RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 245, 13 October 1917, Page 14

RANDOM SHOTS

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I This week's gleam of humour. "The Germans are fighting bard for the posj session of the brewery in Poclcapelle." I The Crown Prince must be about. i ■&_.£_:■_:___::_:_:_: The following idea may be pi_ssed on ,to the medical examiners of our recruits. At one of the New York depots, where the recruits are hugely of the "sporting" types, playing-cards are used as a ] sight test. "Now, Mr. Johnson," said ian examining doctor to a coloured gentleman, "will you tell mc what cards you can see among those on the wall?" "Yessnhl Some bun! Fo' aces!" i"ti_:4**_:i-> The almost complete obliteration of j Mr. F. M. B. Fisher, who dropped out of I Mr. Massey's Cabinet because of his I rejection in the election of 1914, has been one of the minor mysteries of the war. i Mr. Fisher is not a man who likes the .background, yet one has hardly heard of him since New Zealand party politics were swallowed up in the European storm. The latest news of him goes some way to reconciling mc to 1..» obscurity. He recently addressed a meeting under the auspices of the Bel- ' fast branch of the British Empire League, nnd talked a good deal of irriI fating nonsense. Mr. Fisher has apparently got it into his head that English statesmen want to shackle the Dominions, and this is bow be knocks his bogy about: "When English statesmen had a grasp and knowledge of the possibilities of colonial expansion, then let them talk about putting ou them a system which uai going to govern the whole Empire. But until then, and until they had learned to govern England. the ideal was unattainable. They were not going to develop the Empire by imposing on the Dominions shackles which were irritable to them. They did not want manacles which would restrain them." Is New Zealand so well governed that an ex-Minister from there is entitled to talk about English statesmen learning to govern England? _._ i _.___._._. i . Mr. Fisher went on to say that British politicians "hud done everything they could to stamp out—unconsciously, he I hoped the loyalty that was in the breasts of the colonial, but they could not stamp it out. because the colonials were determined that in the long run ■they were going to get closer to the j Mother Country, in spite of the stupidity 'of the Imperial" statesmen." I agree with the -utago Daily Times " to .which I am indebted for these extracts, that this is rather sorry stuff to be talking now, but lit isn't so sorry as this: "Could they 'think of any" decent, self-respecting .father saying to his boyr 'My son, I have passed through a great crisis; you might reasonably have deserted mc. but you did not. You gave mc all your I money, and you gnve mc everything that a parent could ask his son for. I have hnd so much loyalty from you that I am I now going to pen you up in the house so Ithnt I can't lose you.'" No. I couldn't I think of any self-respecting father saying anything of the kind, and that Mr. j FUsher should think that he would is I insulting. Note particularly the words. "you might reasonably have deserted juie." And Mr. Fisher was once Minister of Marine in a Dominion Cahinet! _.-_::_-_:_:_••_:_._._: It is pleasant to learn, as we did this week, that a number of Protestant clergymen in Germany have issued a manifesto stating that" German Protestants are conscious that mutual Christian aims should be to promote righteous feeling, and extending the hand or 1 brotherhood to co-religionists in enemy countries. Hut before these German I clergymen try to influence people abroad, they should do a little missionary work :in their own country. Herman pastors j have distinguished themselves during I the war by the ferocity of their utterances. Hue gentleman, in an address on the Sermon on tbe Mount, delivered after the sinking of tic Lusitania, said: 1 " Whoever cannot conquer his sense of the giganti, cruelty to unnumbered perfectly inn,'cent victims, and give himself ,up to honest delight at this victorious i exploit of Herman defensive power, him Iwe jud_-e to be no true German." God lis thought to reveal his special favour Ito the Hermans in their successful sub- ' marine warfare. "When our submarine, in spite of an almost overwhelming superiority of force, in the course of sixty minutes sends three English cruisi ers to the bottom without sufiering any j hurt itself, this heroic deed, unparalI leled in naval history, is for the Christian people a testimony from the Lord lon high. 'I am with you! Do you see jit?'" Then there is the address to the German Hod: "Thou who dwellest hign above the Cherubim, the Seraphim, and Zeppelins in Thy Heaven." and there is | a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, which | was so had that it was omitted from j later editions of ti.e work in which it I appeared. The list of blasphemous, I ferocious utterances could be extended ]to columns. "It is easier." snj-s an I American reviewer, "to believe in GerI man atrocities than in German sermons. j Both are equally fanatical and equally , terrifying." We mean to remember both. *rt-_r-_-_r_:_r_r_-_r There is a great deal of difference in I people's idens of a pleasant nfternoon. 1 Mine, of course, is writing "Random j Shots." I am led to the I subject by a story of a recent visit to a New Zen'and school paid by a medical inspector. "Thank you very much for a pleasant afternoon." said the doctor on leaving. "I haven't enjoyed an afternoon so much ! for a long time. T found three ases of ' most interesting skin disease in vonr school." The headmaster replied that !it was comforting to know that his j school had at least the distinction of I beinc out of the ordinary in skin ) diseases, and the two parted with mutual j satisfaction. -_-_-_•_:•_"?-_•_-_:_: Tbe old story of the live frog found ' embedded in rock is repeated by the Oamaru "Mail." This frog was found a dozen feet within solid limestone, in a North Otago quarry. "How many thousand years it had lain dormant in the rock cannot, be guessed by the lnvman, but it was alive when placed in durance at 10 a.m.. and livelier still when visited again at 3 p.m." Unfortunately it disappeared afterwards, so that scientists will not have an opportunity of examining this thousand- of years old animal. I'm , not a scientist, but I take leave to doubt these stories of rock-embedded frogs. Perhans some of my readers can banish ] my doubt by citing an absolutely authenI Heated case, one accepted by scientists.