THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 1959. ^
Do
you still believe
On the beach
with GILES
AT
in
charms?
T some time or other, almost every race of people has firmly believed in the effectiveness of the amulet, a word derived from the Latin amuletum, and denoting a lucky charm or a Inedicine' supposed to have occult properties,
the
Other researchers into
the
An smule hung around neck, or carried in any other history of superstillons declare way, was utrurdly considered to that the tablt of touching wood have the effect of warding off really goes back to heathen incrbid Infections and other times, when primitive peoples dingers, and even of curing held certain trees to be objects moris with which a person was already suffering.
of
veneration. Touching the stem of those trees was up- the are posed to give a person peasant folk who imagine that protection of the spirits which
an
Even nowadays,
Infant's
there
toothing-troubles were reputed to exist in auch
will be miliga teci by hanging trees.
around is that an anodyne or
pain-relieving neckinge mode t
Superstition
beads formed frer, the roots of If you are a woman, perhaps
white bryony, a wild elimbing you feel a vague sense of uneasi
plunt of the gourd family.
And there are still 9shermen
in some parts of the world who
ness when you break the mirror
in your handbag. The fact that you'll have to dip Into your purse is not what's
entertain the bollet But they to buy another
will never be lost nt rea if bothering you, but the disturb their ship bus on baret it a ing recolletiles of the old, old accident will child's caul, the membrane saying that the covering the head of certain bring you several years of ill- bables at their biru.
Juck.
The Greeks
The Greeks (as usual) had f word for fucky charms-telesma, meaning a consecrated object The Arabs burrowed the word, and adapted it and the custom Associated with it. What We
now know as tafismon was figure est in metal or eut stone, and made with sundry superstitious ceremonies, when two planets were in conjunction or when a particular star was at ite culminating potol (the Atubs were great astronomena and astrologers).
This in superstition that was born in the land that the poets called Cathay--China. to more anelent presale people. The Chinese considered that a per- now's longe la a mirror was the soul. Accordingly, a broken mirror signified that the person her owning it had lost his or soul.
broken mirror super- sition has un alternative ex-
ago. Mirrora plantation, also linked with the China of lory: were hung over idols so that evil spirits entering a house or refles- temple would see their Llons in them and would be scared off in the process. If a mirror Wern sinashed, that mean the evil spirit had free and could do their passage
When the Arabs were convert- ed to the alumie faith, how ever, they turned from idolatrous Agures. They used hs talismans, In the place of their former Iduis, sentences from the Koran, worst, the Moharamedan Scriptures- sentences which were usually taken from the Surah, or compler entitled "The Incantation."
The sentences were inscribed on rolls of vellum or paper anxi enclosed in litte silver boxes that were suspended from the neck if the wearers were civi lans. In the case of soldiers, the sentences were inscribed on the hi or blades of swords, on shields, or on helmets,
In the Middle Ages, Christians on their part used the relies of saints, consecrated candles, arid uther religious items as talis
Cruel Luck
But one of the oddest super- stitions. and one that had is Rome, gave origin in Imperial rise to particular Decupation which has persisted through the still centuries-in occupation
D much fullowed. though lo
pre- mure United extent than
con- viously, for it is largely fined these days to the homes of millionaires, princes, presidents huge and the like, to palaces, mansions, and hotels."
muns, all calculated to preserve aflet you if a visitor crossed
them
In classical Rome It was be- luck would Heved that cruel
your threshold of home left-font-first. Beeduse of this superstition, the well-to-do
from evil or misfortune. the
Supernatural
sentinel
sure that you are entirely free homes and from a tendency towards practice
the
to wis
**Here comes father. Best case of 'Time-will-not-change-thee' I've ever met."
You'd be surprised
WHO would have thought that the first people to celebrate the 200th anniver- sary of Kew Gardens would be the Russians?
After all, it is hard to imagine a more peculiarly English creation than those 300 blissful acres by the bank of the Thames.
And yet it happened, a jovind party in Moscow at the Academy of Sciences "In honour of the fore- most botanical institution in the world."
Poor soil
habit
what goes on
at Kew..!
Kew, in Kent. Conifers enormous
ם
M THOMPSON
un-
Simply that the technique developed, more there
Effective
by
Miss Shetla S. flooper. experimen- tal oficer
a t
K working on
Herbarium About Kew itself is marking the from
and consulted of shedding their sooty served, bicentenary, and in a more do not have the self-preserving 7,000,000 dried plants are pre- predictable fashion.
leaves annually to grow fresh scientists from all parts of the
world. But there is no Iron Cur ones.
I found it pleasant to learn Man has ever been a super citizens of the Eternal City tain in botany," one of the Whey was such
of drying stitious fellow--and still is. Oh, engaged domestics whose Kew scientists told me with promising site chosen you may smile contemptuously speelte job il
specimens is just thr the fantasies entertained by stand
the sober pride. "We exchange because Kew gt
sume as that employed by your ancestors, but are you quite entrances 16 their masters information and specimens or less by chance, from a little
ensure that
any with Russia and all parts of tuyal guiden made by Princess children in producing "pressed
They are Augusta, mother of mad George Rowers."
simply caller stepped through with the the world."
III. You can silll see a few of squeezed between bloiting- of Irrational customs right foot to the fore. yourself-performed automati-
the trees she planted, notably paper. Thus has come about that cally in your everyday life but
a magnificent maidenhair tree haughty, oft-bewigged derived from ancient times and those
and liverled allendants who
near the main gate. A credence in the supernatural?
open palatial portals and look Do you "toveli" or "knock on"
down their
Long after her venture had scornful noses at wood
Kaleguard agalusi
something That is why the passing become you (unless you are celebrated
more am- mishap? This is suld by somu
or Illustrious) are known as of this Kew milestone is bitious, it was threatened by a authorities to have originated in
fontmen, and have been drawing friendly
salutes phillstine proposal that the old right of sanctuary which
should be turned over to the prevelled in the Europe of the known for centuries-although
it's doubtful whether
from practically every coun- lowly purpose of growing food Middle Ages, when fugitives
where plants, trees, for the royal kitchens. could claim inviolability from many of them in the last few
grasses, or caeti, flourish. the vengeance of their pursuers hundred years ever
But that, along with various wood Inkling us to why or how they if they lald hand on the
None of this international other dangers, was overcome. door of a church or an abbey got their name. and passed through to the sacred
neclaim, of course, is likely Kew went on growing with the precincts.
to tinge the Englishness of steady persistence of some of its own hardier inmates, and loday, the place. The whole history if is invulnerably established as of Kew, in fact, is a sort of one of our major scientific essay in the English arts of institutiona improvisation, compromise
very
hnd BA
-R. Gouden
Very Fine Cognac
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Experiments
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No one with a serious, What actually happens professional approach would Kew? I don't know how many wander have chosen such a site for of the people who
round its glades realise That
a botanical garden, to begin they are seeing only a minor with. The soil is poor and aspect of the Gardens. Perhaps infertile.
By chance
not many.
The centrul
activities go on in handsome and repeatedly enlarged Georgian bulidings to which the visitor's · UnfttpENTE"
does not buy admission.
Mountains of manure and fertiliser have had to be There is a fine laboratory, for imported to bring it up to example. Obscure ond com- standard. Every leaf from -plicated experiments with plants those delightful trees must often of great economic valua be carefully saved and com--are performed. posted for the same purpose, They are experimenting at
the moment with a substance
of
And then, the garden is called Gibberellic Aeld, which
hus tho startling effect plagued by the soot and making plants grow to cnor-
ith which ungrateful Lon- maus size. don showers down on every- thing growing there. Just Another experiment is meant now, there is a freshness to find out the effects of different degrees of light in about most of the new greenhouses, and whether. it I folinge. In only a few weeks useful to illuminatə then all a grey film from the air will night long. have dimmed all this.
of the staff when I was
.
Sometimes even 'Scotland "If only," sighed one member Yard asks for help. There was 4. neat piece of Sherlock Holmes thore the other day, if only we work in the laboratory recently,
when could go round spraying all the
pine-needles extractod from A auspect's turn-spe
Irovon, with detergent..........." helped to prove his akosongu in That being impossible, the the garden of a burgled house, Gardens" hava had to develop Kew is a rare storehouse of their coffeetion of conifers far scientific knowleder, In the
the genus
• dianthus* -better
known as pinkes and carnations.
SONE NATURAL GROUPS WITHIN THE GEMUS.
Another department, and a vide them with a certificate of the other week see it different- busy one, is the international gred health. quarantine station..
busy international "economie plants,"
e
And so does the Minister of Agriculture, who even now, as bicentenary celebrations vein, is pondering plans to enlarge and improve the acten- the work there.
Jy' There is a
These are only samples of the traffle in things that happen unseen at
such Kaw,
There are 300 people rubber or cocoa, They cannot be working on them, and they moved from, say, the West spent nearly £250,000 of public Indles to Malaya without being money every year. reliably guaranteed free from disease or tests, ar they might The carry costly epidemics with
them.
This technique is astonishing- dy effective, too. I took down from the shelves envelopes coll- faining specimens first nus there more than a century ago. ink of the old-fashioned hand
faded, but the writing had specimens were in good condl- tion, and even fragrant.
So they break their journey nt Kow, where the experts pro-
SINGAPOR
Londoners will no doubt stub- hornly. Insist or thinking of It is pleasant to ste expansion Kew, as, above all, one of their at one motor scientific Institu
which is not producing most prized pleasure grounds. tion Clearly the Russian scientists anything that could blow us, or who gave a party in its honour anyone else, to picċes,
COMMONWEALTH DERBY
IT TAKES TIME TO GET 'EM: ALL LINED UP
World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester-Guardian