RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33252, 15 June 1973, Page 16

RANDOM REMINDER

THE LAST WORD

Many fatal accidents within and around the home would not have occurred had the most elementary precautions been taken. But countless thousands, through sheer good fortune, luck or both, missed adding to the mortality rate by a hairs breadth. Take this example from the files of the “New Zealand Herald” of 1873 in substantiation of the theory: “A lad who had been out pheasant-shooting a few days ago and who resides with his parents in the suburbs, took a novel way of discharging his gun on Saturday night by putting the breach end of it into the fire. It seems that he was unable to draw the charge nor could he get it to explode by means of a cap. so he took the barrel off the stock and placed the

breach in the kitchen fire. An almost immediate explosion was the result and the shot was scattered in all directions, one of them wounding the lad’s brother. It was very fortunate that this novel way of discharging a gun was attended with no worse results. The wound inflicted was not a serious one. We would jrecommend the young gentleman’s parents to look after him the next time he attempts such experiments in gunnery.” Remembering the authoritarian disipline of that day and age they probably would have done so. The situation recalls the famous last words of the great and not so great. Legendary, for instance, are those uttered by Horatio Nelson to another of the same Hardy breed; and also the expurgated vers-

ion of exactly what Custer said to his aide-de-camp on sighting the hordes of Indian braves during his historically famous last stand. There have been others down through the ages but more descriptive, discursive and with a domestic background: “Give me a match, I think my petrol tank is empty”; “Gosh, these scones are like concrete”; “What, is that mother of yours going to stay with us for another month?”; “Sure I was out with your wife, but what about it?’’; “Step on her son, we’re only doing 80”; “Yes dear, I lost my pay envelope in or near the T.A.8.”; “If you are so smart you wouldn’t be a traffic cop”; “Say who’s boss of this household, anyway?”. And, of course, the all too familiar, “Let’s see if it is loaded.”