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WITH THE SCISSORS...
HURRICANES
This year, the entire world was horrified by the devastation caused by cyclones and tornadoes in the United States. It was wondered if these terrible cataclysms were reserved for the American continent, since we hardly remember seeing such a disaster in Europe.
This is because human memory is short, for past centuries have not failed to record similar devastations in our country. For example, on November 26, 1703, the most terrible hurricane ever suffered by the British Isles arose.
Defoë, the author of Robinson Crusoe, who experienced all the terrors of this phenomenon, wrote: Horror and confusion had fallen upon all things. No pen could depict those days, no tongue could recount them, no thought imagine them. The voice of the wind was like thunder. To go out into the open was to risk immediate death; to remain indoors was to run the risk of having the walls collapse upon you. It was impossible, even remotely, to estimate the lives lost on land, at sea, or in the flooded waters of the Severn and the Thames.
In London alone, the damage to the buildings was estimated at two million pounds sterling.
The storm fell into a sudden, flat calm at the exact hour it had begun a week before.
A MODEL PRINCE
Daily Chronicle.
Peace be with you! It is with these soothing words that Ras Taffari, whose picturesque appearance has aroused the sympathetic curiosity of Paris and London, begins all his letters. The Abyssinian prince offers the curious combination of a traditional and yet very progressive spirit. Thus, he has just installed telephone lines in his country, and Addis Ababa, thanks to the prince, can boast a model dairy. The capital of Abyssinia also owes its regent a printing press and a bookbinding workshop. The prince is an ardent supporter of the League of Nations; the government has even prepaid the annual subscription, and all documents concerning the League are sent to the prince himself, whereas in other countries they are sent to representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ras will be present at the General Assembly of the League, which is scheduled to take place in September in Geneva.
Daily News.
THE SEVEN WISE MEN IN LONDON
The sight of the seven lamas, the seven wise men of Tibet, wandering through London is most curious. A young man precedes them, brandishing, on the end of a stick, an incense burner in which incense brought from the Palkor Choide monastery at the foot of Mount Everest is burning. A second neophyte holds a vase bathing peacock feathers in fresh water.
Now, on the fourth day of their arrival, the seven sages of Tibet settled into a subway car. But an employee, seeing the smoke from the censer, jumped out.
"You have water in your vase," he said; "turn off your little stove or get out." The interpreter tried to make the attendant understand the important status of the travelers. But it was unsuccessful, and the lamas had to leave the car.
Before deciding, one of them offered the zealous employee a beautiful peacock feather, a feather whose variegated eye protects against the gaze of evil spirits. But the employee, laughing, stuck the feather in his cap.
And the seven sages were cruelly mortified!
The Weekly Notebook.
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