RANDOM SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 249, 21 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS.

(By ZAMTEL.)

Headline: "Sardines in Gulf." Others again are in oil. Opossum poaching is on the increase. For myself I prefer poached eggs. Hawke's Bay county is giving threepence a beak for crows. A long bill! A plan also exists to drop the word "Poverty" from Poverty Bay. It is felt tliat too many Cooke spoil the* broth. German Nazis have been punished for attacks on foreigners, but the German Government still permits a tax on foreigners. H. G. Wells predicts another great war for 1940. This gives us nearly seven years to get on with this delicious peace of ours. A new war gas is so powerful that it renders masks useless. Politicians are already looking more natural for practice. The Byrd expedition to Antarctica will take 31,000 bottles of beer and several hundred bags of flour. Wassa want all that flour for? If there is another war in Europe I shall rely on the Paekakarara Pacifist Society to pass a sharp resolution and to forward it to HitleV. British Columbian apple growers have struck because they cannot get one cent a pound. The price is enough to give any apple grower the pip. An American scientist mentions that cinema film gives off an odour of camphor and suggests that it is probably due tt> the mothballs in the plot. I share with a recent orator the loathing he expressed for the scoundrel who gets rich quickly in these hard times— and would dearly like to know how he does it. German scientists are investigating the question of the migratory instinct of birds, with a special study of the stork. My own knowledge of the stork is in .the baby stage.

A traveller who has returned from a tour of Germany explored a castle with 260 rooms and failed to find a bathroom. He infers that few of the ancient barons of tho Rhine were vocalists.

A diamond worth eight hundred thousand dollars has been found in South America. It is said to bo largo enough to make a finger ring for a Chicago gunman.

3 At a Rotary luncheon, so it is re--3 ported, "Dante gave some reminiscences." . For years and years I've wanted to know the true facts about Beatrice— but so few Rotarians seem to know her. The arrests for drunkenness in New Zealand during the police year have been fewer than those of any period since 1878. In short, we are not so much "round tho corner" as wo used to be. . A murder at homo is more important than a war abroad. Two men reading ' a paper. "I see that Germany is going ' to arm again." The other man yawned. "Did you read about the murder at Mount Eoskill? ho asked. A new American postage stamp bears a Scythe emblematical farming. It might be appropriate for New Zealand, especially as it is impossible to get a long mortgage on so small a thing as a stamp. By the use of a marvellous new kind of spectacles, it is now possible to see in the densest fog. lam unable to corV>borate tho affirmation that the Cabinet is ordering several bushels of these spectacles. There is a plan afoot to change tho names of New Zealand mountains. I understand! that when a New Zealand delegate is again at Geneva ho will plead with the nations to have the names of Mont Blanc altered to something less foreign. Extract from an American statesman's speech: "I have not the slightest hesitancy in remarking that the money trust constitutes a social leech, and as such has a strangle hold. We must root it out, lock; stock and barrel." The ( Irish population of the United States is considerable.