1925-12-31 — Page 9

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HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31gr 1925

SIR OLIVER LODGE ON FORE TELLING THE FUTURE.

The extent and power of human inference cannot be considered fully known as yet, and it is unwise for the law to condemn people for attempting to forecast the future as if that were so manifestly impossible as to be ipao fœeld fraudulent," writes Sir Oliver Lodge in

a letter to the Times.

"Admittedly thers are certain ridicu lous superstitions as if human destiny could be determined by the fall of play ing-cards or by the position of planets but the extent to which forecasting of the future can be achieved is a master for Actentide inquiry. There is nothing absurd in the idea."

"A railway time-tablo predicts the

trains at least a month ahead. An 45-

tronomer can predict eclipses several Some experta centuries in advance. succeed in forstelling the weather for, say, 24 hours. And statesmen attempt to loresco the result of an election or the probable attitude of a self-governing State, Sq, some power of prediction is known to exist, though manifestly sub ject to uncertainty.

in action.

PASSING PICCADILLY. -

[BYE EXAKSYORD CHANCELLOR.}

Having withstood longer than most structures in Piccadilly the processes by which its neighbours have been passed into the limbo of forgotten things, the Museum of Practical Geology is at last doomed, and in the near future we may expect to have our eyes filled with the dust of its funeral pyre.

not.

Of course, it is not really in Piccadilly at all; at least, its principal façade, with it, doorway around which Alfred Stevens wove the decorative beauties of his marvellous imagination, is That is in Jermyn-street. But the long window-filled frontage before which the buses draw up and the expectant erewd linger is there; and I daresay many Londoners (the visitor, of course, knows all about it, especially the American visitor) have wondered what the place is and why there is apparently no way into it."

Well, it has been the official home of geology in London sincs the museum was moved ither from Craig's Court (where butiful Harrington House. awaits its inevitable fate) in 1831, when the architect, Sir J. Pennethorne (who built the west end of Somerset House, by the way), completed the structure he had, begun four years earlier. I was appropriately opened by Prince Albert, whom que always visualises at. his best in such educational inaugura. tions.

The law against foretelling was pass ed in times of ignorance and unscientie stupidity. Legislation should not be used for stopping material for investigation, even if intended only as a wholesome check on fraud. I would not deny that foolish people may be muleted of shillings Those who have never been inside will bo surprised (if they take time by the or half-crowna by protended re-who are an admitted nuisance-but it seemsforclock and go while they still have trivial evil about which to set the law the chance) at the wealth of interesting things to be seen there, as well as ot the spacious character of the interior with its large entrance hall, its immense museum on the first floor, and its east library. I dread to think what Jermyn- street will bo like when all these be moved, calferous objects begin to and those 30,000 volumes (for that is said to be their number) are taken from their shelves and carted away to their new home! imagine the ghost of Sir founded Henry de la Beche, who the muscum there eighty old years seen hovering uneasily ago, will ba about the trucks and crates containing his beloved specimens and the tomes in which their wonders are recorded.

It is proverbially easier to prosecute the regue who steals the goose from off the epiamen than the practitioner on & larger scale who steals the common from the goose.

The serious aspect of the present position is that the law makes no dia- crimination between honesty and dis honesty. How far foretelling of the futuro is possible is not a legal but a scientific question."

"What is certain is that in his concerr for sing more clearly into the future Sir Oliver is thinknig of knowledge in general," writes "A. R." in the Man chester Cunrlian before launching into a forecast of the future on his own account

"The indifference of the rest of us may, no doubt, partly be explained by the present incompetence of foretelling as a science. Sir Oliver himself can only bring forward, as examples of thoes who are doing their bit in this direction, statesmen who forecast the results of general elections, officials who draw u railway time-tables, astronomers and weather forecasters,

It is not a very encouraging list. Prophetic scientists who cannct do better- than most of those may expect to be ignored. But nevertheless, we dare not laugh altogether. Some day even wea ther reports may be put beyond doubt of inaccuracy, and the whole future may come flooding into the expert's labora tories as smoothly as the latest news is now spun by the tape machine into the lobbies of the clubs,

"We are congratulating ourselves at the moment on having brought up the speed of dying to over 900 miles an hour, 1s it impossible that some of us who trad about the Schneider Cup will live to read a leading article, beginning When Sie Oliver Lodge made his first success time-vision (the ful experiments in very phrase was unknown to most of us in our youth) it was thought a re markable thing to be able to see a day ahead. The latest improvements in the "Cassanda apparatus, full details of which we publish this morning, will bring our range of vision up to over 200

years!

"Fantastic such an idea may be, but it is not, alas! impossible. Indeed, it has all the marks upon it of the best of gen- scientiae progress First, to our eration, living, perhaps, on the eve of its arrival, it sounds absurdly remate, just as many of our grandfathers would have laughed out of court the railways, telegraphs, and broadcasting. The point is too obrious to need stressing.

"What is much more significant is second and decisivo characteristic of a that 'time-vision:" coming invention possesses. Nebody could say, even rough ly, how it would affect our lives,, anch nobody is in the least likely to verjuire until the thing is upon us What could be more typical of scientific inventions 1 Again and again in the last century and a half the impressively fertile scien tists have launched their boits at us out of their obscure blue hearer of research. and yet wo have never taken the slightest interest in what they are doing until they have done it. That thei activity is beyond good and evil to a far- more ainister extent that is that of artiste is a commonplace.

"They give us a poison gas with one hand and an antiseptic with the other. They cause machines to move ewiftly, and then make the multiplications of those machines so sy that we cannot move. Theirs is the credit (or the shame) of having killed the old sleepy world, jud. created the world we live in. Whether: they are our creditors or our debtors we do not ask and they do not care. Only every time they offer us anything we accept it without worrying about how. much harm and confusion it may be bringing in its train.".

A more wretched form of entertainment than the modern cinema can hardly be imagined. The Duke of Northumber land.

All, all are going, or have gone the old familiar faces of the Piccadilly of yesteryear. The chambers at the eart corner of St. James's-street wherein Dickens placed the locale of one of his ghost stories: the shop opposite where Hoby made his famous boota

Red-brick Walsingham House has long since gone down before the splendour of the Ritz-Walsingham House, where the Walsingham Hotel once was, and the Isthmian Club, before it migrated to Sir Julian Goldsmid's mansion further. west, whener, too, it has departed into the past

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ARDATH-LONDON

Denmat's classic little façado has long since blossomed out into the full 4 MINUTES DEATH SENTENCE! flower of a decorative renaissance, and. its site has wholly forgotten the Pall Mall Club which Lord Townshend start

TRIAL.

FIRST FOR 30 YEARS.

ed there. Norman Shaw's vast colon MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO MURDER. naded hotel has swept away the book- shop of Quaritch, that bibliophilic Napoleon who gained so many victories on his favourite battlefield, Sotheby's, when Sotheby's was in Welling-street, and the insecurity of Waterloo Bridge was no more dreamed of than the in- security of St. Paul's.

We have already begun to forget Devonshire House in the pile which our modern Vanbrugbs ara laying, story by story, on its site; and the window where the Baroness's historic parrot hung is now represented by the iron skeleton of some new erection beneath whose weight its memory and that of its benevolent owner, and of that owner's eccentric father, will be buried as some Pharaoh is buried within his pyramidal mausoleum.

heu! fugaces!

Within four minutes of the opening of the trial, before Mr. Justice Wright, at Manchester Assizes last month, sentence of death was, passed on Sarouel Johnson (20), of Stretford, for, the murder of Beatrice Martin (23), also of Stretford, in July last."

Johnson pleaded guilty, the first such plea in thirty years at a murder trial at Manchester.

Ho had stabbed the girl to death, ap- farently through jealousy, «e was married man.

In probably the shortest murg trial on record Johnson, steady and uncoved. replied to the questions of the judge and the clerk elearly and decisively,

"/

Mr. Justice Wright asked him if he had seriously considered the course bo was taking. Johnson replied that he had.

You know, the judge proceeded, that by pleading guilty the sentence which the law must pass upon you is in no way affected."

Johnson--I realise that. You have been offered counsel and

I have refusédit have refused?--Yes.

The Clerk of Assize (Bir Herbert Stephen) sakel Johnson if he had any. thing to say why sentence of death should, not be pronounced upon him.

"Nothing." replied Johnson calmly The Judge thereupon passed sentence of death

Before going below after the sentence, which he heard without a tremor, John- son waved his hand to a friend ho saw. in court,

He was recently confirmed by the Bishop of Manchester in Btrangeway

Prison.

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