Garrison Town Research Articles

Country Towns in the Future England

THE main title of this book is somewhat of a misnomer. The book is a straightforward report of a conference held in the autumn of 1943 under the auspices of the Town and Country Planning Association, at which representatives of some ten per cent of the smaller towns of England were told how to plan to get more industry and better amenities into their boroughs. Short speeches were made by representatives of five of the towns themselves: a health resort (Malvern), a garrison town (Richmond, Yorks), an agricultural centre (Wisbech), a 'one-industry' weaving town (Haslingden) and a moribund ancient borough (Brackley). Conditions were very different, but all advocated the same solution—new light industries. Country Towns in the Future England A Report of the Conference representing Local Authorities, Arts and Amenities Organizations and Members of the Town and Country Planning Association on the 23rd of October, 1943. Edited by Stanley Baron. Pp. 140. (London: Faber and Faber, 1944.) 8s. 6d. net.

A Vision of Mandulis Aion

The Roman garrison town of Talmis, now called Kalabsha, lies in Nubia a little South of the Lesser Cataracts of the Nile and was the seat of a god called Merul or Melul, a name hellenized as Mandulis. He was worshipped elsewhere in this region, as for instance in a temple of his own at Ajuala and in the temple of Petêsi and Pihor at Dendûr, and again further North at Philae, where a figure of him was in A.D. 394 sculptured on the North wall of the ‘Hadrian passage,’ but he is at Dendûr described as ‘great god, lord of Talmis,’ and Talmis was certainly the center of his cult. The first religious edifice known there was built by Amenophis IV, but Professor Griffith informs me that there is no likelihood that Mandulis was worshipped in it, his name being unknown in Pharaonic Egypt and apparently non-Egyptian.

Extremes of Climate in the British Empire

I HAVE just read the note on p. 87 of your issue of November 28 last giving an abstract of the “Summary of the Climate of the British Empire” in Symons' Meteorological Magazine; and I think that even though it is expressly said to be only “so far as it can be represented by reports for eighteen stations,” such a summary is misleading. Thus, Adelaide is given as having the highest shade temperature, absolutely ignoring the fact that Lahore, with a population 50 per cent, more than Adelaide, has a maximum shade temperature for a month or more at a time rarely falling below 116°, and often well over 120°; while in Jacobabad, a much less important place, it is true, but still a garrison town, the maximum shade temperature in June and July is more often over 120° than under it.

On the Prevalence and Severity of Syphilis in the British Army; and its Prevention

(Extract)The citizens of the southern States of the Union are frequent visitors to Canada in the hot season of the year. They resort, generally, in considerable numbers to the large garrison towns, and take great delight in witnessing the parades and exercises of the British troops, and listening to the military bands. Along the front of the principal barrack at Montreal there ran, at the period to which I allude, a long wooden balcony, at one end of which was the room in which the bend of one of the infantry regiments practised at a certain hour every day, and this was, of course, a point of unusual attraction to the American visitors. One day, while the health-inspection was going on, a large party of ladies and gentlemen entered the barrack square, and passed on, unnoticed, towards the music-room, to take up their customary position in front of the open window. It so happened, unfortunately, at the very moment they presented themselves at the window, that the medical officer entered the room by a side door; as he did so, the men (all stripped to their shirts, and drawn up in line to face the window) were called to attention by the sergeant-maor; uLp went the shirt tails, by a simultaneous movement, like the curtain of a theatre, and away rushed the ladies and their gentlemen friends from the barrack square, shocked and indignant, as may readily be supposed. I only mention this incident to show what an untoward result, once at least, followed this mode of procedure; and what an offensive, indecent, and humiliating a duty the military medical officer is called on to performperform it, indeed, how he may.