RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 72, 26 March 1921, Page 18

RANDOM SHOTS

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Siiiiic WTIIU H nplj-'llliour s Daaio to lasß, ! Sbiue write—vain thought—:'or neeiiTirl ea»" Soujn write to pleasi_- the country clasi 1 And r.ilse a rtiu; ] For mo. an nim ! never fasli, I write for fun. i

i Mr. .Speaker, 1 riso to declare tuat the < need of the moment is a moratorium for ' household bills. < i In a notice of a recent concert in the < Town Hall we were gr:;--ly informed | . that the singer used the "ijuieter inflec- 1 tions of her voice" with great or words to that effect. I confess 1 am a little puzzled. What exactly am the ~ '"quieter inflections'' o< the voice? Of , course, I know there arc such things as inflections iij speech, and quaint little elusive things they are, too, but the "quieter inflections of the voice' , ! Matters still appear to be somewhat mixed in Russia, and especially near , Kronstadt, where some sanguinary •' '"scrapping" has taken place during the. j past week. T notice that the fugitive rebels who escaped predict the fall of the Soviet regime, and declare that their own motto is "'Victory or Death," but in the meantime they appear to have made . a pretty quick "get away" across the ice, . and rather thin ice at that, I fancy, for most of them. They were evidently [ thinking of someone else's death. They ; remind mc of the American negro soldier who was told "to strike for home and country,"' and struck —for home. Those who "backed the red" appear to have scored in the meantime. I see that the Wahine's firemen have been on strike because somebody or other refused to give them ham and eggs when required. This extraordinary treatment of a hardworking, thriftly, and industrious class of men is much to be regretted. Here were hundreds of people prevented from travelling simply because these poor fellows were deprived of their favourite dish, and" we have it on record from the ege-laying statistics that there are thousands of eggs about, and they are only 3/8 a dozen just now. It i< simply monstrouff, 1 suggest that in the next award these poor firemen should stand out for duck and green peas everyday for dinner, and that they shouid have a nice fresh cup of tea and buttered toast brought to their bedsides every morning. To show that tiie alleged demand or the firemen is quite reasonable, I pass on a little story told mc during the week. A young man was spending the weekend in a bachelor establishment in the [country, where the food was more plain I than varied. "What about breakfast?' , ! said tiie host over night, with nervous I cheerfulness. "What do you like?" "Uh, don't worry about mc." said the visitor. ■"I'm ni>t particular. I Mont eat much I for breakfast. 1 generally have only ( some porridge and a couple of eggs aniij 1 some bacon." i Pig l) writ Pi's everywhere seem to have great difficulty in grappling with the ' pos~e- c ivP case, and by -onic unfortunate mischance they nearly always get it the I WTong way. The surprising thing is that : the. people who employ them do not seem to be much better informed. One jso frequently sit; "Cent's Tcilor," fa nice word. "(ieutsl. "Mens" Dining I Hoiim." and so on. On? picture theatre I that I visited the other evening had this j quaint sign on a door: "Ladies Dre*i sing Room." and even the Auckland Raj-' , ing Club has a sign at Kllerslie, ''Mem--1 ber's Diniifg Room." Surely it is not i intended for the use of only one member. I ********** j Another genius with a bend lor figures j has just given us the interesting infor j mation that if someone could by a ■lucky "hit dig up only three tons of S radium there would bA sufficient value .in this to pay the whole co*t of t!ie I great war. I haven't looked up the j latest quotation for radium in bulk, but this bright soul tigures out that the three tons would run into seventeen | billion pounds. I linte all those noughts; ■ they are fo confusing, so I write it this j way to avoid mistakes. The trouble is j if tlie?e three tons were suddenly', thrown on the market it might cause' la slump in prices, and we might find I 'after all that the stuff would only fetch ! I a paltry ten or twelve billions. T under ; stand that the world's stocks of thia. j useful commodity are rather low at pre- | iser.t. in fact they only amount to—is lit an ounce or two or only a few pennyweights?—so that even half a-ton or so j would come in useful, especially ns the ; winter i« coming on. and it might be ! I u-=ed more freely for heating up our | j homes. I I I rise to second—"en hnute voix," as i a German delegate to the Hague Con! Iferenp.e said on an histori ■ occasion—• (some remarks by the '"('hristchurch ! I'l-e-w" on the subject of matches. You j j may have noticed that the other day | i the member for Christelutavh South: urged the Covernment to do something to protect, the people from matches with I "'explosive qualities.'' The "Press"' riehtlv suggest« that when the Government is looking into the matter it should consider the non-explosive qualities of other matches. "There are some—too many—matche* on the market to-day whirl] will strike neither on the hox nor •■ on anything else. In some cases the ■ wood is so fragile that the match breaks I just below th., bend, in others it seems; '■ Jto have be>n treated with non-inflam- i ; mable substance; in others, again, there is so little hend to the match that the ' only way to light it is by sticking it ' into a fire. Tiiere are. of course, some ' matches to be obtained that will fulfil their expected purpose, but too often they remind one of the matches sold in Friincti years ago. when their manufacture was, as it may be still, a Govern- '_ ment monopoly. It is Mark Twain, we ( fancy, who tells of the man being arrested in Paris on a charge of smusfg- ,- . ling matches into the country. He had j been "seen to strike a match which ignited at once. The police needed no , further evidence of his guilt: they knew I that no French match would have done' it.'"