RANDOM SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 156, 3 July 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS.

(By " ZAMIEL") Money is man made, say the currency reformers. The origin of specie, eo to speak. riting letters to newspapers is not a thankless job. Most of them are returned with thanks. Patience may be a virtue, but I am satisfied in schools I have played in bridge is a vice. "I ho referee learns by experience when to award a penalty," says a writer. Or from the crowd. Few wives pick their husband's suits those times. They stop when they have done the pockets. The oil strike the other day did not last long. Both sides apparently were determined to show the right spirit. "If you were challenged to fight a duel at 60 paces," writes a pistol expert, "what would you choose?" Swords. A couple of months and spring cleaning will be the worry of good housewives. Dust one thing after another. The married man is not so much concerned about what he can get out of his gardening as how he can get out of it. The word "tax," we are told, comes from the Latin "taxare," meaning "to touch sharply." No further wisecrack is needed. We read of a. golfer who holed out in one four times in a week. Nevertheless he still takes his putter with him—just in case. Those desiring to book seat® for the Test match between the Springboks and the All Blacks are advised to apply three months ago. Thieves recently removed the whole of a lead roof from a house which was let at Botley, Hants. This takes a bit of topping_ off. And there was the Scotsman who, when arrested in the nude, explained to the Court he wa« on his way to take part in a game of strip-poker. At a recent wedding of a navvy, his workmates formed a bridal arehwav of spades and shovels. The bridegTooni had his pick on his arm. And there was the absent-minded chap who thought he had forgotten his watch, so took it out of his pocket to see if he had time to go home and get it. An American millionaire is very much upset because hi-s wife has eloped with his gardener. He realises how difficult it is to get a first-class gurdener. A surgeon recently removed a darning needle from a girl's hand. The mystery of how a darning needle could get anywhere near a girl's hand is still unsolved. "I am only a remote acquaintance of theirs." writes a reader, "yet they persist in borrowing my lawn-mower." Evidently he isn't nearly remote enough. The Tyrol Provisional Government recently sold the top of the Grossglockner, Austria's highest mountain, for half a crown. This doesn't seem much for peak prices. ' v "I'd give you exactly five cents apiece for your public statues," declares an American visitor. And if we had our way, we'd jolly well make him stick to his offer. A little boy was spanked by his mother the other day for breaking a promise. His explanation that he was studying to be a member of Parliament later went unheeded. An ex-labourer who won £30.000 in a 10.32 Irish sweepstake drank himself to death in two years and a half. I know lots of fellows who have done the same in considerably less time. A nfcws paragraph the other day announced: "The wedding was a close secret. Only the bride, her parents and one or two friends knew the exact date." In the end they decided to tell the bridegroom, too, as he seemed inclined to sulk a bit. | Noticed a w r atersider the other day carrying two pieccs of timber, when | others of his mates were carrying one piece each. When' the attention of a stevedore was called to it he remarked that the man carrying two pieces was too lazy to go twice. Rapid City, South Dakota, is so proud of tho prehistoric beasts which roamed in those parts thousands of years ago that it is erecting enormous concrete statues of dinosaurs and mesozoic animals and what not alongside the I roads. Several motorists, catching sight jof them, have gone straight home to bed.