RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 224, 20 September 1924, Page 18

RANDOM SHOTS

2AMMC

Lord NorthcLifTe has sent a long message from the other world, "but he does not tell us whether there is a "DailyMail" there. Life is full of compensations. Mr. Parr intends to keep young children out of the picture shows at night, and at the same time new competitions for children are proposed. Devon's showing against New Zealand is possibly due to Drake.' He may have mistaken the excitement for another Armada attack and played his drum up the Channel. New Zealand's leading botanist wishes to see nurserymen's catalogues uniform and accurate in the naming of plants. What the public wants before that is vegetables in its gardens equal to those on the covers of the nurserymen's catalogues. Mr. Maseey does not believe there are many people who do not know anything about New Zealand. I suppose Alexander ■jthe Great, sighing for new worlds to conquer, could not have been made to believe that there were men who had never heard of him, but there were. It must have been the GovernorGeneral's visit to Wanganui that caused a councillor to address the Mayor of Wanganui at a ; City Council meeting (yes, Wanganui is a "city" now) as "Your Majesty." There are, however, Mayors like that. During thie visit one of the speakers welcomed "Lord Jellicoe and Lady Plunket." What a blessing he was not afflicted with the "Spoonerism" habit, otherwise he might have said "Lord Pkllicoe and Lady Junket." Jackie Coogan, an American boy who has become famous aa a film "star," wae received by the Mayor of Southampton on arriving in England. One would like to be certain that a great novelist, a die. tinguished scientist, or a V.C. holder would receive the same attention. let us hope, however, that the great heart of the American people will be touched by this British compliment. A curious advertisement during the week: "Dramatists, Semi-professional (2), wanted, versatile, for tour; remuneration guaranteed." Are dramatists so plentiful that they can be advertised for in thie way? The most interesting thing about the advertisement, however, is that remuneration is guaranteed. No one has ever been able before to guarantee that a dramatist will make a living. Apropos my plea for calling plain things by plain names, a correspondent eends mc this etory bearing the came moral. A well-known hospital .doctor in London was asked for a medical certificate by a "born tired" or "Weary Willie" man. The docfor^wrote: "This man is suffering from chronic ergophobia (ergophobia is derived from Greek words meaning "work" and "fear"). To the doctor's astonishment the man returned after about two years, and asked for a fresh copy, as the old certificate was soiled and torn. He confessed that he had used it for begging purposes, and had made a comfortable living out of it. See what ye lose by not knowing Greek! Mr. Wilford has made a dineovery. It is that people do not read the reports of Parliament. He goes further. Hβ says there are "many intelligent men who are not even aware that Parliament is sitting. What is still more extraordinary, there is at least one man in New Zealand who does not know where Parliament meets. This man is a farmer, and, co Mr. Wilford cays, he went into a country post office, inquired where a certain M.P. was, and on being told that he was away at Parliament, asked where Parliament was sitting. An American tells of a titled Englishwoman who, in the middle of the war, said to her, "Let mc see; who is your President?" And at the end of the Napoleonic wars there was an old Frenchman living near Paris who had never heard of Napoleon. But these feats of ignorance pale before that of a man who does not know that Parliament is in session or where it meets. As for the disinclination to read Parliamentaryreports, possibly it would be less if the reports were better worth reading. Still, something might be done. "Hansard" could "be given away with pounds of tea, or a series of competitions could be arranged. Say a prize was offered for the reader of the newspaper reports or of "Hansard" who found the largest number of mixed metaphors in the speeches, or the largest number of references to democracy, the proletariat, or the great Queen City of the North. Then people might spare a little time from the study of the leading articles and the racing news to give it to Parliament's proceedings. It may' seem extraordinary to many that in a civilised country to-day a person should think that an enemy could be injured by sticking something through an object that represented his heart. Yet, according to a cable message received this week, a Frenchwoman tried thie plan to kill her husband. She hung up a t sheep's lung, and ran it through with needles in the hope that the action would be fatal to her husband, who was in an adjoining room. This is one of the oldest and most widely distributed acts of magic. "Perhaps the most familiar application of the principle that like produces like," says Sir James Frazer in his famous "Golden Bough," "is the attempt which has been made by many peoples jn many ages to injure or destroy an enemy by , injuring or destroying an image of him, in the belief that, just as the image suffers, so does the man, and that when it perishes he must die. . For thousands of years it was known to the sorcerers of ancient India, Babylon, and Egypt, a a well as of Greece and Borne, and at thie day (edition 1923) it is still resorted to by cunning and malignant savages in Australia, Africa, and Scotland." The Ojebway Indian, for example, when he wishes to work evil on anyone, makes a little wooden image of his enemy, and runs a needle through its head or heart, or shoots an arrow into it. This is to cause injury. If he wishes to kill outright, he burns or buries the image. But do you observe the "Scotland"! Many unkind things have been said about that country—"That knuckle-end of England," said Sydney Smith, "that land of Calvin, oat cakes, and sulphur." It is surely, however, the ultimate insult to couple Scots with Australian aborigines. Yet Sir James Frazer tv born in Glaegowl