RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 309, 30 December 1922, Page 16

RANDOM SHOTS

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Some write a neisubour'e i;«iue to ia;sU, ■ Sonic write vain thought—lor peedl'e'ss cash. Some write to please the country clash And raise a din; For mc. an aim I never fash, I write for fun. A Happy New Year to you all. M«y tliLs column grow mere amusing —it" possible, and may your appreciation grow keener- also if possible". The worst f New Years, however, is that they arc so painfully like the old ones. The episode of the Rocky Nook burglar shows that there is sound reason for the woman's habit of looking under the bed at night. The country will not enjoy iU New Year properly if it docs not get another assurance from Mr. llaesey that he intends to dv the right thing. Nature has provided t'antfirtyjry cricketers with tne WW excuse, fpr "ducks' eggs." "Just as, I was. going fo play the Tall—flHffi «}n fBW *W>. * fi! i know—the Vqltf RltpK JirSmiy rpsp' up at mc, and I mifsed the ball and was j}OW]ed." Tv its determination to, prptcpt the railways.' the Frge §tate. JhifpfftWfnt might get somp bints from the Now ?eajland Government. Out here we hay<s something more effective than blockhouses to keep people off. Here is a howler than has just com? my way. A girl was asked who Nerqi was, and replied that "Nero was a Reman fiddler, who wrote, TJcro, IJjy lUod, to theel'" :»Iy protestation that this was much too gop4 to ho true was met by a solemn asseveration of autlitmticity. The answer was givpn in a school in the Auckland district. Mr. Hughes, alter suffering a seTer? setback at the polls, explains that the small polling weon3 that peOßle are satisfield with'the Government- We shall next have the actor giving a similar explanation of thp fact that thrpe mep and a boy came to see h\a ''ffSffl!""'' "flip t"ith is. old chap. I'ni too good. People know I'm the perfect Hamjgt; and that they can't find any fault with, fne, so they are quite satisfied tv stay away. Thanks, old man. mine's a . . . " A faintly seasonable joke from the I/ondcii "Morning Tost": — Tho King: "1 hope you will find your room comfortable, Daniel." Daniel: "Well, sire, it's a bit of a den." The King: "What do you mean!" Daniel: "It's full of livestock." The King: "Nonsense! What kind of livestock V Daniel: "Well, sire, it's simply crawling with liuns." The King (after a pause) : "All I can ; say is—if there arc any lions there, yon mitst, have brought them down with you!" j There is a mockery about *>« Soviet orders against the decoration of Christmas trees with religious emblems. Tbe average Russian must have been too miserable from cold and hunger to bother about decking a Christmas tree, lie was furthermore ordered to emphasise "the , heathen origin of rJhe festival," and the Soviet Press hoped the Christian Christmas woulel ne replaced "by a general carnival, with masquerades and fireworks." Well, Lonin and Company certainly should know something of heathen practiced. The idea of a masquerade in the present stute of Russia is grimly humorous. A good dinner would be more to the point. When the Bolsheviks kick against the sentiment of Christmas they kick granite. Man does not, and never will, live by Karl Marx alone. One might say that if there were no Christmas it would be necessary to creHte one. Man proposes, and the weather disposes. Saturday's downpour was timed with fiendish malevolence. It caught hundreds and perhaps thousands on 'their way to seaside resorts, and cut cruelly across programmes and timetables. How many people were stranded in town or landed in resorts without gear or food I do not know, but I know of one family that went into 'camp minus most of its provisions, and another that spent tbe night—after walkiug three miles from a bogged motor — without blankets aud with only a loaf of bread and a tin of milk for food. Old campaigners always take food with them at these times. They know that assurances that their stuff" is in such and such a launch or car are liable to be upset by tbe weather or the weakness of the human clement in one of the busiest times of tbe year. It is a sound rule never to set out for seaside camp or cottage without a day's supply of food in your own hands. As the Americans would say, Mr. Edgar Wallace's interesting censors of morals, tbe Four Just Men, have nothing on the Italian Fasetsti. Those enterprising irregulars have added a. new terror to°life by .dosing drunkards with castor oil, warning them that if they offend again they will be beaten. it, sounds much more effective than Pakatoa. Most of us will have a sneaking regret that the Fascist i cannot be let loose in other countries to deal with the bad manners and morals of society. It is one of the shortcomings of life that men and women can be highly objectionable and yet remain within the law. They can come into the theatre during the overture, talk between the arts, bore you with their fish stories and their marvellous golf rounds, sit tight in trams while parcelladen women stand, slander their neighbours, throw empty tins and broken bottles about beaches, build hideous houses in beauty spots, and drag their tired children to picture theatres three nights a week, and there is no one to give them castor oil or l>eat them with rods. The trouble is, however, that the Faseisti method, like that of the Four Just Men, is highly irregular. What is ;o prevent an unscrupulous member of the , Faseisti from getting back at an enemy '■ by accusing him of drunkenness and fill-] ing him up with castor oil? His enemy may have given the other's wife tho glad eye, or pushed his own Jawnmowcr about at six o'oloek in the morning while* the disciple of Mussolini was trying to get his beauty <-leep. The weapon of revenge j seems a little too handy for public safety. I And supposing the other side were to j get the upper hand of the Faseisti? Something a good deal nastier than castor oil might be used. '