♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Sept. 18, 1885. 



literally covered the ground in a space of about one hundred yards' 

 diameter. They were all about the same siae. Most of them were 

 alive and creeping about for a couple of days after thev fell. 



B. "Eetnolds. 



OCEAN TELEGRAPHY. 

 [1928] — In your last number, under " Gossip," you in\ite evidence 

 on the trustworthiness of transatlantic telegraphy. I take plea- 

 sure in giving you the following facts :— 



York, Charleston, S.C, and Memphis, Tenn. (probably a very good 

 reason why our messages arrive so punctually and correctly). We 

 pass messages in English, French, Latin, and Spanish severally. 

 Our cables often consist of thirty to forty words, and are almost 

 invariably correct transmissions, to a letter. Errors, of course, do 

 occur, but, my impression is, through illegible writing on the sender's 

 part more often than from carelessless on the part of the cable 

 officials. 



As a rule, our transatlantic friends dispatch their messages at 

 the close of their business- 6 to 7 o'clock, and the same are 

 usually to hand on the following morning. 



I tliink I see a moral in your conductor's experience. In future, 

 despatch messages from the local head office only. 



I take this opportunity of expressing my regret that Knowledge 

 in future is to be a monthly publication, as I shall be a loser (intel- 

 lectually) ; but I trust it w'iU receive the success it deserves. 



O. R. 



THOUGHT TEASSMISSION. 

 [1929]— During the year 1?72 or 3, when a law student in 

 London, I saw in one of the V. C. Courts an elderly Q.C. who was 

 partially paralysed, and who made mems. with his left hand. A 

 Chancery clerk whispered his name to me, and remarked that he 

 did a larger business in that Court than any other Q.C, and that he 

 had "all the brains of the bar." I thought no more of him until 

 Thursday morning last, when I woke about 7.30 and, to my surprise, 

 found I was thinking about this particular barrister, whose name I 

 could not recollect. I see in the Standard of to-day that a Jlr. 

 Southgate, Q.C, died on that day, and, if I am not mistaken, that 

 was the name of the gentleman. If I am wrong, this letter is only 

 good for the waste-paper basket, but if I am correct in thinking 

 tliat Mr. S. was paralysed, and wrote with his left hand, I consider 

 it quite as interesting a coincidence as that described in " R. T. C's " 

 letter (1912) on "Thought Transmission," which I have just been 

 reading, and T should much like to know at what hour Mr. S. died. 

 M.A., S.S.C. 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 



[1930].— According to " Hallyards," in Knowledge, No. 1891, 

 we Europeans are " but a compost " (we should have preferred 

 some other term, for this word savours of the stable-yard), " of 

 Italian, Celtic, and German savages of old," he does not tell us 

 whence they came, " these savages of old," or whether they were 

 like Topsy, who " guessed she grow'd." 



If we look back into the history of the world, or, further still, to 

 pre-historic times, we shall be able to trace the rise, growth, and 

 decadence of various ornamental arts on our continent. 



Many reasons might probably be advanced for the gradual de- 

 cadence of art in Europe, and the deterioration in certain manu- 

 aotures, but we will only touch upon one or two of the most 

 prominent and likely ones. 



It seems a very general rule, that as soon as any European nation 

 attains a high degree of civilisation they become intensely pro- 

 gressive in their ideas, things begin to go at railway speed, articles 

 are turned out to please the million, the declension of art is in- 

 evitable, the goldsmith's work, sculptures carpets. Sec, are turned 

 out to pattern or to order instead of being, like the paintings of Fra 

 Angelico or the metal-work of Benvenuto Cellini, a creation of the 

 artist soul, not executed for the praise of men, but because their 

 art was a part of their lite ; such men were not the mere human 

 machines which they necessarily become under the conditions of 

 the nineteenth ceuturj-, in which the increasing demand is for 

 noveltj-, not quality. Many articles which in former times were only 

 within reach of the few are now obtainable at a small cost in 

 money ; but how inferior in quality ! 



The tendency to imitation, and that not of the best kind, causes 

 inferior materials to be used ; the thing made may have some like- 

 ness to the original, but the same amount of labour and thought 

 has not been bestowed upon it : one step has already been made in 

 the downward career of the art or the manufacture. To give an 

 instance of this:— Some years ago, when in India, we were shown 

 some embroideries coming from Kashmir, suitable for trimming 

 ladies' woollen dresses ; the designs upon them had most likely 

 been handed down for generations in that country with but few 

 ' ' ■ 3, where the tailors form one caste, the goldsmiths another. 



It w 



England, 





thus s 



(tailors), who liad been thrown ov 

 the cessation in the demand for t 

 after the Franco-Prussian War 

 broideries as they deserved, but 



20,000 durzies 

 1 Kashmir by 





ovelty ; 



countrj', they would sppc 



lonths later 



: a dre 





rything. 



receded it. 



reproduction (in loom and i,L.i l,>.i...-..,..»y .^i .,,.-. ■■ l.i 



In Asia, where conservative principles are retained ii _ „, 



in religion, in dress, arts, and manufactures, the people of a par- 

 ticular caste or district are unchanged from what they were a 

 couple of thousand years ago— one particular family or tribe pur- 

 sues the same calling from generation to generation, e.g., a draughts- 

 man continues to copy the designs which have come down to him 

 from his ancestors ; and, even more than this, a goldsmith who 

 belongs to Central or Southern India will be found utterly incapable 

 of making a bracelet similar to one which was bought either in 

 Kashmir or in the Punjab, even if the original be gi\en him to 

 work from. 



The people of the so-called Bronze Age in Scandinavia, whom we 

 suppose " Hallyards " would class as Keltic savages, produced, 

 nevertheless, goldsmiths who were most exquisite workers in the 

 most precious of all metals. The Bronze Age in those northern 

 lands is supposed from first to last to have had a duration of about 

 a thousand years, and to have termicated abuut luO A.D. Its art 



has been divided into two distinct i> :: 1- ;! :':■ r and the later 



Bronze Age. When we contemjlai. . i- li have been 



classed as belonging to the former ^ • -losecwhata 



wide gulf separates it from the >: 

 Whence came this race? They w ; 

 state of civilisation from the very 

 designs on their goldsmith's work a 



innumerable ornaments made by them, lue uesigns are uie same as 

 those we find now existing in Kashmir and in Hindostan proper : 

 we must believe that they brought their cunning with them from 

 Asia ; for, not in their personal adornments only, but in the very 

 material which they wore, fragments of which have been found in 

 graves in Denmark which owe their preservation to the oaken coffins 

 which contained them, and in their architecture also we can 

 trace the resemblance to the Asiatic forms adopted by the 

 dwellers in the high and mountainous regions of India, where wood 

 was plentiful as in Scandinavia. A reason which we would urge 

 for the decline of art in Greece is, that at the time when Christi- 

 anity and Paganism were in a state of rampant antagonism to each 

 other the former (represented by the Byzantine and Greek Churches) 

 adopted a stereotyped form for the representations of the Saviour 

 and the saints ; and thus a great barrier arose between Greek 

 religious and secular art as time progressed and Christianity gained 

 a firmer hold on the minds of the people, the material worship of 

 the finest type of human beauty languished, and then became extinct. 

 A verj- curious thing happened to us when in Greece about six years 

 ago, which gives us ground for the supposition that Greece also 

 originally derived her knowledge of true art from Eastern lands. 

 When visiting Megara, a village about fifty miles from Athens (the 

 occasion being their annual fete), one of our part}-, then just 

 returned from India, chanced to be wearing a dress trimmed with 

 silver buttons bought at Benares, and other Indian ornaments. 

 Many of the peasant women present seemed much attracted by 

 them, and even went up to the wearer a»d touched them. A Greek 

 gentleman standing by was requested to inquire why they gazed go 

 intently at these ornaments and desired to examine them closely. 

 Their reply may, we think, serve as an answer to Hallyards' 

 question. It was, " Because they are so like our own ! " 



Cosmopolitan. 



GRAIL AND WHITSUNDAY. 



Etymological Dictionary" they are given as follows, as if expressly 



"Grail, the holy dish at the Lr-=* S'--: • r ■ '" T O'- The 



etrmolotrv was vers- earlv fabifie'! : • 'Tm 



SanGrialQioXyAiet^to'SangT:.',' ,.;cn 



to mean Real blood).— 0. F. gra.iJ. -.vith 



numerous other forms both in 0. V ..:.'[ I. . i. i , ipear 

 that the word was comipted in various wavs fr-m Low L. cratelta, 

 a small bowl, dimin. nf crater, a bow! : see" Crater." 



"^\^3it-Sunday (E.) Literallv White-Sundnii', ■^s is perfectly 



