Monday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
April 8, 1940.
IMAGAZINE PAGE
HISTORY'S JUDGMENT ON THE SUBMARINE
"An Abominable Weapon'
TWICE during the last three
centuries the 'British Ad- miralty refused to accept sub- marines as weapons. On both occasiona the Inventors were aliens.
On a sunny day in 1624 stands were constructed for a big audience near the mouth of the Thames. One, Myn- heer Cornelius van Drebbel, from Alkmaar in Holland, had promised that he would drive a new kind of ship under the water.
King James I gave the signal for this censational performance to
Veen, and a strange-looking little
put off from the shore, cheered by thousands of Lon doners.
The boat reached mid-stream and began suddenly to sink. When she had disappeared, the Kng entered a row-bout which brought him to the pot where the vessel had vanished.
HE could see her lying at a depth of three or four yards on the river bottom.
By EGON LARSEN
Bauer's Submarine of 1851.
Two hours inter the first sub- marine appeared again, and her Afteen salfors landed-obviously well and healthy after their strange adventure.
The King expressed his satisfac- tion to Mynheer van Drebbel, and asked the naval experts to give him their opinion of this new man-of-
war,
But the Admiralty did not form a very high opinion of the Dutch- man's invention. They dissuaded the Klug from Introducing sub- marines into the British Navy.
This magic
instrument
YOU SAW the news last week that the Hongkong Government telephone exchanges were to become auto- matic. It probably didn't interest you, unless you were a civil servant.
Not in an age when you can talk from ship to shore, from one side of the globe to the other. But if Graham Bell were to return to this world he would tell us how lucky we were.
He would recall how on March 10, 1870, he said over 100ft. of wire, "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you." That was the first telephone speech ever made-not much more than 60 years ago. To-day there are 35,000,000 telephones in the world, 3,000,000 of them in the British Isles,
Yet the telephone constantly provides uncanny examples of its near- human ingenuity. In your radio receiver, which, after all, is only a tele- phone, you can receive from all parts of the world clear pictures through the anme sort of telephone as you have in your home.
News and messages are exchanged on the teleprinter, a telephonic typewriter whereby every word transmitted is simultaneously typed on a duplicate machine at the other end....
But
men of insatiable ambition. They say telephone, engineers are we have seen only the beginning of wonders. All the time they are ex- perimenting with some new and incredible way of bringing us a litle
rer the other end of the world.
nearer
Their experiments have been fruit- telligible a conference as if they had ful enough in the past few years, all sut round the same table. Paris, for example, has a telephone
You are more familiar, perhaps,
exchange that forecasts the weather. You dial "Invalldes 8000," cheery valce says. "Here is the wea- sitting in a drawing roons and talk- ther forecast for the Paris region ing to an uncle during the next 12 hours,"
a with the iden (If not the practice) of
In
Californin.
fascina-
But what goes on wh
while you and Califor In the same city you dial "S.V.P." nia are conversing makes
a story of special ("If you please) to be connected ting story-and
English interest, since calls from with a bureau that answers all kinds of queries and provides messengers North and Central Amerien to Eu- rope and from South Africa to In- Paris and Berlin have a service for dia pass through the London Inter- "absent subscribers." If you expect national Exchange, Foraday Build- to be away for long from your home in Queen Vietorla-street. E.C.
to run errands.
or olce you can have your line By international agreement the transferred to a department where greater part of the speech between callers' names and messages are re- British and Continental operators is corded.
M
.☆
conducted in English, French, or Ger- man. Fluency is essential, for time is money. The operators are skilled
Then there in the "conference" call, linguists.
10
of special interest to the film world, The voice of a caller in London where all the men who matter seem talking to San Francisco travels by to be in perpetual, conference.
land lines from Faraday Building to radio station, and thence It came into the news last year, Rugby when we read that Alexander Korda, either by long-wave wireless sitting in his New York apartment, Houlton (Maine) or by short wave to
(New Jersey). with his American Neleong was connected
(stilling In another passes again over land lines to New representative New York apartment), Mr. Irving York and on to San Francisco. Asher (at his home near Windsor), and another executive at Hampstead; and the four hod as long and in-
BOUND FOR HONGKONG
It then
Cecil Wilson
Was This Your Verdiet?
The PROBLEM OF HANS.-Hans Lindi was not exempted from millt-
Conjecture On Destina-ary service.
tion Of Mauretania
Honolulu, Apr. 3. The Uner Mauretania salled today for an undisclosed destination after taking on 3,000 tons of fuel oil.
One high source said
Judge Davies told him: "Ever since Hitler's rise to power, and especially since the Munich cřísla, you have seen the constant possibility of wor all the time you have enjoyed the between Germany and Britain, and benefits of living here."
Hana preferred democracy. So he the vessel must defend it: Do you agree?
had clearance papers for Hongkong
and was apparently prepared to go to preparations were being made for
accommodation of
either the Antipodes or Hongkong. A the member of the crew disclosed that United Pro
troops.
#hd
we
Another hall Inter. century
And Corporal Wil- helm Bauer, Bavarian orth- lery export, Agiting with the
Prussian army
against Danes in stelu.
the
Hol-
In his leisure hours he con- structed the mo- del of a eurlous ship able to gai under water.
The officers of his regiment col- lected a fund to enable him to build a real submarine; the balance of 200 talers being paid by the Prussian War Ministry.
The first of February, 1851, was, Wilhelm Bauer's great day. On that day he presented his boat in the harbour of Kel before thou- sands of spectators and many off- cers of the Admiralty.
The vessel was small, it carried only three men-Bauer and two sailors--and it could not remain more than half an hour under water-the air giving out after this time.
The boat submerged and dis- appeared. The .crowd waited patiently for twenty minutes, after which time the submarine was supposed to emarge.
But rothing happened, it could not be seen, and no sign of Me came from under the water.
Through a hole in the wall water had penetrated. The boat. hud sunk to a depth of fifty-two feet. If the wall had broken, they were lost.
But Wilhelm Bauer had his own ideas. He knew that there was just one change; to open the upper hatch.
And this hatch could be opened only when the pressure of air in- side the boat equals the pressure of the water from outside.
For hours they waited-in a boat which was supposed to emerge after twenty minutes. At last Bauer was able to open the hatch his theory was right. A whirl of air seized the three men and threw them up with terrific force.
Under the eyes of the bewildered spectators three men were sudden- ly shot out of the water as if they fiad been fired by a gun.
They fell back into the water and were picked up by rescue
This bonts.
unexpected turni .changed the whole performance
from tragedy to comedy.
Everybody laughed. And their
Wilhelm laughter killed
Bauer's invention,
Prussia was unwilling to spend any more money
this folly. Bavaria, Bauer's native country, had neither the coast nor the money. Austria declined.
on
Finally Wilhelm Bauer went to England. He sent his plans to Prince Albert, The Prince passed them on to the Admiralty. Months Inter Bauer received the Admir- alty's answer!
"We do not require vessels of this type. It is an abominable weapon. We prefer to fight as sallurs on board shắp rather than in such a box!"
Spotting The Rank
LIEUT.-COMMANDER (E) and ENGINEER LIEUTEN. ANT-COMMANDER
war
This rank is distinguishable from Lieutenant-Commander in the executive branch by strips of purple cloth between the gold stripes.
When
began there woro 123 Lieutenant-Com- manders (E) and one Engincor Lleutenant - Commandor on the active list. Of those a cortain proportion word
in charge of the machinery of destroyers, escort vessels or other small ships, while others were deputizing for Comman- ders (E) or Engineer Com- manders in the engine-rooms of bigger vessels, such as bat- tleships, battle cruisers, air- craft carriers or cruisers.
on
In the latter caso the offi« car so employed is invariably known board
as "The senior engineer,” or MDEO briofly still, as "the senior," implying that he is next senior to the officer in chargo of the machinery.
On the rotirod list at tho samo date there
word 85
(E)
Lieutenant-Commanders
and 231 Engineer Lieutenant- Commanders.
Wamery, Supreme Court
HIS MASTER'S VOICE
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"I told him 90 por cont of my money goes for clothes and | just. couldn't live on starvation wagas any longer!"
PRINTERS' and other 'Howlers'
UTHORS. must, I think, feel AUTHOR muson for the gentle
men who set up the type of their books and articles. Even if they do not try their patience by the atrocious handwriting which some bookmen are, not ashamed to cul- tivate, they must be grateful for the small amount of work which
imposes proof-correcting
upon
them.
I was once editing a book of essays, and one of my collabora- tors had his essay returned with apologies The publisher said such a thing had never happened to his firm since he brought out Dean Stanley's books, I could not read it myself. A man owes it to his
neighbours to
to write legibly.
20
prec
But we are none of us infalli- ble. Fowler, in his excellent book Modern English usage, gives n jist of
of "misprints to be guarded against deprecate for de- Inculcate for inoculate, for principle. Thle la nil very well; but when a reviewer calls attention to what he politely. calls a misprint, he knows that it is probably the author who has made howler In spelling
grammar.
*
or
Even Thomas Hardy confuses predict and prediente, and one might make a long list of sole- cisms by famous authors, includ ing Byron's "here let him lay."
"Mr. Punch week by week minkes great fun of the typographicul blunders of provincial and colonial newspapers. Some of them ure almost too good to be true. Here are a few that I have collected! my- self some of them misprints. others misreportings:
#
In praising the pulpit style of a the speaker sald deceased
divine, that he spoke with the weight of a Barrow, and the elegance of Jeremy Taylor. The report as- cribed to him the weight of a bar- row, and the elegance of a journey- man tailor.
A geologist described a valley as "full of erratic blocks." This appeared as "erotic blacks," sug- gosting one of the scenes in the "Arabian Nights" which are with- drawn from the perusal of the young.
Other gems of misreporting are, "Those terrible old Greek god- desses the humanilles" (the Eum- enides). "We have broken our breeches (bridges), we have burni our boots (bonta); honour, no less. than other considerations, forbids us to retreat." "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the aperient (Plerian) spring."
A well-known misprint described how "Sir Robert Peel and a party of fiends had good sport shooting peasants on Sir Robert's estate." "The
The engine dashed against the cow, and literally cut it into two calves."
When the Oxford prayer-books Foine mia- were being printed, chievous undergraduates changed "as long as yo both altall live" in the marriage servico into "as long
as yo both shall like,"
By the Very Rev. W.R.INGE,
D.D.
Not long ago,
in a report of
was
a sermon by the late Bishop Burge, 1 surprised 10 read: Perhaps my God, though He be
far before,
May burn and bake me by the
hand,
He no doubt sald "take."
"turn" and
There is a very queer example in Chaucer. He speaks of "ship- pes hoppesterca" What could be mean by dancing ships? His Latin model spoke of "naves bellatrices" -war ships; the poet read "balla- ,trices," ballet ships instead of
battle ships.
A few years ago a distinguished general was opening a show of some kind at a provincial town. The local paper meant to describe. hilm as n battle-scarred warrior Unfortunately it
It appeared as
battle-seared warrior." The editor did his best. "We greatly regret the mistake; but no one could sup- pose that we meant to impugn the courage of this gallant officer. Ot course, we meant to say "a bottle- scurred warrior." Affer this, it was better to let it alone.
Some young men were starting a new magazine, of which fearica outspokenness was to be a feature, "We intend to call spade a spade." In the form "We intend * to call a spade a spape," it was
less Impressive.
•
#
Before the days of printing mis- takes were, of course, much more numerous Textual criticism of manuscripts is a fine art. When the words were not divided, It was ensy to make all kinds of mistakes, Jike those which in English have altered some familiar words. Bays are now taught at school that "an adder" ought to
to be "
nudder," " new!" "an owl," "an
orange" "a Α norange"
rather
comman source of error is the marginal note, which the next scribe Incor- porated in the text.
#
more
Sometimes it is obvious, os when a theological discussion is startl- ingly broken by "You
lie, you heretie!" Sometimes it Ja doubtful. There are some odd ex- amples of these "glosses," as they are called, in the New Testament. When the Church screw more uscetic, four references to "fast- Ing," which seem not to be part of the original text, got in.
A rather obvious gloss is the verse about the "whale's belly" in Matthew. As Christ had just re- fused to give a “sign,” It is not
kely that Ho would offer one of precisely the same kind that He had refused to give. The parallel passages made it clear that Jonah's preaching was the
Two misprints have created new words: The Grampians" ought to be "the Grauplans,"
and the word "celt" for a flint knife has no nuthority excent a mistake in the text of the Vulgate of Job xix., 24. "Derring-clo," for desperate cour- is Wardour Street English; thin time. Edmund Spenser seemü to be the culprit, misunderstanding
Chaucer,
nge.
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