kick out of it than if it is fresh.
There are districts where packs of wild dogs run at large. When they go through a territory they clean it of every living thing. Leopards and white men kill just for the lust of killing. Of the two, the men are the worse. They cripple animals and leave them to wander off and suffer from terrible wounds; they pitfall them and allow them to struggle for hours; they trap them by the leg or the neck; they chase them with dogs; they use fire to drive them; they catch them in nets; they spear them; they arrange guns which fire when bait is pulled; they throw chunks of poisoned meat where it will be eaten; they shoot poisoned arrows; they poison drinking water.
Antelopes will not run at sight of a lion, but they do run in terror at the sight of the worst of all killers, man. Efforts arc now being made in Tanganyika district to prevent hunting by motor car, as it is rapidly robbing the entire territory of its wild life. The days of big game are numbered. The lion, the giraffe, the hippopotamus and the great snakes are being exterminated, slowly but surely. Fallen man loves to break the everlasting covenant.
Why the Continent Is Alive at Night
All writers on Africa agree that the continent is asleep by day and alive by night. Nothing moves in the blistering heat of midday; but at midnight, if one takes a large electric searchlight and goes out of camp pairs of eyes will glow and fade in every direction. There will be jackals, servals (bush cats), spring hares, genets, mongooses, antelopes, leopards, lions, cheetahs, wild dogs and hyenas where in daylight nothing more was in sight than a wart hog or a flock of guinea fowl.
The dew falls early in the evening. That makes the grass sweeter and fresher, and so the grass-eaters graze mainly at night. The lions know this, and follow and hunt them then, because it is far easier to catch and kill a moving, feeding animal than one that is lying down and on the alert. A lion kills about sixty antelopes a year. His frame is large, and it takes considerable food to keep it going.
Some forty years ago a disease called rinderpest swept through central Africa and decimated the herds of game, especially the buffalo. Old hairless bulls and cows are now sometimes seen, and are known as rinderpest buffalo because they are survivors of the plague.
Leopards, panthers, hyenas, and jackals are found in most parts of Africa. Of antelopes there are fifty varieties. Giraffes are not found elsewhere. The ostrich is a native of the Dark Continent; so also is the serpent-killer called the secretary bird, and the honey-guide, which points out the nests of bees.
The ants in some districts are so savage that the only things safe from destruction are such articles as are packed in metal boxes. A pair of shoes left exposed for one night is riddled by morning. Even the floors of houses are eaten away.
Exploration of the Dark Continent
Pharaoh Necho, the same one that killed King Josiah at the battle of Megiddo, built a canal from the Nile to the Red sea some time between 609 and 595 B.C., and hired Phoenician navigators to circumnavigate the Dark Continent. It took them three years to get around.
A mere matter of two thousand years later, Henry the Navigator, ruler of Portugal, fired by a somewhat similar ambition, sent out several expeditions. In 1486 Bartholomew Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and eleven years later Vasco de Gama sailed up the east coast as far as Mombasa, the mouth of our imaginary head, and thence across to India.
Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the whole of the interior of Africa was a blank. Penetration, when it finally came, was from the south. In 1802-1806 two Portuguese traders crossed the continent from Angola to Mozambique. Now’ one can make the same journey entirely by rail.
Livingstone penetrated far up into the interior, and about the time that the first stage coach went through the American desert to the Pacific coast he crossed Africa again, from the mouth of the Congo to the mouth of the Zambezi. It is not so long ago. There are plenty of people still living who can remember when this trip was made, in the late fifties. Stanley’s explorations were still more recent.
About forty years ago Britain, France and Germany decided to grab Africa, and many of us can remember when these three burglars got together and decided how they would divide the loot. Since then penetration and civilization have proceeded apace. The World War, with its transfer of German possessions to the British, placed the key of the continent in the hands of England.
London to Cape Town in Four Days
In the year 1898-99 the first complete trip was made between Cape Town and Cairo. It required eighteen months. Eight years ago the regulation time for the trip was fifty-three days. For the past few months the mail planes have been making it regularly in eleven days, recently cut to nine.
But now, November 14-18, 1932, Amy Johnson Mollison hopped from Lympne, England, to Cape Town in 4 days 6 hours and 56 minutes, with only five hours’ sleep en route. She flew over France and Algeria, straight across the Sahara desert, and thence down the west coast to her destination, stopping only four times en route.
Africa is being opened up all at once. Planes are flying hither and thither, wireless stations are everywhere, railroads are being pushed forward, bridges are being built, and highways completed on which automobiles rush to and fro, all resulting in the rapid education of the Negro, whether he ever sees the inside of a school or not.
The trip to Victoria Falls on the Zambezi can now be made safely from the east coast, from the west coast, or from Cape Town, all the way by rail. Here a river over a mile wide plunges three times the height of Niagara, with a roar that can be heard nineteen miles.
A thousand miles farther north is the new and elegant city of Elizabethville, in the Congo Free State, where there are good hotels, banks, stores, residences and a generous supply of automobiles. All this has come about since the World War, because a tremendously rich vein of copper lies on the surface of the ground.
Africa has 33,000 miles of railway, with need of many more great lines to give it anything like adequate transportation. Meantime the railways already built are feeling the competition of the automobile. Falling trees constitute one of the dangers of automobile traffic in Africa. Ant hills are another potent source of danger.
The total annual trade with Africa, imports and exports, is around $2,500,000,000 a year.
Beginning at Tanganyika
Beginning at Tanganyika we start our trip around Africa. One of the reasons the World War was fought was to get this territory away from the Germans and under the control of Britain. It is the choicest colony Germany ever had, but lay square across Britain’s path from the Cape to Cairo. It is larger than all the territory in the United States lying east of the Mississippi river, west of the Hudson river, and north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers.
It is excellently situated, with the Indian ocean to the east, Lake Nyassa on the south, Lake Victoria Nyanza on the north, and Lake Tanganyika on the west. Before they gave it up at the point of a gun, the Germans had built a railroad through from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika, with a branch to Victoria Nyanza.
Lake Tanganyika, 772 miles by rail inland from the Indian ocean, was discovered by Burton and Speke in 1858. It was on the shore of this lake that Stanley found Livingstone in 1871. The lake is over 400 miles long, and 30 miles wide, and is 4,000 feet deep, with its bottom 1,600 feet below sea level. A half dozen steamers ply its waters, which swarm with fish, crocodiles and hippopotamuses. At high water it discharges into the Congo. The rift in the earth’s surface which is in evidence at Lake Tanganyika continues northward to and including Palestine, where the Jordan valley is its northern terminus.
Important nickel deposits have recently been discovered in the province. Since the World War the Germans have begun to return to the colony and there are now about 800 of them working as servants on the plantations they once owned.
Ten years ago it was estimated that of the total population of 4,124,438 only 2,447 were Europeans. It is the claim of the British Government that they wish to keep this a black man’s country, under white domination. The natives will be permitted to do all the hard work; the whites will make such disposition of the cream as they think best.
The Masai tribe, which inhabits Tanganyika, is of magnificent physique. The young men are taught to encounter lions in mortal combat, armed only with a spear. The old warriors never die natural deaths. At the approach of old age they are banished from the tribe and end their days in the haunts of man-eating beasts. Their language, Swahili, is understood all over East Africa.
The Masai are people to be reckoned with. Their poisoned arrows, dipped in a concoction made of the leaves and branches of a small tree, the Acocanthera Schimperi, bring instant death to any creature wounded. They cut out the flesh around the wound, as soon as possible, and throw it away. The remainder is eaten and the blood is drunk. The love of blood as an article of food is common with many African tribes. Some of them go so far as to bleed their cattle and drink the blood hot or mixed with their porridge.
Kenya — British East Africa
If, in this imaginary head we are studying, Tanganyika is to represent the lower lip, then Kenya represents the upper one. It has Abyssinia to the north, Italian Somaliland to the northeast, the Indian ocean to the east, and Uganda to the west, with which latter it is connected by rail. It is of the size of all the territory between North Carolina and Maine, including West Virginia.
The population is well mixed. Eight years ago the total was 2,475,059, including 11,002 Europeans, 24,771 Asiatics, and 9,753 Arabs. Lake Victoria Nyanza, on its southwestern border, is second in size of the fresh water lakes of the world, Lake Superior being the only larger one. It was discovered by Speke in 1858, but he did not recognize it as the source of the Nile, and, in fact, the connection was not definitely traced until nearly fifteen years afterwards. The lake is 3,600 feet above sea level.
The mountains in the vicinity of Victoria Nyanza rise to a height of 19,300 feet. Signs of volcanic activity are still visible. Though directly beneath the equator, the high ground on which the capital, Nairobi, stands makes it a desirable place of residence for Europeans. The climate is a perpetual Indian summer. The city is well built, with stone buildings and wide paved streets wherein automobiles mingle with bicycles and jinrikishas. The bulk of the trade is in the hands of East Indians, of whom there are several thousand in the city.
Kenya has every climate, from that of the tropics to that of the glaciers. Today its jungles are pretty well conquered. The lions have been reduced to stock robbers. The problem of how to keep everything for themselves and still do something for the natives, and at the same time keep the East Indians from becoming too much dissatisfied, engages the best thought of the British rulers. Educational systems, sanitation problems and experiments in government claim their attention.
Old Settlers Want to Run Everything
The old British settlers want to run everything ; the Home Office knows that if they do the natives will get nothing, and so a few men in London try to regulate and decide and plan about everything, with the result that there is a stronger and ever stronger insistence upon home rule. Yet the settlers are not capable of independence, for they are outnumbered by the natives, 200 to 1. The settlers never know when they will need troops.
A settler says that to get on with the natives the employer must be just; keep his word; be generous, but not too much so; swiftly punish any wrong; feed the help well; be always ready to listen to their little complaints; know when to crack a joke with the laborers; and never wholly lose his temper. Sounds as if that program would work in the United States.
One upright judge in British East Africa astonished the white population when he sentenced an army captain to three months’ imprisonment for flogging a dumb boy over the head, face, and body for an hour. Of course there was a provocation. The boy, with little to occupy his mind, had chased a pig to death, and was chasing another; but that was no excuse for the white man’s putting his own mind on an even lower plane.
A man thirty years a settler in Kenya, referring to the relative safety from wild beasts, recently wrote to the New York Tinies: “Unarmed natives and Europeans have traveled for many years and continue to travel through the heart of the game country. Accidents occasionally do occur, but for every instance of injury to man by wild animals there must be at least a thousand fatalities from motor cars. I have yet to learn of any suggestion to abolish motoring.”
Doctors in Kenya who set out to vaccinate the inhabitants report that the natives flee into the bush rather than submit to vaccination, which shows that they have more natural common sense than have the whites in New York city.
How the Whites Got the Land
Maybe you wonder how the whites come into possession of land in Kenya. It is very simple. They just take it. Thousands of acres have been taken from property which for centuries has been recognized as communal property belonging to certain tribes, and no compensation whatever was made therefor. Moreover, the Negro who once used the land must now live elsewhere, but he may come and work on the land for some white man. As a result 35 percent of the natives are away from their homes and families and gardens.
A Kenya native who leaves his employer before his term of service has expired can be thrown into jail. In order to trace deserters the government requires all native men and women to be fingerprinted. A Kenya native must carry a pass when outside his reserve, and is not allowed to purchase land outside that reserve. And he may not raise exportable crops.
When you come to think of it, the Negro is reported as getting a pretty rotten deal. His land is taken away, he must go elsewhere to rear his family, he must leave his family for months at a stretch to obtain a means of livelihood, he is fingerprinted and jailed if he leaves his work, and he cannot even buy a home near his work or have a little independent business of his own. Nobody but a kind-hearted Negro would stand that kind of treatment. Would a Britisher stand it?
While the whites were grabbing lands in Kenya they grabbed a plenty. The average white farm is 7% square miles. The “owners” of these farms are among the richest people in the world, owning among them some three million head of livestock. Some of them have sixty or more laborers on their farms; floggings are common. The principle of forced labor has been introduced in Kenya. Forced labor is slavery. The white man is a bad man; he does not do to others as he would wish to have done to him.
Some years ago a missionary came from Kenya to the Colonial Office in London, urging that the withholding of the franchise from Indians who had settled there was in the interest of the native Africans. The Africans sent a cablegram to London reading as follows:
We have no faith in Dr. Arthur, and believe that he will harm our cause and favor white settlers. Our troubles emanate from white settlers only. We are afraid to declare our mind here, and fear imprisonment, transportation, or hanging. We request to be afforded an opportunity for representative natives to wait upon the Colonial Office before a decision is taken regarding the fate of our country.
Uganda, at the Head of the Nile
Uganda, at the head of the Nile, is a little larger than the combined areas of New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware. It has Lake Rudolph and Kenya colony to the east, Lake Victoria Nyanza to the south, and Lake Albert Nyanza and the Nile river to the west.
A so-called “Christian” country, it was grabbed by the British in 1894, but is allowed selfgovernment in purely native affairs. Much of the climate is unhealthful, and at one time a whole section was depopulated by sleeping sickness. The Nile and the Congo are connected by a road through the heart of “Darkest Africa.”
There is a peculiar native grass, much used by the natives as thatch, which often reaches to a height of twelve feet or over. Big game is plentiful. Iron ore and gold have been found. Uganda has become one of the sources of cotton for the British empire, yielding some 200,000 bales annually. The cotton barons are chiefly natives.
The Buganda natives are very’ intelligent and of good disposition and will doubtless be readily amenable to the truth -when it finally gets to them. All the accessories of civilization are in their possession, automobiles, trucks, bicycles, wireless, good roads, etc.
The capital, Entebbe, is a beautiful little town of bungalows surrounded by well-kept lawns bordering wide streets, shaded from the tropical sun by huge trees. It occupies a peninsula almost surrounded by the blue water of Lake Victoria Nyanza.
Having, in Golden Age No. 339, issue of September 14, 1932, discussed at length the great countries of Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which lie to the north of Uganda, we do not treat them here, but terminate this part of our story with a little information about
Ethiopia and the Somalilands
Tiie nose of Africa turns up instead of down, and so the countries which go to make it are sometimes called “The Eastern Horn of Africa”. The central part of this horn is, of course, Abyssinia, the official name of which is Ethiopia, nominally Christian for fifteen hundred years.
When Africa was carved up between the great powers it was the intention that Italy should have Abyssinia, and the Italians tried to take it but suffered such a defeat at the battle of Ado-wa, in 1896, that they were glad to stick to the coast, of which the French and British also have portions.
Abyssinia is extremely mountainous and therefore healthful. Sometime it will make a wonderful country. Its greatest present need is adequate roads. A railroad 495 miles in length penetrates from French Somaliland to the capital at Addis Abeba, which latter place was fixed as the capital in 1892. The train runs up to the capital one week and back the next.
Abyssinia proper is of greater area than all that part of the United States east of the states of Indiana and Kentucky. The royal family claims descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Ethnologists claim that the true Abyssinian type contains no Negro blood whatever and none of the Negro qualities, either mental or physical.
The present ruler is an enlightened man. He is trying to put down slavery, but has a hard job ahead of him, owing to the intractability of the various kings and kinglets, speaking some seventy languages, that rule in various parts of his mountain realm.
The northern part of the Abyssinian coast is called Eritrea. It is in the hands of the Italians, and is of the size of the state of Pennsylvania. French Somaliland, to the east of Eritrea, is of the size of Connecticut. It was presented to the French as a reward foi- rescuing one of the Abyssinian rulers from an Arab prison.
British Somaliland, to the east of French Somaliland, was seized in 1898. It is of about the size of the New England states. It was wanted because it controls the Gulf of Aden, at the mouth of the Red sea. The rule is, “If you haven’t got what you want, take it.”
In the subjugation of Somaliland, the British government in the year 1921 resorted to the bombing of native quarters from airplanes in order to accomplish their ends. It does not seem to us that it is any less murder or any less thievery to subjugate a black man's land than it is a white man’s land; and both are alike execrable. In the end “order” was established. Oh yes!
“Order, the hush of brooding slaves.
Peace in the dungeon vaults and graves.”
Italian Somaliland, at the tip of the horn, or the tip of the nose, is more than twice the size of Italy itself. A delegation of natives recently made a protest to the League of Nations against the overbearing manners, or lack of them, of the Italians. It seems that a Fascist magistrate decided that trousers may be worn only by white men, and the natives want to know if there is any good reason why these Roman Catholic Christians of the tribes of Macaroni, Vermicelli and Spaghetti can keep a black man from wearing the second-hand pair of pants which is his principal investment, adornment and charm.
(To be continued)
What Science Says About Tobacco
(I'.y II. N. Pringle, in Twentieth Century Progress')
WHEN $50,000,000 is expended in one year by a few tobacco trusts in large or colored advertisements to educate the women of America to acquire the habit of smoking and double the tobacco consumption, it is time for a few facts about tobacco. It is pleasing to learn that none resent this false ballyhoo of the greedy trusts more than some dealers in the wholesale tobacco trade. One would infer from some of these cigarette advertisements that a package of fags are far better than cough medicine for a delicate throat; or that cigarette smoking is an undisputed badge of good breeding. Dr. Walter B. Pitkin's book The Art of Learning (published in 1931) is in such demand at the Carnegie Library and the Congressional Library that for many weeks I was unable to procure one of the five copies to make the following quotations:
“Proof is at hand that, for the vast majority of men and women, every ounce of tobacco smoked retards and confuses their intellectual work to a degree easily measured in the laboratory. Indeed, it has been so measured, and by highly competent disinterested physicians and psychologists. Probably you have never heard about the researches of the committee of scientists, under the presidency of Dr. Alexander Lambert. Many of the leaders in physiology, neurology, psychology, genetics, economics and social sciences served on that committee. Carefully controlled laboratory tests and statistical surveys were made; and several important monographs published. The two which concern us here are M. V. O’Shea’s sizable book entitled Tobacco and Mental Efficiency (1923) and a general committee summary of clinical data entitled ‘Tobacco and Physical Efficiency’ (1927).
“The newspapers and magazines have seen to it that few Americans found a fair chance to learn the findings of these works; for the entire periodical press is terrified at the thought of losing their tobacco advertisements as a result of printing anything even faintly adverse to nicotine.” (From pages 127-178) * * * •
“All this explains the striking observation made in many colleges that, as J. R. Earp puts it in his study of English university students, ‘although the number of smokers and non-smokers in the college [which he investigated] is practically the same, yet out of 23 students dismissed last year for low scholarship, no less than 21 were smokers. As one ascends the scale of scholarship, the proportion of non-smokers grows steadily greater. And, in general, those who smoke much have lower scholarships than those who smoke little.” (From page 129)
Atoms
Mexico City’s Public Utilities
THE water works and oilier public utilities of the city of Mexico have fallen into the hands of Eastman, Dillon & Company, one of New York city's largest banking houses.
Ottawa to Mexico in 12 Hours
ON OCTOBER 23 James R. Wedell flew from
Ottawa to Mexico City in 7 minutes less than 12 hours. The trip between Ottawa and Washington, where a 17-minute stop was made, took just two hours.
Mules Laugh at Tractors
THE mules are laughing at the tractors in the
South. Lessened income has made the farmers return to the least expensive method of doing their work, and as the mule is cheaper than the tractor, it is becoming more plentiful.
Two Miles per Minute on Water
ON LOCH LOMOND, in July, Kaye Don, in the motor boat Miss England III, covered a measured mile at the rate of 120.50 miles an hour, the first person in the world ever to travel two miles per minute on water.
Mackerel Run in New York Harbor
IN THE month of August an immense school of mackerel was chased into New York’s inner harbor by hungry bluefish. The mackerel were in such quantities that in many places they were caught without any bait at all on the hooks.
Making the Best of a Bad Matter
A DULUTH merchant, somewhat depressed by conditions past, present and future, is reported as advertising: ‘■'The world is coming to an end! Pay your bills now! We don't want to look all over hell for you.” We did not know the people of Duluth were all so bad.
Father Hogan’s Polonaise
ALL anxiety as to what “Father” Hogan was going to get is settled by the following dispatch which appeared in the Central India Times of August 24, 1932.
Father Hogan, M.A. (Oxon), director of St. Joseph’s College, Allahabad, has been honored by his holiness the pope, Pius XI, with the title of privy chamberlain. This office gives him the right to be addressed as the Right Rev. Monsignor and to wear a purple cassock and silk collar and a sash of the same color and over them a mantallone (a large mantle).
Telaviv’s Versatile and Polyglottai Mayor
Meyer Dizexgoff, founder and builder of TeL aviv, Palestine, speaks a dozen European languages and a number of Oriental ones, and is mayor of the city of 50,000 population which he founded. Though he is 72 years of age he takes a horseback ride daily.
The Situation in India
THE Manchester Guardian says: “At the moment it is difficult to think of a single political organization in India—for that matter, of a single Indian politician of any eminence— with a good word to say for the British Government or with any faith in its intentions.”
Zaro Agha Not So Old
Timur Agha, who says he is 165, claims that Zaro Agha is not so old, being hardly more than 125 years, instead of 156 or 157, as claimed. He says that he remembers when Zaro’s folks moved into town, and that he often rocked Zaro to sleep when he was a baby.
Catalonia, a State Within a State
CATALONIA, the four northeastern provinces of Spain, and the greatest industrial district in the Spanish peninsula, is now a separate state within the new state of Spain. It has its own language, Catalan, and will manage all its own affairs except foreign relations.
A Very Mean Editor
THAT was a very mean editor who took two notices of chicken suppers, one in Olivet church, for Thursday, and one in St. James church, also for Thursday, and then in between the two printed a notice that on Tuesday night thieves had broken into the chicken coop of Wen-cil Prochaska and stolen nine of his chickens.
Where the Easy Money Is
THE New York Times publishes a list of 39 companies whose dividends on common stock were as high in 1932 as in 1929. The list includes American Telephone, Brooklyn Union, Consolidated Gas, Louisville Gas and Electric, National Power and Light, Pacific Gas and Electric, Pacific Lighting, and Southern California Edison, and helps one to see why the big men that own utility stocks and also own newspapers, never like to see anything in print about public ownership of public utilities.
The Pressure on Beebe's Ball
THE pressure on the metal ball in which Dr.
William Beebe descended 2,200 feet in the ocean off the shores of Hamilton, Bermuda, is estimated to have been 4,800 tons. Even at that great depth he saw fishes, some of them navigating in light furnished by themselves.
Farmers' Strike in Illinois
AT AN auction at Somonauk. Illinois, one hundred farmers, friends of the man who was being sold out, went on a buyers’ strike, refusing to bid on his livestock, machinery and tools, with the result that he was enabled to retain them.
British Schools Study by Radio
Hl HERE are now about 4,000 British schools where instruction is received by radio in English, foreign languages, history, geography, music, science and natural history. Broadcasting is having the effect of reducing the force of the dialects spoken in England.
Reverend Auty's Words of Wisdom
IN THE Bucks (England) Free Press, Reverend G. S. Auty, of High Wycombe, made the surprisingly frank statement that “if all the churches were pulled down and all the parsons shot, it would leave religion free to follow the simple gospel teaching of the NewT Testament”.
Colfax County, Nebraska, Burns Corn
COLFAX county, Nebraska, raises its own fuel, corn on the cob, which it markets at $8 per ton. At this price corn is only two-thirds the price of coal, and will be used to heat the courthouse and sixty-two school buildings during the winter.
“Do the Churches Prevent Crime?"
Dr. John R. Miner answers this question in the negative in an article in The. American Mercury, and gives the facts. Only 46.6 percent of the population of the United States are members of any religious body, yet in 27 penitentiaries and 19 reform schools investigated by Dr. Dunn he found that 71.8 percent of the prisoners were members of some church; and in his work Religion and Roguery Frank Steiner claims that 84 percent of the convicts in the penitentiaries of the United States have religious connections.
Splitting the Chemical Elements
Dus. Lange and Brasch, of Germany, have now succeeded in splitting nearly all the elements. Lead has been broken up and found to be a composition of helium and hydrogen. It seems borne out that all elements are combinations with hydrogen. A way may ultimately be found to transmute one metal into another.
French Girl Invents a Mosquito Trap
A FRENCH girl has invented a mosquito trap. The mosquitoes are attracted to an electric light, and sucked down a funnel into a hot blast. In one hour this clever little electrical device lured to their death enough mosquitoes to weigh six pounds; the number was estimated at 3,400,000 dead tormentors.
Fatal Slamming of a Door
TN BUDAPEST, Hungary, a door slamming J- suddenly behind a man loosened a bullet which for fifteen years had lodged between the skull bones, impinging on his brain. The bullet fell inward and the man died immediately. Physicians had long ago warned him to lead an exceedingly quiet life.
Lost Only 23c per Sheep
T Selgerson, Standard, Alberta, Canada, feels quite certain there is a depression.
One thing that makes him think it is that he just sold ten sheep for $2.50, but was billed for freight, commissions and other charges amounting to $4.80. His total loss on the ten sheep was $2.30.
Widows of War of 1812
ON JUNE 30, 1931, there were still on the pension rolls eight widows of veterans of the war of 1812. We must assume a drummer boy then of about age 14 marrying at age 72 a girl of, say, 18. Such a girl would now be 80 years of age, and born thirty-eight years after the War of 1812 was all over.
The Santa Cruz Water Plant
THE city of Santa Cruz decided to build a water plant, and did so. Taxpayers took the matter into the courts, which, after four years’ litigation, decided that the city could not do what it had done. Meantime, the plant paid for itself, and the city now has, cost free, a profitable water plant which, theoretically, it has 'no right to possess’.
Lobbyists Altogether Too Efficient
IN THE last session of Congress one member received 460 telegrams on a single item of a single bill within one day. Needless to say this is the work of lobbyists, bringing all possible pressure to bear on every man who stands between them and their objective. Actually, it is racketeering in a most reprehensible form.
“London Bridge Is Falling Down”
UE to the effects of wrnter compression the famous Waterloo London bridge sinks at
high tide and rises at low tide. The Bank of England has sunk seven inches in the last sixtyeight years. Since 1885 St. Paul’s Cathedral has subsided 2^ inches farther on one side than on the other.
Making Cotton Wool-Like
BRITISH textile firm, after fourteen years of research, has invented a new process for making cotton and artificial silk much like wool. A synthetic condensation product inside the cotton hair itself renders the cotton virtually creaseless. The process may also be applied to linen.
By Motor Cycle to the South Pole
Major Gran, a Norwegian aviator, is now practicing the riding of a motor cycle in difficult country in the north of Norway, and hopes to use this method of reaching the south pole some time next year. The machine used is of special design, with an adaptable caterpillar mechanism.
A Thirty-Mile Cloud of Butterflies
IN AUGUST a cloud of orange-tinted painted-lady butterflies thirty miles wide left the Great American Desert near Reno, Nevada, and slowly flew over the Sierra Nevadas into central California in search of better feeding grounds. In places they covered the windshields of automobiles so thickly that traffic was halted.
Stitches in the Iris Itself
CHILD in Fairfield, Conn., fell from a horse and a sharp stick pierced her eye.
A physician, by stitches so small they cannot be seen, joined the severed parts of the iris and the child’s sight in the wounded eye has been saved. It is said that this is only the second time such an operation has been successfully performed.
Vancouver’s Invasion of Frogs
TN THE month of August the city of Vancouver, B.C., was treated to an invasion of frogs, millions of them, coming up out of the river and traveling eastward in great waves or herds. In some sections they were so thick on the roads as to give the appearance that the road was in motion.
Spain Bars Titles
THE government of Spain has warned all senders of mail into Spain that if they want their letters delivered they must omit all titles of nobility. The president of the board of education of New York city has just been made a “marquis” by the pope, and this title is made hereditary.
Danger in Cosmetics
gorge Starr White, M.D., famous Los Angeles physician, states that within a period of sixteen months he came in contact with six young women made totally blind from the use of face cosmetics, and within one year treated two dozen women for face troubles caused by face powders.
Australia’s Huge Earthworms
A USTRALIA has earthworms which sometimes attain to twelve feet in length, and to three-fourths of an inch in diameter. Their eggs are of the size of olives. The progress of these creatures through the ground can be plainly heard as a gurgling or sucking sound, by persons walking on the surface.
Finland’s Liquor Administration
FTER thirteen years of prohibition Finland now has a state liquor administration. The only hours when liquor may be obtained are between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. from Tuesday to Friday inclusive, but exclusive of holidays. Beer sales are 5 percent, wines 15 percent, and hard liquor 80 percent, of the totals.
Alfonso Grabbed $700,000
WHEN Alfonso made his midnight dash out of Spain he took $700,060 with him, and that is 700,000 reasons why he refuses with thanks every invitation to return and settle up his affairs. He left in such a hurry that his wife remained behind in the palace, facing a howling mob that wanted Alfonso’s life.
Money Dead Unless Used
TN AN article in the Pictorial Review Henry
Ford says:
There is no sense in saving money. You can’t save up health or work or happiness to use later, and money, too, is dead unless you use it. I have saved no money. I have spent it. I put it to use immediately in every way that it is possible to make more work.
New York City Items
TN PUBLIC buildings, bridges, subways, parks and other property New York city has more than $5,000,000,000 invested. The city has 150,000 employees, with an annual expenditure of $700,000,000. The city's business gives employment to all the heads of families in a city the size of Pittsburgh.
Voluntary Receiverships
NUMEROUS concerns are now going through voluntary receiverships so as to break their leases and thus get renewals at lower prices than they are now paying. Chain after chain is working this racket, which is as crooked as a corkscrew7, but all that is needed is a crooked judge and the thing works fine.
No Miracle Tooth Pastes
Dr. F. J. Cullen, of the Federal Food and
Drug Administration, says very truly that tooth pastes and other dentifrices have no magical composition and only one important function: they clean the teeth. “Their ingredients include precipitated chalk, soap, w’ater, baking soda, borax, magnesia, glycerin, alcohol, a siveet-ening agent, and medicinal o:ls intended to give the article an attractive color or taste.” Dentifrices that contain hydrochloric acid destroy the enamel of the teeth.
A Possible Judgment of the Lord
OUR attention has been drawn to the fact that
Don Marquis, one of New York’s leading newspapermen and playwrights, was suddenly stricken blind recently while rehearsing the cast of his play “The Dark Hours” based on the last hours of Christ on earth. It seems quite reasonable to us that the Lord is not pleased with the commercializing of such a sacred record as that of our Lord’s final sufferings wdiile here, and it may be that one of the holy angels put a stop to Don Marquis’ sight and thus to his w’ork.—Acts 13:6-12.
World Goes over Two Billion Mark
TTUHv the first time in its history the population has gone over the two billion mark, being now’ estimated at 2,012,000,800 in the League of Nations year book. Slightly more than one-fourth of these are in Europe, now for the first time estimated to have more than half a billion.
Witchcraft in Finland
IN FINLAND three men and two women have been arrested for mutilating corpses and using the limbs for sorcery. The raids upon a cemetery have been going on for a whole year. Three of the prisoners have confessed that the dismembered limbs were used in witchcraft rites, according to ancient formulas (of demoniac origin).
Two Cows for 13c
IN THE Edmonton Journal, July 25, J. W. Featherstone relates that he sent two cows to the stockyards, for which he received $9.73. The charge for trucking them there w’as $9.50. The check for 23c w’as sent to the wrong man. It took a 10c telephone call to straighten the matter out. Result: The twrn cows brought him 13c.
Ohio Has a Coon Farm
OHIO has a coon farm on which it is expected to raise 8,000 to 12,000 baby coons each year. These w’ill be distributed over the eightyeight counties of the state, as food for the hunters’ guns. It does not seem as though this were an enterprise essential to the well-being of the people in general; it looks like class legislation, favoritism to hunters.
Glass Snow Would Depopulate World
GLASS snow, the invention of a man by the
name of Canton, w’ould depopulate the world. It is made by forcing molten glass under very high pressure through very small holes into a vacuum chamber. There the particles explode and fall into a cooling mixture, ready to be treated with poisons or bacteria and blown out of the tail of an aeroplane flying over a city at two hundred miles an hour. Nothing could live in the path of this light, feathery glass snow. The edges are so sharp they will cut through anything, and would render any7 city uninhabitable for months.
Business Men Want a Mussolini
Senator Elmer Thomas, of Oklahoma, who has made an investigation of the matter, reports that from the correspondence he has received he has learned that the only sentiment in America favoring a Mussolini comes from Big Business, the leaders in finance, commerce and industry, and that the spirit of political democracy still lives among the common people.
Rats in St. Paul’s Cathedral
RATS are swarming in St. Paul’s cathedral, London. They have bitten workmen, devoured their lunches, and on one occasion chased choir boys. Night watchmen have said that the floors swarm with them and that they are exploring every corner of the cathedral, destroying candles, leather and other objects such as would appeal to a rat’s appetite.
Over 800 British Ships Idle
ROUGHLY speaking, one-third of British seamen are idle. The ships on which they are usually employed are lying derelict to the number of 839 in inlets and rivers all around the coast. Numerous ships have been broken up. Among the idle craft are 40 motor vessels, considered the latest thing in water transportation.
After the Anacostia Battle
APTER the Anacostia battle they checked up on the body of William J. Hushka, and found from his fingerprints that he was not a communist or a criminal, but just a soldier with a bullet in his heart. All the others evicted at Anacostia turned out to be just war veterans, including the one who had his ear cut off with a cavalry saber.
The Flying Scotsman
WITH pardonable pride, but not with accuracy, the London Neus Chronicle claims that The Flying Scotsman, which makes the 39214 miles between London and Edinburgh in 7^2 hours, makes the world’s longest and fastest non-stop run. The Neus Chronicle does not know of Train 2G on the New York Central, which every night in the year runs from Chicago to Albany, 819 miles, in 14^4 hours. The time of The Flying Scotsman is 52.3 miles per hour, and of the Twentieth Century Limited 55.5 miles per hour, both remarkable achievements.
Television to Australia
IN ENGLAND, in September, Senator Marconi demonstrated that a man can sit at a typewriter, typing a message on a tape, and the letters appear in Australia, letter by letter and word by word, as fast as the words are made. A speed of up to 120 words a minute was attained.
Snake Upsets a Ferry Boat
WHAT a frail hold humanity has on life was illustrated recently in India. A ferry boat, loaded with passengers, was crossing a wide river. Midstream it came near a tree floating in the current. A huge snake jumped from the tree to the boat; the people in terror ran to the opposite side of the boat; it overturned and 100 persons perished.
400,000 in One Grave
THE French have recently dedicated a monument, styled the Ossuary of Douamont, which commemorates the 400,000 French soldiers blown to pieces or burned alive in the German attacks on Verdun. The Germans lost 600,000 in the same locality, which, to all intents and purposes, is really the grave of a million men.
Decline in Perceptive Ability
AS A RESULT of tests of 700 persons, ranging in age from 17 to 90, students at Stanford University have drawn the conclusion that the ability to perceive objects starts to decline at 17 years of age; at the age of 50 a man sees things about him as clearly as he did at fourteen ; at age 80 he sees as with the sense of perception of a child of six.
Britain a Nation of Blasphemers
Professor A. A. Bowman, of Glasgow University, is reported as having said to his students :
We call ourselves a Christian nation. That is a supreme act of blasphemy. No nation can claim that sacred name. Our civilization is organized through and through upon principles that are the very refutation of Christianity. If this were not so, why do we maintain that filthiest of organizations, a secret service? In accepting war we accepted sheer diabolism and we all became devil worshipers. At one time there was a tone of chivalry about war. Now it has become a matter of calling the engineer and the chemist into a butchery and the last vestige of chivalry has gone.
The Kingdom of Samuel Insult
TTAWTHORN Farm, the kingdom of Samuel J- Insull at Libertyville, Ill., comprised 4,300 acres, was surrounded, English style, with high, spiked, iron fences, and contained the only post office in the country operated by the government on a private farm. At its height the farm required the services of sixty-two regular employees. Now it has but live.
Gold Strike in Venezuela
A BIG gold strike is reported in the state of Bolivar, Venezuela. The gold production of this state had been increasing rapidly when a prospector landed on a deposit where he is said to have gathered up 2,000 ounces of nuggets in ten days. That is about 167 pounds, and it seems a little bit too big a story to be true. If he got the tenth part of it it was a big find.
Air Route London to Winnipeg
rpiIE Manchester Guardian, which advocates -L the Greenland route between London and Winnipeg, calls attention to the fact that a straight line between the two cities passes through the middle of southern Greenland. It thinks the time between the two cities not liable to be more than three days, if the route is found to be a practicable one. This remains to be seen.
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