RANDOM SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 71, 23 March 1918, Page 14

RANDOM SHOTS.

I zAmwsC

Some write a neighbour's name to lass, some write-vain thought—.or needful cash, Some write to please the country eiesb And false ft din; For mc, an aim I aetet _as_. l write for _iin.

How tenacious are old legal And constitutional forms! Economy is, of should be, the order of the day, yet consider the amount of paper and ink and type wasted ia the. "aajwtte." 1 happened the other ,d»y to giance at a "Qaeette'' containing notices of the taking of land for soldiers and other purposes, "In pur stianee of the power and authority conferred upon mc". . , the tint one begins " now 1, Arthur William de Brito Savile, Earl of Liverpool, the GovernorGeneral of the Dominion pf New Zealand, do hereby proclaim and declare," otc. Then comes the schedule of land, and is followed by this paragraph: " Given under the hand of his Excellency the Right Honourable Arthur William do Bi-ito Savile, Earl of Liverpool, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, Member of the Royal Victorian Order, Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in and over Hie Majesty's Dominion of New Zealand t»nd Its Dependencies t and issued under the Seal of the said Dominion at the Government House at Wellington, this seventh day ot March, in the year ot our Lord one thousand nine hundred and eighteen. (Signed) D. H. Guthrie, Minister of Lands. God Save the King!"

********* Why should it b« deemed necesiary to sign a " Gazette" notice with this long rigmarole? Why tell the palpitating public twice that hia Excellency* i.tme is Artnjr WilUm da llrfto »avile, and what has it got to do with the validity of th. proclamation that he is K.C.M.G. and M.V.O.t By the way, why should these honours be written out in full! AH this formula la repeated in every one of twenty-ssvsn land notices in this one issue of the "Gazette." The layman cannot see why, when the proclamations about land give way to Ordere-in-Council _'bout other things, there should be less formality. The approval Qf a lice_n.se granted to two Auckland firms is clinched with this paragraph: "Now, therefore, his Excellency the Governor-General Of the Dominion of New Zealand, in pursuance and exercise of the power conferred on him as nforesaid, and acting .by and with the advice and consent of the Executive Council of the said Dom;n : on, doth hereby approve of the aforesaid terms." Why should the "Right Honourable Arthur William de Brito Savile," etc., etc., formula be repeated twentyseven times in land proclamations, and dropped when it comes to the issue of a license? I notice that when it comes to appointments, the "Gazette" can be commendably brief. "His ExcellertC> the Governor has been pleased to appoint Mr. So-and-So to be so-and-so." Apparently the weight of tho K.C.M.G. and M.V.O. is not required in such an operation. A journalist trained to value space, and accustomed to getting quarts into pint pots, shudders at this waste. I wonder what it costs the country in a yenr, especially just now, when paper is at famine price.

**-:_:_:_:**_:* Glancing over these oft-repeated formulae, I wonder if Cabinet has heard of the ingenious young clergyman who, in reading tho lessons in church, got over the rather trying repetition of the list of musical instrument- in One chapter of the Bible by referring to the sackhuts, timbrels .harps, etc., as. " the band, as aforesaid." ±±i±±±i±__ A correspondent draws my attention to a statement in a local paper that in one classrom of 94 square feet at the Grafton school there are 105 children. He wants to know if the room is 9.7 ft long by 9.09 Wide, or 12ft by 785 nnd implies that to get 105 children into it must be a rather tight fit. But I must confess to some sympathy with the person, whoever it was in this case, who makes a mistake about square feet. Once in my young days I wrote that a parade of troops was formed up in a threesided square, when I meant three sides ' of a square. ***_._._.:_•_.____

Lhopc I didn't hurt anybody's feeling, by the remarks I attached last week to the request for information about acres in Yorkshire and letters in the Bible. Two letters have reached mc, giving the information in question, and I have an uneasy feeling that this sort of thing may mean a good deal to some of my readers. One of my correspondents sends a lot of additional information about the Bible. It has 773,746 words, 3,556,450 letters, 31,173 verses, and 1,189 chapters. Tho word "and" occurs 4(3,177 times, the word "Lord" 1,855 times, the middle verse-is the Bth verse of the 118 th Psalm, and the longest verse is the 9th verse of the Bth chapter of Esther. I warn readers that I will not be able to accommodate a controversy on this question. _-4i-_:i4**-_L_:

As a result of close study of war news during the last few weeks I have arrived at the following conclusions: (1) That the Germans are going to make a great assault in France and Flanders. (2) That they are not able to do so. (3) That they will not do so. (4) That the initiative (blessed word!) has passed to the Allies. (5) That losses by submarine action arc grave, sinkings still exceeding output. (6) That the world's production of shipping now exceeds sinkings (7) That America has failed us in shipbuilding. (8) That America will launch over 200,000 tons this- month, and is going to do prodigious things in thi3 line. (9) That Germany will get large food supplies from Russia. (10) That Germany won't get any food worth talking about from Russia, because Russia hasn't enough for herself. (11) That Japan is going to intervene in Siberia. (12) That Japan is not going to intervene. All of which leaves mc in the mood of "In Memoriam": —

Behold, we know not anything. We can bnt trust that good will fall, | At last—far off —at last, to all, i And every winter change to spring