1. Nothing could be more obvious, it seems to me, than that art should be moral and that the first business of criticism, at least some of the time, should be to judge works of literature (or painting or even music) on grounds of the production's moral worth. By "moral" I do not mean some such timid evasion as "not too blatantly immoral". It is not enough to say, with the support of mountains of documentation from sociologists, psychiatrists, and the New York City Police Department, that television is a bad influence when it actively encourages pouring gasoline on people and setting fire to them. On the contrary, television - or any other more or less artistic medium - is good (as opposed to pernicious or vacuous) only when it has a clear positive moral effect, presenting valid models for imitation, eternal verities worth keeping in mind, and a benevolent vision of the possible which can inspire and incite human beings towards virtue, towards life affirmation as opposed to destruction or indifference. This obviously does not mean that art should hold up cheap or cornball models of behaviour, though even those do more good in the short run than does, say, an attractive bad model like the quick-witted cynic so endlessly celebrated in light-hearted films about voluptuous women and international intrigue. In the long run, of course, cornball morality leads to rebellion and the loss of faith. (J.G.)
2. In tagmemics we make a crucial theoretical difference between the grammatical hierarchy and the referential one. In a normal instance of reporting a single event in time, the two are potentially isomorphic with coterminous borders. But when simultaneous, must'be sequenced in the report. In some cases, a chronological or logical sequence can in English be partially or completely changed in presentational order (e.g. told backwards); when this is done, the referential structure of the tale is unaffected, but the grammatical structure of the telling is radically altered. Grammatical order is necessarily linear (since words come out of the mouth one at a time), but referential order is at least potentially simultaneous.
Describing a static situation presents problems parallel to those of presenting an event involving change or movement. Both static and dynamic events are made linear in grammatical presentation even if the items or events are, referentially speaking, simultaneous in space or time (K.Pk.)
3. Techniques of comparison form a natural part of the literary critic's analytic and evaluative process: in discussing one work, critics frequently have in mind, and almost as frequently appeal to, works in the same or another language. Comparative literature systematically extends this latter tendency, aiming to enhance awareness of the qualities of one work by using the products of another linguistic culture as an illuminating context; or studying some broad topic or theme as it is realized ("transformed") in the literatures of different languages. It is worth insisting on comparative literature's kinship with criticism in general, for there is evidently a danger that its exponents may seek to argue an unnatural distinctiveness in their activities (this urge to establish a distinct identity is the source of many unfruitfully abstract justifications of comparative literature); and on the other hand a danger that its opponents may regard the discipline as nothing more than demonstration of "affinities" and "influences" among different literatures - an activity which is not critical at all, belonging rather to the categorizing spirit of literary history. (R.F.)
4. Caging men as a means of dealing with the problem of crime is a modern refinement of man's ancient and limitless inhumanity, as well as his vast capacity for self-delusion. Murderers and felons used to be hanged, beheaded, flogged, tortured, broken on the rack, blinded, ridden out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered, or arrayed in the stocks. Nobody pretended that such penalties were anything other than punishment and revenge. Before nineteenth-century American developments, dungeons were mostly for the convenient custody of political prisoners, debtors, and those awaiting trial. American progress with many another gim "advance", gave the world the penitentiary.
In 1787, Dr. Benjamin Rush read to a small gathering in the Philadelphia home of Benjamin Franklin a paper in which he said that the right way to treat offenders was to cause them to repent of their crimes. Ironically taken up by gentle Quakers, Rush's notion was that offenders should be locked alone in cells, day and night, so that in such awful solitude they would have nothing to do but to ponder their acts, repent, and reform. To this day, the American liberal - progressive - idea persists that there is some way to make people repent and reform. Psychiatry, if not solitude will provide perfectability.
Three years after Rush proposed it, a single-cellular penitentiary was established in the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia. By the 1830s, Pennsylvania had constructed two more state penitentiaries, that followed the Philadelphia reform idea. Meanwhile, in New York, where such reforms as the lock-step had been devised, the "Auburn system" evolved from the Pennsylvania program. It provided for individual cells and total silence, but added congregate employment in shops, fields, or quarries during a long, hard working day. Repressive and undeviating routine, unremitting labor, harsh subsistence conditions, and frequent floggings complemented the monastic silence; so did striped uniforms and the great wall around the already secure fortress. The auburn system became the model for American penitentiaries in most of the states, and the lofty notions of the Philadelphians soon were lost in the spirit expressed by Elam Lynds, the first warden of Sing Sing (built in 1825): "Reformation of the criminal could not possibly be effected until the spirit of the criminal was broken."
The nineteenth-century penitentiary produced more mental breakdowns, suicides, and deaths than repentance. "I believe," wrote Charles Dickens, after visiting such an institution, "that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers." Yet, the idea persisted that men could be reformed (now we say "rehabilitated") in such hellholes - a grotesque derivation from the idea that man is not only perfectable but rational enough to determine his behavior through self-interest.
A later underpinning of the nineteenth-century prison was its profitability. The sale and intraprison use of prison-industry products fitted right into the productivity ethic of a growing nation. Convicts, moreover, could be and were in some states rented out like oxen to upright businessmen. Taxpayers were happy, cheap labor was available, and prison officials, busily developing their bureaucracies, saw their institutions entrenched. The American prison system - a design to reform criminals by caging humans - found a permanent place in American society and flourished largely unchanged into the twentieth century. In 1871, a Virginia court put the matter in perspective when it ruled that prisoners were "slaves of the state". (Wic.)
5. BUYERS BOX FOR PACKER $ 350 m prace tag is put on Waddington
A J350 million bidding war is set to erupt for Waddington, the packaging group that last month admitted it had received a takeover approach from its management team.
At least two venture capital firms are understood to be looking at Leeds-based Waddington, which is expected to command a takeout of at least £325 a share against Friday's close of£247. One of the potential buyers is believed to be CinVen.
Waddington's management team, led by chief executive Martin Buckley and finance director Geoffrey Gibson, are preparing their own offer for title company. They are being advised by NatWest Equity Partners, which last week backed the management buyout of Noreros, the building materials outfit.
Waddington's three non-executive directors, led by chairman John Hollowood, are thought to have been alerted to the prospect of rival bidders.
City analysts said rival approaches were expected in the wake of Waddington's recent announcement, since the takeout price originally mooted was far too low. (S.T.)
6. REVEALED: BRITAIN'S SECRET NUCLEAR PLANT
A SECRET nuclear fuel plant processing radioactive material a mile from the centre of a British city has been revealed to have serious safety flaws.
Nuclear fuel more volatile than the uranium which caused the recent radioactive leak at a Japanese facility is being secretly manufactured in the Rolls-Royce plant in Derby.
Highly enriched uranium fuel is processed at the factory for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) - although this has never before been disclosed and the local population has not been told because the work is classified. They are only aware that the factory makes engines for Trident nuclear submarines.
Leaked company documents reveal that there is a risk of a "criticality accident" - the chain reaction which caused the nuclear disaster at a fuel manufacturing plant in Tokaimura last month. It has also emerged that after a safety exercise at the plant this year, inspectors concluded that it was "unable to demonstrate adequate contamination control arrangements". There is still no public emergency plan in case of disaster.
"I can't believe that they make nuclear fuel in Derby and don't have an off-site public emergency plan," said a nuclear safety expert who has visited the plant. "Even in Plymouth where they [the MoD] load the uranium fuel into the submarines, they have a publicised plan for the local population."
In the Tokaimura disaster two weeks ago, clouds of deadly radiation poured out from a nuclear fuel plant after a nuclear fission chain reaction. Most nuclear plants in Britain use fuel containing about 3% uranium 235, but in the Tokaimura incident it was about 20%, which was a contributory factor for the chain reaction.
In Derby the fuel is potentially even more unstable, containing more than 90% uranium 235. Rolls-Royce has always said that its marine power division at Raynesway, Derby, makes propulsion systems for nuclear submarines. It has never previously admitted processing the uranium fuel. (S.T.)
7. I hear America singing
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be
Blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or
Leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the
Deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter
Singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the
Morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife
At work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day - at night the party of
Young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. (W.W.)
8.
Professor W.H. Leeman
79 Rigby Drive London
Dorset, Merseyside 10th March 1998
Dear Sir!
Contributed papers accepted for the Conference will be presented in oral sessions or in poster sessions, each type of presentation being considered of equal importance for the success of the conference. The choice between the one or the other way of presentation will be made by the
Programme Committee. The first is a ten-minute talk in a conventional session, followed by a poster presentation in a poster area. In the poster period (about two hours) authors will post visual material about their work on a designated board and will be prepared to present details and answer questions relating to their paper. The second mode of presentation is the conventional format of twenty-minute talks without poster periods. This will be used for some sessions, particularly those for which public discussion is especially important or for which there is a large well-defined audience.
Sincerely T. W. Thomas, Chairman.
9. My Lord, February 7th, 1755
I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of "The World", that two papers, in which my "Dictionary" is recommended to the public, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive or in what terms to acknowledge.
When, with some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself "Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre", - that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Seven years, My Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with love, and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a patron, My Lord, one, who looks with unconcern on a man straggling for life in water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
The notice you have been pleased to take of my labours, had>it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity, not to confess obligations when no benefit has been received; or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall now be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation,
My Lord
Your Lordship's most humble,
most obedient Servant
Sam Jonson.
10.
Liverpool, 17th July 19...
Messrs. M. Worthington & Co., Ltd., Oil Importers,
c/o Messrs. Williams & C.; Ship Agents,
17 Fenchurch Street,London, Е., С., England
Dear Sirs,
Re: 9500 tons of Edible Oil under B/LNos.:
2732, 3734, 4657 m/t Gorky ar'd 16.07.
In connection with your request to start discharging the above cargo first by pumping out bottom layer into barges and then to go on with pumping the rest of the cargo into shore tanks I wish to point out the following.
As per clause of the Bill of Lading "Weight, quantity and quality unknown to me" the carrier is not responsible for the quantity and quality of the goods, but it is our duty to deliver the cargo in the same good order and conditions as located. It means that we are to deliver the cargo in accordance with the measurements taken after loading and in conformity with the samples taken from each tank on completion of loading.
Therefore if you insist upon such a fractional layer discharging of this cargo, I would kindly ask you to send your representative to take joint samples and measurements of each tank, on the understanding that duplicate samples, jointly taken and sealed, will be kept aboard our ship for further reference. The figures, obtained from these measurements and analyses will enable you to give us clean receipts for the cargo in question, after which we shall immediately start discharging the cargo in full compliance with your instructions.
It is, of course, understood, that, inasmuch as such discharging is not in strict compliance with established practice, you will bear all the responsibility, as well as the expenses and / or consequences arising therefrom, which please confirm.
Yours faithfully
C.LSh....
Master of the m/t Gorky
2.38 p.m.
11. Speech of Viscount Simon of the House of Lords:
Defamation Bill
3.12p.m.
The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, made a speech of much persuasiveness on the second reading raising this point, and today as is natural and proper, he has again presented with his usual skill, and I am sure with the greatest sincerity, many of the same considerations. I certainly do not take the view that the argument in this matter is all on the side. One could not possibly say that when one considers that there is considerable academic opinion at the present time in favour of this change and in view of the fact that there are other countries under the British Flag where, I understand, there was a change in the law, to a greater or less degree, in the direction which the noble and learned Earl so earnestly recommends to the House. But just as I am very willing to accept the view that the case for resisting the noble Earl's Amendment is not overwhelming, so I do not think it reasonable that the view should be taken that the argument is practically and considerably the other way. The real truth is that, in framing statuary provisions about the law of defamation, we have to choose the sensible way between two principles each of which is greatly to be admired but both of which ran into some conflict. (July 28, 1952.)