I hope not. Much of the poetry would vanish from the St. Clair beach on those terms. It is true that the personal name St. Clair is corrupted into Sinclair - the spelling as well as the pronunciation.
There are other saintly names that keep their spelling yet otherwise suffer strange things - St. John pronounced Sinjun, St. Leger pronounced Sillinger, and St. Paul pronounced Simple: - if you can receive it.
But St. Clair shall still be St. Clair, if you please. There is talk in England of an Act of Parliament to facilitate the changing of Christian names. Anyone doubting the need of it, says the Pall Mall Gazette, should examine the registers at Somerset House.
He will find that within recent years unfortunates have received such names as Happy Jiggins, Jolly Death, Anno Domini Davis, Joseph Lyon Lamb, Odious Heaton, River Jordan, Bovril Simpkin, One-too-Many Johnson, and Not-wanted Smith.
To have to go through life - as one poor chap, born during the Boer war is condemned to do - bearing the Christian names Richard Coeur de Lyon Horatio Nelson Wellington Marlborough Kitchener Buller Gatacre must be enough to drive a peace-loving man to self-destruction.
It is undoubtedly a wrong and a hardship that we have no say in choosing our Christian names. We are at the mercy of whim, caprice, and even accident.
"What is the child's name?" asked the registrar. "Lucy, sir," answered the mother. "Queer name for a girl - Lucifer," thought the official to himself; but he put it down. And Lucifer she was. - Civis.
• Several interesting curios have been presented to the Auckland Museum during the past few weeks (says the Herald).
Included in the number is a relic of nautical interest, presented by Mr C.C. Kettle, S.M. This is a piece of copper sheathing which was discovered on the shoal found in the fairway of Rangitoto Channel by the s.s.
Kaipara last year, and is supposed to have come from the bottom of the French warship Duquesne, which scraped something in the same vicinity when leaving Auckland in 1890.
Another article which should attract attention is a flute made out of the bone of a human arm, which has been donated by Mr Percy Ward.
This flute, which is about four inches long and is carved, was found at Hokianga some years ago. As it was the custom of the Maoris in olden times, after dining off their enemies, to put the bones of the more distinguished of them to such uses, it is thought more than probable that the flute presented once formed part of the arm bone of some well-known warrior. - ODT, 16.9.1911.
