Awake!, April 8, 1953

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THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL

News sources that are able to keep you awoke to the vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish Interests. “Awake I" has no fetters. It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish facts. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; it is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.

“Awake!” uses the regular news channels, but is not dependent on them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, in scores of nations. From the four comers of the earth their uncensored, on-the'scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journal’s viewpoint is not narrow, but is international. It is read in many nations, in many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—-why, its cover* age is as broad as the earth and as high as the heavens,

“Awake I” pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, to championing freedom for all, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by the failures of a delinquent world, reflecting sure hope for the establishment of a righteous New World.

Get acquainted with “Awake!" Keep awake by reading “Awake!”

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CONTENTS

Do You Think?

Flee Corruption to Survive

Glass Enters the Home

Telephone Service de Luxe

Uruguay Goes to the Polls

The Gambling Craze

The Balance in Nature

Tarantulas as They Really Are

New Zealand Re-elects Its National

Party Government

Overcoming the Tobacco Habit

1 The Hoax of the Schoolboy School Owner

New Word for Toll of Modern War 24 "Your Word Is Truth”

The Sacredness of Human Life

Blueprint for Delinquency

Jehovah’s Witnesses Preach in All the Earth—Southern Rhodesia

Do You Know?

Watching the World

DO YOU

THS world is proud of its wisdom.

Ours is an intellectual age. Logic and scientific reasoning abound. Even so, many people still do not think. They let others think for them—and often even those others do not think. An example is the way man’s fancied wisdom sometimes attempts to discredit the Bible. Higher criticism doubts the Bible’s accuracy. Modernists doubt its authority. Sometimes their views may lead other men into doubting that book’s reliability and timeliness for today.

But this magazine supports the Bible. It is designed for people who want to think. More people should think today. Almost everyone imagines he does. But do you? Has the flood of modem magazines that entertain rather than inform ruined your capacity for thought? Have television programs and the resulting loss of intelligent conversation and discussion added to this lack of thought? Are your ideas dictated by someone who said: “Now this is right,” only to be changed when somebody else says: “No, this is”? Do you know the reasons for your convictions? Can you analyze and determine answers?

The difference between right action and wrong action is thought. What you think directs what you do. Do your thoughts lead you in the right way, or the wrong? How do you know which way is right and which is wrong? Do you know the proofs of your belief, of your religion? Or do you

THINK?

believe it just because your parents did or because some dear friend told you that this one or that one is right? Have you thought about it yourself and weighed the evidence and come to a sound conclusion based on fact?

A man who never uses his body to do a hard day’s work finds it a tiring and difficult thing to do, while the man who digs ditches or loads freight cars or wrecks buildings has little difficulty in putting forth an added bit of exertion. The brain is like the body in this respect. The more you use it, the easier it is to use. But do you find an extra bit of mental exertion extremely difficult and tiring? Then, perhaps, you are out of the habit of thinking. It is not so hard to get out of that habit as you might imagine. Even in this age a vast multitude of persons do not think —they merely imagine that they do.

Some people are too lazy to work; many are too lazy to think. Some people have not done enough work to know how; many have not done enough thinking to be proficient at it. They are in a rut that requires little thought, no imagination. They never examine, never investigate, rarely progress in wisdom and knowledge. Do not be too lazy to think.

Straight thinking does not come naturally for most of us. It has to be learned. Making a sound decision may be the hardest work we are called upon to do.

Constructive thinking is more than daydreaming or the weaving of fantasies. We must weigh the various aspects of a situation. We may read material that provokes thought, and analyze it as we do, then base decisions upon facts that we have read. But what do you get out of what you read? Do you skim lightly over the page, getting merely a smattering of what is there? Or in reading is your mind active? Does it think about what is read, making certain that it got the correct idea from the page, and considering how this applies and what it means to you? Correct understanding is vital. How could you add to intelligent conversation if your information is faulty? How could you reach sound conclusions if in reading you misread the facts upon which your conclusion is based?

It has been said that while man's brain power grows rapidly during the first ten years of his life, it then steadily loses momentum, and that by the time many people are 20, growth in brain power has stopped. This is not true of people who keep studying, reading and thinking, but probably it is true with the majority of persons who do not continue to expand. A person can get along from day to day without doing a great deal of active thinking, but to form higher habits or to gain better skills, or to test your convictions for accuracy, thinking cannot be dispensed with. As Donald A. Laird said in his book Increasing Personal Efficiency: "Earthworms and idiots find it easy to live without active thinking. So do too many others." Obviously we do not wish to be in such a class.

If you see yourself in the bad picture of passive thinkers rather than in the good picture of active thinkers, do not be depressed; just do something about it. To build up your physical muscles you must eat and exercise. To grow strong in thinking, fill your mind with food for thought —provocative truths. Keep your mind active on them. Consider them. Talk about them. Explain them. Exercise your mental capacities, using that food for thought, just as an athlete uses food and exercise to develop his physical muscles.

Too many people have let the drugs of modern living dull their minds. They have let others think for them. They follow the crowd because, though what everyone else says may not be right, following them is easier than thinking for oneself. Perhaps they follow the family, thinking that whatever their parents or their close relatives said can be accepted without investigation. Thus their own power of thinking has taken a holiday.

Like a child who has not learned to walk, all too many people cannot stand on their own mental legs and walk satisfactorily through the maze of conflicting claims and ideas that are set before us today. But the child can learn to walk; a man can build his physical muscles through use; and likewise we can develop our mental strength, learning to weigh facts, to analyze, to determine and to put to accurate use the intelligent conclusions we reach.

One such conclusion has to do with the Bible itself. Those who scoff at that book are not using sound wisdom, true logic or an intelligent appraisal of the facts. They have ignored the evidence of archaeology and history that (despite modern critics’ claims to the contrary) prove the Bible account accurate. They have ignored the Bible’s harmony, its frankness, its high moral principles, and, above all, its reliable and detailed prophecies that show that this book is far beyond the power of any man or group of men to produce. The wise, the intellectual, the logical, the truly scientific approach proves this book’s authority. But too many people have never given it a thought. Have you?

FLEE

TIIS world must go. But there is no reason why you should go with it. No sane person wishes for disaster, but wishful thinking will not avert the disaster coming upon this world. It is Jehovah’s judgment

no part of it. In fact, they are anxious to see it go. Their choice is to live for the new world of Bible prom

What is to become of this world? What is to become of its religion, art, enlightenment, the culture of its civilization? What is to become of man? This article answers.

TO SURVIVE

that this world come to an end; that judgment is final. He is God. He changes not. —Malachi 3:6.

People who believe that “all is well,” or who contend that “in the end all will turn out all right,” are indulging in the same sad illusions that deceived the inhabitants of the preflood world. It is the same truthless delusion that beguiled the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman empires to their ultimate annihilation. These are choosing to live in a world of pleasant fantasy. They are seeking to escape from the grim reality of our times. They refuse to face the fact that this world is through, that its time is up and that it is on its way out. They intend to hang on to it, rejecting all thought that such association now can only spell certain disaster with it. So they deliberately choose to dupe themselves and others by their false reasonings.

But, on the other hand, there are those who refuse to run away. These prefer to face reality. These see this world for what it is: corrupt, immoral, degenerate, dying. They know that it is on its way out. They want ise, wherein “righteousness is to dwell.” In faith and hope they have dissociated themselves from this old world. Their Leader said of them: “They are no part of the world just as [I am] no part of the world." They have no part in old-world pursuits and activities that are dictated by the lust of appetite, the greed for gain, the passion for power, the thrill of physical combat, and the thirst for violence. They are a people separate and distinct from this old world. They have, as it were, escaped from the old to the new world by their faithful adherence to God’s Word.—2 Peter 3:13; John 17:16, New World Trans.

Reap What JFe Sow

These who practice “the New World religion,” that is, true Christianity, do not name of God and Ghrist this gesture will in itself spare them from the rod of God. Far be this from truth. Did God spare Israel, his people, when they turned unfaithful? Did he let Jerusalem go unpunished for her iniquities? Will Christendom and heathendom go unpunished for their sins? Christendom stands more reprehensible and abominable in the sight of God, for she claims to be God’s servant, but her acts belie her claims. Her history has been an almost unvarying record of confusion, contention, militaristic rivalry and recurring war. Her lust has been shameless and her power merciless. Her public affairs have been directed by conspiracies. Deceit has been her choice, exploitation and plunder her goal of action, injustice her rule of state. It is impossible to define her history in terms of righteousness.

Christendom’s religion has been mere tradition; her worship, a mockery; her professions of justice, hypocrisy. The majority of her people have no practice of religion; and those who go to church and listen^ to prayers and sing hymns addressed to God have only the vaguest idea of what is meant by God, or knowing God, or living the life of God as exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ his Son. She has plundered her own peoples. Can she flout the laws of God with such impunity and not .be punished? Can she seek her own lustfulness and greed and not in the end lose everything? Can she practice violence and hate against her neighbor and not bring upon herself as well as her neighbor a common ruin? God himself gives answers to these questions. “Do not be misled: God is not one to be mocked. For whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap; because he who is sowing with a view to his flesh will reap corruption from his flesh,”—Galatians 6:7, 8, New World Trans.

The Twilight of Harvest

After sixteen centuries of sowing of sexy, conscienceless, filthy seed, Christendom stands now at the threshold ready to reap the grand harvest. She has scoffed at the Book of books, the Bible, and acclaimed the dirty, obscene trash as “the best of the season.” Every avenue to the human mind she has cluttered with sex. Everything from automobiles to dainties she advertises against a background of a woman’s leg. She has gone all-out to promote sexy thinking and living. Her churches have been converted into recreation centers and gambling dens. Instead of devoting herself to creative, practical, peaceful pursuits, she has fallen into neglect and ease. Bit by bit she has allowed the fibers of honesty and decency to crumble to ruin. Everywhere within her realm life has become an exhausting struggle. There are signs of her slipping and sliding into a major, moral collapse. As she has built, so shall she be torn down. As she has sown corruption, so shall she reap corruption.

Christendom expresses surprise and amazement at her harvest of corruption, crime, immorality and delinquency. What she failed to give her children was an appreciation of God, his Word and their relationship to him. She failed to sow those values which mean more than all the material possessions in the world.

She says movies and television educate. So they do. They are educating the new generation to become irresponsible citizens at a very tender age. Writes a concerned mother: “With the exception of a very few, all children’s shows on the current TV programs seem to be composed of nothing but gangsters, tough cowboys, blustering, blood and thunder pictures which give every child from Maine to Louisiana the idea that it is right and honorable and pure heroism to shoot and kill in cold blood. At the tender age of four years, my daughter has a well-established idea that it is nice to shoot people.”

Now has come the hour for that terrible awakening, when Christendom must reap what she has sown. "Is it not true,” asks Monsignor Thomas J. Quigley, “that most Americans consider divorce legitimate? ... Do they not think it is smart to cheat the insurance company, beat traffic tickets, drink heavily, play around with another one’s husband or wife? Isn’t 'getting away with it’ the pragmatic norm which governs their decisions? Have we not become a people who worship the ‘body beautiful?’ Have not our whole entertainment and athletic program, our popular songs and dances, made us a sex-mad, pleasure-mad people? Are we not dedicated to getting the most we can of wealth, honor, sensible pleasure, and excitement out of the physical world, out of the worship of the body? Are we not a delinquent people in terms of Christian faith and tradition? If we are, then both juvenile and parental delinquency tire mere partial manifestations of our general decay as a Christian nation.”

Decay? Yes, exactly. Christendom has sown corruption, now the unchanging law of God is that she reap corruption. If she is weak, her societies corrupt and degenerate, her social systems unadaptable, the fault is not God's, but her own. She chose to have it so—so shall it be. One of her own clerics declares: “Ought we not to ask, however, in what significant or realistic sense can we apply the name ‘Christian’ to ourselves or to our national life? ... Is the moral tone of the nation—its politics, its business life, its literature, its theatre, its movies, its radio networks, its television stations—Christian?” This twentiethcentury world is openly immoral in its politics, business dealings, human relations and sex standards. A leading American statesman stated; “The decline of integrity in public life has brought us into the twilight of honor.”

Just recently Britain’s Lord Samuel, a liberal leader, was wildly cheered by the peers when he delivered a grave warning about crime and immorality. Lord Samuel said: “Violent crime also has greatly increased, and we read in the newspapers everyday of cruel and ruthless murders such as are, in the age of education and enlightenment, a disgrace to us all. There is no question,” said he, “but that sexual laxity is much more than it has been in earlier generations. Marriages are continually breaking up. Separations are frequent. We find in literature, in the drama, in life, that adultery is regarded as a jest and divorce a mere unimportant incident. . . . Now, last of all, we find to our dismay that the vices of Sodom and Gomorrah —the Cities of the Plain—appear to be rife among us. If they spread and if they become common, then retribution will not be found in earthquake and conflagration, but in something much more deadly and insidious—the poisoning of the moral sense.”

Turn in whatever direction you please, and read the signs that spell a moral breakdown. In Paris before the war it was estimated that there were 20,000 prostitutes, while in 1949 the guesses seemed to average about 100,000. A German survey similar to the U. S. Kinsey report said that “eighty-nine per cent of the men and seventy per cent of the women had sexual relations before marriage.” In America various reports assert that over seventy-three per cent of American males have premarital intercourse by the time they are twenty. As for divorce, one authority states that “in many circles the partner who refused to give the other his or her ‘freedom’ is regarded as somewhat churlish and unchivalrous.” This authority lists the increase in divorce since those pre-WorldWar-I years for England and Wales as 3,867 per cent; for Scotland, 691 per cent; for New Zealand, 489 per cent; for the United States, 221 per cent; and Japan, for which the figures were incomplete, it being the only “pagan” country involved, was the only land with less divorce, and there the decrease was 7 per cent.

While Christendom chants the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ she is filled to overflowing with false gods; ‘thou shalt not kill,’ yet within her boundaries have originated the greatest and most vicious of all wars, with wholesale killing and murder; 'thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ still she engages in hate campaigns and cold wars; ‘thou shalt not commit adultery,’ she is filled with adulterers and adulteresses; ‘thou shalt not steal,’ crime and delinquency have reached new peaks. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States, warned that d major crime is committed every 13.8 seconds, that in the first six months of 1954 over 1,136,140 major crimes took place. Reports show that youngsters are going in for big-time crime, that these are quicker than adult criminals to kill. Everywhere you turn are the same ominous signs of decay.

What to Expect in the Near Future

Not all is well in Christendom. She is sick to death and there is none to save her. She must go, and so must this old world. How well the prophet describes this hour before her complete fall: “She has fallen! Babylon the great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling-place of demons and a lurking-place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking-place of every unclean and hated bird!” Like a writhing patient in the clutches of a fatal disease is this old world. All its life it went on its arrogant way, indulged in every passion, satisfied every lust, violated wantonly every law of health and God. Now the irresistible laws of God are at work. It must reap what it has sown.—Revelation 18:2, New World Trans.

But you do not have to die with this old world. Paul said: “He whp is sowing with a view to the spirit will reap everlasting life from the spirit.” “Sowing with a view to the spirit” means giving heed to the great Spirit, Jehovah God. His immediate command is: "Get out of her [this satanic system of things], my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. . . . she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God who judged her is strong.” Get out by severing all connections with its prevailing political and social life; by steering clear of its passions, ambitions and pastimes. Paul advises: “Quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and complete will of God.”—Galatians 6:7-9; Revelation 18:4-8; Romans 12:2, New World Trans.

You can best do this by filling your mind with God’s Word, which tells of a new world wherein righteousness is to dwell. A nucleus of that new world is now in the earth represented in the New World society. Associate yourself with it as do all of Jehovah’s witnesses, and escape this world’s end to enjoy life unending in a paradise new earth.—2 Peter 3:13.

WHAT would our houses be without windows, our bedrooms without mirrors, and our vanity pressers without frangible cosmetic containers? What would our kitchens be without the glass tumbler, the glass coffeemaker, the glass casserole, saucepan and dinnerware? What would our living rooms be without the glass lamp shade, without a radio, phonograph or television? our basements without canned fruit? our attics without a framed glass picture of grandfather or an old chandelier? For one thing, our homes would be dark; our bedrooms, unattractive; our kitchens, less inviting; our living rooms not so appealing or so relaxing. Certainly much of the fragile beauty that engraces our homes and makes them more livable we owe to that versatile material—glass.

Step inside an ultramodern living room and what is it that first attracts your attention? Is it not the large picture window that invites the garden beauty of the outdoors right inside? These glass windows are made to withstand rain, snow, sleet, the heat of summer and the cold of winter for generations. They let light through, as much as eighty per cent of it, and at the same time absorb about forty-five per cent of the heat.

Step out of the living room for a moment and call to mind the various conceivable types of glassware with which almost every modern home is equipped—their number is staggering. There are glass candlesticks, glass shades, glass chandeliers, dessert bowls, sugar bowls, butter coolers, drinking glasses and water jugs, quart and pint decanters of all descriptions, as well as numerous other items for household use, such as vases, inkstands, wafer boxes, dishes, door handles, shutter knobs, mirrors and many kinds of ornaments of glass. There are glasses to cook on, glasses to cook in, glass dishes for the food, and glass knives, forks and spoons to eat it with. There are glass beds and glass blankets, glass freezers, friers and driers. No wonder we find it difficult to imagine a house without glass.

The First Windows

Yet in Cicero’s time, who died in 43 B.C., glass objects of any kind were rarities, and glass windows were unknown. There were no windows at all in Greek houses. The rooms were lighted only when the one door which opened onto an inner courtyard was uncovered. In ancient times superstitious people believed sunlight to be a spirit god. They tried capturing it by

trying to chase it into their homes and by quickly shutting the door so that it would not escape. The first windows, even though they were nothing but narrow slits in the wall, were hailed as marvelous innovations. During the Roman era and for hundreds of years thereafter, animal skins or woven material was used as windowpanes. Sometimes the well-to-do Romans used bits of horn or shell or mica instead of cloth, or very thin sheets of alabaster, to cover their windows.

As late as the fourteenth century Richard II issued a writ to search all England to find glass to repair the windows in just one castle. Near the close of the seventeenth century in all the great towns of Italy, with perhaps the exception of Genoa, paper or skins of animals were used as windowpanes. Early American homes had few or no windows. In 1684 Colonel William Byrd of Virginia was forced to send to England to get glass panes for his new home. Those glass windows were a rare sight in America. In the sixteenth century a man who owned glass windows took them with him if he moved to a new home, and he entered them in his will as precious possessions to be handed down to his chosen heir.

Discovered by Accident

Strange, is it not, that this fabulous material should have been discovered quite by accident? The historian Pliny tells us that a group of Phoenician sailors anchored ship along a Syrian river. Going ashore to prepare a meal, they took with them lumps of natron to support their pots, because there were no suitable rocks on the sandy beach. (Natron is a crude kind of soda, which sailors used as a cleanser in those days.) The campfire blazed hot. When it came time to return to their ship, they noticed among the cooling campfire ashes strings of shiny brittle substances. The amazing material came to be called by the world glass; However, authorities doubt Pliny’s story because, say they, it takes 1200 degrees Fahrenheit to fuse glass. And if that beach fire fused glass, then, according to these authorities, “it was the hottest open campfire on record!” Despite the apocryphal nature of the story, one reason some accept it is that soda, sand and fuel make glass and that these were plentiful along the coast of Phoenicia.

However, long before man learned to make glass, nature was forming her own. A flash of lightning into a sand dune will turn the sand into a long, slender tube of glass, measuring up to a half inch in diameter and sometimes several feet in length. In Uruguay, along a stretch of sandy dunes, there are glass rods of this type that reach a depth of many yards into sand. In some sections the wind has blown away the sand leaving a glimmering forest of crystal trees!

Volcanic action, too, is a glassmaker. Volcanic glass is called obsidian. Egyptian and Roman craftsmen decorated their homes with objects made of obsidian. They shaped this impure semitransparent material into bowls, plates, jars, arrowheads and jewelry. Wealthy ladies had vanity cases and compacts made of decorated glass. Small glass rods were used for applying the make-up. Beads were used as charms. Archaeologists declare that the best glass of Egypt is dug from the most ancient sites.

In course of time men became highly skilled at the art of glassmaking, using both obsidian and sand-made glass. The Greeks laid floors of glass mosaic and patterned their walls with murals “painted” in small pieces of glass. The Roman glass was so magnificently decorated that the wealthiest Romans cherished it as they did their gold and silver jewelry ware. Imitation emeralds, rubies and other precious

gems were so perfectly copied in glass that only an expert could distinguish the genuine stones from the false ones. The deception was so complete that even the wife of Roman emperor Gallienus bought a set of jewels that later proved to be made of glass.

Down through the ages glass has never lost its appeal. It has had as its admirers and collectors Egyptian Pharaohs, Chinese emperors, Roman Caesars, kings, princes and popes. Royalty and nobility closely followed the art of its making. Nero, Adrian, and his successors down to Gallienus, all practiced the profession. Nero’s taste for glass vessels was extreme. He preferred them to delicate vessels of gold and silver. There is an account of the payment by Nero of a sum equal to $100,000 for two glass cups with handles!

Even though some of these notable men were master craftsmen at the art of glassmaking, able to create elaborate storytelling windows with brilliant illustrations of religious and Biblical themes, still none of them could make the plain, colorless, transparent windowpane through which we view our modem world. Their “colorless” glass was more translucent than transparent.

Perhaps nothing made of glass is more popular than the mirror. First, mirrors were made of polished metal or dark stone. A man whose mirror was stolen or broken felt that he himself had been injured. In some societies the deliberate destruction of a man’s mirror was a crime equivalent to murder and punished with equal severity. However, even the best metal mirrors reflected rather dimly. The apostle Paul remarked: “For at present we see in hazy outline by means of a metal mirror.” (1 Corinthians 13:12, New World Trans.) When the Venetians learned how to eoat one side of glass into a far better and clearer reflecting surface, their mirrors became instantly popular. Marie de Medici, queen of France, spent hundreds of thousands of francs for a single Venetian mirror!

Air Bubble Makes a World of Difference

Despite the abundance of sand and the simplicity with which glass can be made, It still remained out of reach of the common man until the twentieth century. More progress has been made in this century than in all the others combined. But one of the greatest contributing factors to this success was discovered by the Phoenicians between 300 and 20 B.C., and that is the technique of blowing an air bubble in molten glass. This strikingly simple thing required men thousands of years to learn. The technique requires that a long hollow iron rod be placed in molten glass and a blob or “gather” of glass adhering to the rod be lifted out and then shaped slightly by rolling it on a flat surface. Next, a gentle puff of air into the other end of the rod forms a small bubble in the middle of the gather. The more one blows the larger the bubble becomes, like a spherical balloon its walls thin as it grows larger. As soon as the bubble has reached the desired size, let it cool and harden. The rod is then pulled away or the glass sheared while it is still warm and viscous. The opening left by the rod can be enlarged, so that the round bubble becomes a vase or a widemouthed bowl.

Today, machines blow and mold the hot glass. The blowing is done with compressed air. Hand-blowing a half a billion milk bottles and nearly three billion bottles for medicines and toilet preparations, and some billions more for soft-drink bottles —not to mention the hundreds of millions more for beer, fruit juices, liquors and other beverages—would require a tremendous staff of human glass blowers’. This is all capably handled today by the lungs of a mechanical marvel,

New Glass Era Begins

Remember when you did not dare put a baby’s bottle into boiling water without first heating it? Baby’s bottles today can be taken directly out of the refrigerator and put into boiling water without losing a bottle. In fact, laboratory men lay fine sheets of this tempered glass on blocks of ice, wait till it is cold, then pour molten metal over it without cracking the glass. Tumblers and plates made of this superglass can be tossed on the floor by junior without danger of their chipping or breaking.

On the new glass ironing board tha housewife can press her glass frock. The material will not burn, and a hot flatiron, left on it while she answers a telephone call, will not even leave a scorch mark. Window and door drapes, luxurious sofas and chairs, pillows and blankets are also made of this fireproof, fiberglass fabric. The amazing material will not stain and it defies acids.

Bathrooms and kitchens are made brighter and lighter with structural glass. It resembles the finest marble. It is easy to clean and cheaper, lighter and easier to install.

At the dinner table the modem housewife brings meat, vegetables and desserts to her table in the same handsome glassware in which they were cooked. Glass casseroles reveal their contents to the cook’s watchful eye. Hot glass is used to dry clothes, cook breakfast or warm a house. In a small suburban home a new type of insulating glass saves as much as twenty-three to thirty-six per cent of fuel costs. One firm demonstrated the versatility of glass by placing a quart of ice cream wrapped in glass wool and an unbaked cherry pie side by side in a hot oven; also a pot of hot coffee wrapped in glass wool was set in a refrigerator. When removed, the pie was baked, the ice cream still hard, the coffee still steaming.

Glass is so reasonably priced today that almost every housewife can afford a set of cleverly designed pieces with crystal clarity and the delicacy of decoration on which craftsmen once labored long hours to produce and for which kings once willingly bartered gold and precious jewels. What other material is like modem glass? It defies corrosion, swallows heat, lets in more ultraviolet light, permits indoor sun tan, and at the same time graces the home with its glimmering, crystal beauty.

Thanks be to God for this wonderful gift made from grains of sand—an abundance of which he has created for our pleasure and enjoyment.

Telephone Service de Luxe

< In America the special "help” facilities furnished by the telephone companies are usually limited to time and weather. In Britain the only special service is time. But on the Continent some countries, such as Switzerland and West Germany, have made remarkable progress in “help” services. The German telephone system is rapidly being acclaimed as the most outstanding in Europe. Some of the reasons: one can dial for recipes and household hints, racing and football forecasts and results, theater and Sim schedules, and even the opinion of the critics. At all times one can get the news, stock exchange and market reports. A sick person dials for dispensary service. And if a music lover longs to hear his favorite record, you guessed it, he dials to have it played to him. Austria, however, has eclipsed Germany in at least one feature. In Vienna, if one feels low in spirits, he just reaches for the telephone and dials the “joke” service. Germany is studying this one.

(huguzHj goes TO THE FWfo

By "Awok*!" corratpondent in Uruguay

HAT would you think about an election in which a single vote is cast in favor of more than 600 candidates? Unusual? Would you not think it stranger still upon learning that you were voting for nine presidents instead of one? Well, that is the situation that confronted the 831,577 of the 1,295,522 registered voters in Uruguay who went to the polls on Sunday, November 28, 1954. Let us have a look at some of the interesting features of the election system in this the smallest and probably most democratic republic of South America.

Uruguay has not always had nine “presidents,” or counselors as they are properly called. In 1951 the Constitution was amended to make way for the Colegiado, this present form of rule in which the power of one president is vested in nine men. Actually, it is the realization of the ideals of one of the earlier figures in Uruguayan politics of this century, Jose Batlie y Ordonez, who, during his life, fought for this arrangement based largely on the example of Switzerland, Though the cost of operating such a government is naturally higher than in the case of a single president, the arguments are put forth that it guarantees that the members will be more honest and that it eliminates the danger of one man’s taking. dictatorial powers into his hands—a thing very common in South American countries. In spite of these arguments, however, some have openly stated their intention to return to the former system if elected to power.

As there are no primary elections in Uruguay, the votes cast on election day decide who will be the 9 counselors, 31 senators, 99 representatives, 9 members of the Electoral Court, as well as the members of the Council and municipal boards of the 19 departments of the country. Additionally, there are two, and in some cases three, alternative names given for all candidates named above. These are elected as supplementary members to serve in cases of resignations, sickness, death, etc. Now you see why it is that the lists published contain more than 600 candidates.

The two principal parties are the Parti-do Colorado (Red party, but not Communist) the majority of which party belong to the section called Batllismo, a name derived from their leader Jose Batlie y Ordonez, and the Partido Nacional (National party), formerly called the Partido Blanco (White party). These two colors are those used originally as emblems of the parties during the civil wars. Today these parties are divided into various factions. Each faction participates in the elections under the general motto of the party, but uses a subslogan that may be the same as or different from that of the other factions. This is true even when the list of candidates of the faction, with its own distinguishing number, is different from those of the other factions of the party. Generally the lists support the same candidates for the most important offices, such as counselors and senators, with variations in the names of candidates for the municipal offices and House of Representatives. One cannot choose some candidates from one list and others from a different list, but must decide upon one list that most suits his desires as far as all candidates for all offices are concerned. This list, published before the election, is put into an envelope and dropped into the ballot box on election day.

You have probably asked: “Why, though, would different factions of the same party run under the same slogan?” That brings up another interesting point about the election system here in Uruguay. When the votes are counted, the votes received by all factions of the party are added to those received by the list with the highest number. In this way, although divided, the factions keep themselves united in their fight against the opposing parties. The victorious faction has the right to six seats in the Council as representatives of the party. The other three seats are occupied by the party that follows the winner in number of votes.

On the basis of the results of the present election Luis Battle Berres, who heads List 15 of the Partida Colorado, together with the other five members of his faction, will occupy the majority of the seats on the Council during the period 1955-59. The three remaining seats will be occupied by members of the Partido Naciondl. The rest of the positions in the Senate, House of Representatives, and the departmental councils and municipal boards will be distributed proportionately according to votes received by Color ados and Nacioiw-listas, as well as members of the Communist, Socialist, Union Civica (Catholic), Independent National and some other smaller parties.

Though election day came at the end of November, the publicity started some five months earlier. To date nothing like it has been seen in this country. Not even the yearly carnival with its noise, color, parades, floats and overwhelming masses of people could compare with what occurred prior to the decisive date of November 28.

A Publicity Campaign Extraordinary

Hundreds of political clubs scattered throughout all parts of all the cities and towns of the country maintained a constant flow of verbal propaganda through their loud-speakers. Especially in the capital, Montevideo, in the central part, these clubs are so close together at times that when two announcers spoke at the same time it was impossible to understand either one. From morning till night the flow of words continued. Adding to the uproar were the dozens of sound cars that passed through the streets blaring forth more information in favor of their particular party. Enormous floats covered with slogans, signs, pictures of the politicians and the number of their list contributed to the spectacle. From the windows of cars thousands of handbills were thrown to the winds, to be picked up, stepped on or finally swept up by the street cleaners. When one had come to the conclusion that the thunderous confusion of noise would drive him crazy, more noise from above would be heard as low-flying airplanes equipped with loud-speakers would shout forth still more propaganda.

The municipality of Montevideo positively prohibits the putting up of commercial signs or other notices about public events in the streets. But, of course, exception is made for political propaganda. How the politicians took advantage of it! It can be said that the appearance of the city was practically transformed by the tens of thousands of signs that began to appear pasted on trees, telephone and light poles, fences, walls, fronts of buildings whether old or new, inhabited or uninhabited, curbs of the streets, statues and whatever else offered a few square inches of space on which to paste signs. No respect was shown for others as one group of sign pasters placed their signs over those of their opponents. Even before the glue would dry a third group would appear to put their signs over those of the previous two.

This continued day after day until finally neat, dean buildings would remain a distasteful mass of jumbled signs placed at all angles one over another. As election day drew near one could hear the people grumbling because their property was literally smothered in paper signs of all sizes, shapes and colors. Trees and light posts became the bearers of as many as three or four different signs nailed or wired to them, each one in favor of a different party. Enormous electrical signs as well as hundreds made on cloth were suspended overhead from building to building. As many as eight were seen in one city block. As a result of high winds many would tear and would remain hanging in ribbons above a new one placed there by another party. In many of the more important corners the tattered remains of four or five signs presented anything but a pleasant picture. Giant numbers appeared painted on the streets along with the name of the party, to attract the attention of the motorists and pedestrians crossing at the corners.

Nearer the time of election cruzadas throughout the country began with great numbers of cars, trucks and motorcycles moving from city to city and town to town in an effort to rouse the sentiments of the different adherents of each party. Day after day in every part of the city speakers, male and female, orated on the benefits of their party and the failures of the other. If one were to believe all that was said by the contenders for election he would have to come to the conclusion that the entire list of candidates were liars, cheaters, traitors to the country and incapable of representing the people in their government. Almost 100 per cent of the local newsreels in the movies were dedicated to more propaganda, while the newspapers used up to 50, 60 or 70 per cent of the total space in many instances to further the cause of the party that supports them. All in all, it was a display of advertising never before seen or duplicated and it caused amazement on the part of all, especially the many interested observers of the 8th General Assembly of the UNESCO that was assembled in Montevideo at the time. It provided an example of true freedom for those representatives present from dictator-controlled countries.

One point that should not be overlooked in this report is about the source of funds behind such a monstrous campaign. Where, in such a small country, would such an amount come from? Why, from the government! $3,500,000 (pesos) were allotted to be divided proportionately to the different parties on the basis of votes received. Without a doubt it was this fact that contributed largely to the greatly intensified publicity campaign that Uruguayans saw during the pre-election months.

So, Uruguay has made her decision for another four-year period. It is too early yet to say just what the results will be as the new government entered into power on March 1,1955. Only the passing of time will tell whether it is for better or for worse as far as the people of this land are concerned. But, regardless of the course of the politicians of this old world, the ambassadors of the theocracy in Uruguay, Jehovah’s witnesses, will press on firmly in the work of announcing the perfect government of Jehovah God through Christ as the only real remedy for today’s problems.

The Gambling Craze

The Gambling Fever ift America

4 In 1950 Dr. Ernest E. Blanche, a statistician in the logistics division of the United States Army who has made a secondary career out of studying gambling and warning gamblers that they cannot win, estimated that 3,000,000 Americans were playing the horses, 22,000,000 playing dice and cards for money, 14,000,000 playing slot machines and pinball games and 26,000,000 playing bingo, buying lottery tickets and playing the football and baseball pools. The total gambling bill, it has been estimated, is $15,000,000,000 a year. What would these figures be if gambling were not illegal in most localities?

Bingo! Church Take Is Millions

Toward the end of New Jersey’s first year of legalized gambling for churches, the state control commission reported that the churches and civic organizations would gross more than $10,000,000 from bingo. The approximate income from raffles and other gambling games was set at $5,000,000.

< How different are the gambling churches of Christendom from Christ’s apostle who said: "We 'make honest provision, not only in the sight of Jehovah, but also in the sight of men*”!—2 Corinthians 8:21, New World Trans.

Gambling with the Aid of Demons

4 Gambling in various forms has always been a favorite with the demon-worshiping pagans. A report in the Lynn, Massachusetts,

Item of May 28, 1952, told about religious gamblers in Penang, Malaya: "‘Jubilant villagers of Pulau Tikus in Penang celebrated with prayers and a seven-day Chinese drama after winning a total of $66,000 in a lottery from a tip from their temple god. The god, through a temple medium, had advised them to back 54 as the winning number in an illegal lottery in conjunction with a horse race.* On the eve of each race day hundreds of people crowd into temples and cemeteries to ask the aid of the gods and spirits in placing bets.”

A Pointed Comment on Gambling

C “Is it wrong to gamble, bet, or speculate?” asked Durant Drake, then associate professor of ethics at Wesleyan University, in his book Problems of Conduct. His answer was that gambling should be condemned. "Its most obvious evil,” he wrote, “is the danger of loss of needed money; most gamblers cannot rightly afford to throw away what ought to be used for their real needs and those of their families. . , , And he must remember that if he can afford to lose, perhaps his opponent cannot. , . . All betting, all playing games for money, all gambling in stocks is wrong in principle, liable to bring needless unhappiness. The honorable man will hate to take money which has not been fairly earned; he will wish to protect those who are prone to run useless risks against themselves. The safest place to draw the line is on the near side of all gambling, however trivial.1 ’

The Balance in nature

< If all birds vanished, insects would wipe out the world’s plant food supply. Yet if all insects vanished, half our crops would become extinct. If all animals disappeared, there would be no organic fertilizers to nurture plant life. If all lowly bacteria did not exist, dead organic matter would never decay or rot and would pile up all over, smothering earth. If all fish vanished, seaweed would grow unchecked along all coasts and swamp them in a dense choking entanglement stopping all ships from leaving dock. If all seaweed died, hordes of fish would pass into limbo with it.—Mechanic Illustrated, February, 1954.

dooi; spiders (not all trap-door spiders make trap doors) that have so completely usurped the name "tarantula” that the name has stuck. About thirty species of tarantulas live in the United States, mostly in the Southwest. In the tropics many interesting kinds abound. A few live in trees, moving from one tree to another with the greatest of ease. Even the ground-loving tarantulas are good climbers. In much of Spanish America people just call them, because of their velvety wool and silken hairs, aranas peludas (hairy spiders).

FEW creatures excite more soul-chilling horror than the huge, hairy spider called tarantula. When this' ferocious-looking spider turns up in a banana box or in a house, the usual reception is a shriek of horror. What a commotion follows! The women beat a fast retreat, and the brave and courageous men feverishly advance with sticks and boots to squash “the hideous monster.” Is all this mad dread of tarantulas justified? Is their bite dangerous to man? How large do they grow? Why does this spider have a coat of hair? The answers will tell us the intriguing story of tarantulas as they really are.

Before prying into the private life of Mr. Tarantula, we should know that spiders are not insects; they are members of a separate order of arthropods. So, if you wish, call the tarantula an animal.

Spider families can be put, roughly, into one of five groups: web weavers, jumping spiders, crab spiders, wolf spiders and trap-door spiders. Where does the tarantula fit in? The answer is a little involved, but, briefly, the original tarantula is a European wolf spider. It got its name from the Italian city of Taranto in Apulia, on the outskirts of which it was once very numerous. What, then, are those hairy spiders in the Americas? They are trap-

Site, Hair and Diet

Tarantulas are the biggest spiders on earth. Those in North America may grow to be two inches long with a leg span of six inches. In the steaming jungles of South America, especially Brazil, is found the giant of the tarantula tribe. Called Thera-phosa, it is an enormous creature that has no peers for size anywhere in the world. It grows to be four inches long with a leg span of ten inches—almost a foot of spider!

But why the hair? Here are two clues: tarantulas do not spin a web to capture prey, and they have poor eyesight. Naturally, the spider wants to know what is passing by, especially at mealtime. So the tarhntula Jias an extremely delicate sense of touch. Woe to passers-by! For when a wayfaring insect, plodding along, brushes against the spider’s hair, the tarantula’s dinner bell rings. It is the signal for the fangs of the hungry spider to go into action. And the wayfarer is hit by an express train with an engine of curved fangs. Dinner is served.

On those occasions when the tarantula gets its mind off snatching snacks, a wayfarer can touch its body hairs and merely cause the spider to shake the touched limb. An insect can then walk right under the tarantula's big hairy belly and live to tell about it. Certainly only the most foolhardy

insects try to perform that feat. It is usually fatal. After a hair is touched, the spider's reaction is so swift that motion pictures taken at the rate of sixty-four frames per second show only the result and not the process of capture. Surely tarantulas have the original hair-trigger action!

Besides the marvelous dinner-catching equipment, tarantulas have their own built-in tenderizer, for spiders predigest their food by flooding the wound with secretions to soften tissue so it can be sucked up easily. Having an economy-sized stomach also helps. Thus, with several hours at the dinner table, a tarantula can reduce the bulk of a fat mouse to a juiceless skeleton.

Dangerous to Man?

Because of their ferocious looks, tarantulas are often thought to be deadly poisonous. This is not so. Neither the European nor the United States tarantula is. dangerous to man. The bite of these spiders is now known to be no worse than a hornet’s sting. Indeed, Dr. William J. Baerg of the University of Arkansas has studied tarantulas for many years, and he has concluded that no species from the United States is able to produce anything more than trivial symptoms in man, little more than the mechanical injury of breaking the skin. So these spiders, because they feast on bugs (they find roaches tasty morsels), really merit the friendship of their human neighbors.

Tropical tarantulas, however, compose such a diverse group that they cannot all be labeled harmless without more data on venoms. Tests have shown that many of the tropical varieties, including the giant of them all, have venom that is very nearly ineffective on man. On the other hand, the common tarantula of the Canal Zone and the lowlands of Central America kills guinea pigs in half an hour and causes pain in man that lasts for several hours. But the danger of tarantula bite is remote. Tarantulas do not attack man. One noted authority on spiders, McCook, tried to get big tropical tarantulas to bite him. Strangely, after endless patience lasting over years, he had induced only one spider to bite him.

How long do tarantulas live? Those in America live for about fifteen years. One immigrant to Britain, found in a banana crate, was kept alive in a museum for fourteen years. And when it immigrated it was already about six years old. It would have lived much longer than twenty years had not a fuel shortage during the war caused the temperature to go below freezing. Some tarantulas reach the thirty-year mark.

But for a spiderling to reach a ripe old age is quite an accomplishment. The young are gobbled up by birds, frogs and toads. Some snakes find them quite suitable dietetically. Finally, after ten years of avoiding hungry mouths, the tarantula reaches maturity. At this age the male American tarantula abandons his burrow and begins wandering over the countryside searching for a mate. These roving spiders may be seen crossing highways of the Southwest, often in considerable numbers. Most do not survive the year in which they become mature. Many die a natural death. Others die an unusual death: during the process of courtship and mating the female often fails to get her mind off her stomach, and she sizes up her bridegroom as something edible, and a kind of succulent morsel at that. If, after dinner, she realizes her mistake and suffers regrets, it does not show visibly. But if she should suffer a feeling of regret she has the consolation that she has dined well and that another suitor will be looking her up shortly.

The Wasp and the Spider

Life is not always a picnic for female tarantulas. They have an archenemy in the “tarantula hawk,” a digger wasp called Pepsis. Pepsis drinks nectar herself, but when she is ready to lay an egg she goes tarantula hunting- Pepsis has to find just the right species of tarantula. Flying low over the ground, Pepsis scouts especially for the plump females. Their greater bulk offers a more generous supply of food for the wasp’s offspring. After locating the right tarantula, the wasp proceeds to dig a grave. Now and then Pepsis pops out of the six-to-eight-inch hole to see that the tarantula makes no tracks for home. The grave finished, Pepsis buzzes back to the spider and jockeys into position to sting the tarantula. The spider makes no move to save itself. Finally, the wasp grasps the spider’s leg firmly in its jaws. Now the harassed spider tries to defend itself. It is too late. They roll over and over. But the outcome is always the same. The wasp stings the spider. Almost immediately the hairy spider falls paralyzed on its back. Yet it is not dead. Pepsis then drags its victim to the grave, lays an egg on the spider’s fat abdomen and, with soil carried bit by bit in her jaws, fills the grave, leaving her descendant safely started in life.

The strange thing about all this is that the tarantula is fully capable of defending itself; indeed, it could kill the ?■ wasp. In experiments, digger wasps, when they were not carrying eggs, have been placed in jars with the tarantula they usually kill. The result : the spider invariably kills the wasp-But when Pepsis is about to have children, look out tarantulas! In spite of Pepsis’ attacks there is no danger of the tarantula’s going the way of the dodo. For Pepsis lays only one egg at a time; Mrs. Tarantula lays 200 to 400.

The story of tarantulas would not be complete without this information: tarantulas, at least those in the United States, make fine pets. They quickly become tame, so tame they can be handled with ease. Can you believe it? To convince its readers the New York Times of October 19,1954,- said: “If you feed a tarantula mealworm beetles and are otherwise kind to it, it will make a very good pet. The authority for this is the American Museum of Natural History.”

And one authority has written about seeing Indian children leading about a huge Brazilian tarantula by a string tied to its tangerine-sized waist, much as many city dwell >rs lead about a Pekingese, The tarantula is the smaller animat But since so many people do not know tarantulas as they really are, it seems that the sight of a huge, hairy tarantula creeping down a city street, even though attached to its master by a string, would provoke pandemonium, a howling commotion, onlookers aghast, agog and agone! And all because of a shy, inoffensive spider.

^aiaball and. ’&iapat5

During the last baseball world series the New York Times reported on the easy way, it seems, that baseball wives have for teaching their husbands how to diaper a new baby. The wife lays the breechcloth out in the form of a baseball diamond. "Now," she tells her baseball-playing husband, "you take the batter's position at the low end of the cloth; bring center field down to home plate. You put the .baby in the pitcher’s box. You bring first base, third base and home plate together. If the game’s rained out, you start all over.”

New Zealand Re-elects Its National Party Government

»y “AwokeI" eofT«<pond«nt irt New Zealand

HE Labour party was voted out in New Zealand in 1349, after ruling the country for 14 years. Perhaps the party’s own supporters contributed most to that defeat in that trade unions were too ready to strike if their demands were not met by the employers. The long-suffering public decided it was time for a change and put the National party in power by a substantial majority. Soon the waterside workers clashed with the new government, making demands that the nationals refused to concede. It meant industrial war on the water front and the holdup of shipping at all ports in the country. The victory went to the government, ushering in a new era of peace in industry. Anxious to have the electors endorse their handling of the water-front trouble, the national government resigned and went to the country on this issue. They were returned to office in 1951, with a clear majority of 20 seats in a house of 80 members. C The election campaign just concluded centered around the rising cost of living, and the Labour party’s charge that the government failed to fulfill its promise to make the pound go farther. National's reply was that overseas prices skyrocketed as a result of the Korean war and it was not their fault that their promises were unfulfilled. One of Labour’s prominent candidates admitted their failure to discipline striking unionists when they held the reins of power and promised that, if elected, they would not allow themselves to be pushed around by truculent Industrial unions. Labour relied on promises to make conditions better for the common man, to control the price of food, and to use stabilization as an antidote to inflation. They would allow increased social security benefits, particularly with regard to child allowance. They would deal with selfishness in business, which they claim is responsible for the present high cost of living. The National party sought the support of the electors on the strength of their

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