WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 303, 16 September 1921, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Queensland has the bubonic added to its other plagues, but good Labourites do not need to be told it was a rat that brought it iu.

Another Christchurch airman has flown up to Wellington. There seems to be some mysterious attraction up hero just now. The next thing will be the sitting of a general synod of the church in the city to-morrow.

If we believed in the sorrows of othe» people as much as we believe.in our own the world would be too depressing to live in. (s

The recent battle has made it evident that the fighting will have to* be made much hotter before Turkey becomes a bit of Greece.

A movement ,is on foot at Tauianga for the preservation of Maori pas. I nave noticed some remarkably well preserved pakeha mas about lately.

In Alarch the Supremo Council referred the question of providing a national homo for the Armenians to the League of Nations. The League has referred it to a Commission of Six, and the six will be a feeble lot if they cannot find someone else to refer it to. By the time it has been referred on and referred back and reviewed and reconsidered a fiveroomed National Homs in the suburbs somewhere should enable what is left of tho Armenians to make a little money letting rooms. i

When one sees a head cautiously peering over the side of a ditch on the Miramar golf links, and it proves to lie the head of tho Governor-General, one is reminded that the golf ball is no respecter of persons. Even Lord Jellicoe’s “silver king” sometimes prefers the ditch to the green, and His Excellency is too good a sport to allow the Vice-Regal head as it emerges from the ditch to stop another player’s ball.

Which reminds me that a man who plays golf with a parson is placed at a disadvantage, for there are occasions when a player must use “language” or burst. Not very long ago a very human Auckland vicar was having a round with a friend. At a critical moment in the game the latter missed his drive. He looked unutterably at the ball; then he looked reproachfully at the vicar. Again he looked at the ball and again at the vicar. ■ But not a wprd was spoken. The man was just about to take a fit when the parson came to the rescue. “Air. C. ,” ho said. "I have never heard 1 such a blasphemous silence in all my- life.”

The Brooklyn Branch of the Labour Party recommends workers not to contribute to the unemployment relief fund The Brooklyn Branch was not consulted when the unievrse was laid out, and refuses to be responsible for defects arising in its working and causing unemployment. Secondly, the Brooklyn Branch records its utmost indignation that under the present system of capitalistic exploitation and recruitment of wage slaves not one of its- members was so much as consulted as to whether he wished to be torn into such a world. I wish I could figure out as good a reason for refusing to part up half-a-crown for a "cobber” down on his luck.

General Smuts says he found England too flippant, and thinking of nothing j but sport and dancing. Fortunately a | reaction is growing against the levity ' of the age both in Britain and. abroad. Last summer a movement was inaugurated by one of the riverside local bodies for the erection of prominent notics boards along the most frequented Teaches of the Thames bearing the words: “Embracing is Forbidden." Thp Berlin, correspondent of the London "Times ’ in July recorded that a policeman stopped a voung lady in Unter 'den Linden and produced a tape-measure, with which he measured the length of her skirt, f and then let her off with a caution. Another painstaking constable in Berlin stalked a suspicious-looking couple for half-an-. hour in one of the parks until he saw them kiss each other, whereupon he promptly arrested them. Dr. Oscar Cohn, a well-known Socialist Deputy, secured the release of the lovers cn the ground that at the time of tho offensive act the constable was under cover, and no one else was in eight. Similar efforts to elevate society are being made in. parts of the United States. At Zion City, Illinois, on June 20. Mrs. Sarah Johnson was arrestod on stepping from a train on arrival in the city mid charged with"’ three breaches of the “modest dre=s ordinance”: Wearing short sleeves which exited the arm above the middle of tho forearm: wearing a blouse of transnarent material; wearing a blouse with the neck ent below tho junction of Hie base of the neck and Hie collarbone. Tier remark to Hie . Chief of Police on arrest was "When you pay for my clothes you can tell me what to wear.”

Hubby: Short quart of milk this morning. 1 AVife: Only hve ounces snort.. Hubby: Do you never complain? AVife:’ Alight fare worse if I should; but what I would like to know is why a pound of butter is guaranteed to weigh 15J ounces, and always weighs it or a. hit less.

Now we know how it happens. Mr. Shrimpton, tho Government’s electrical expert, says that to talk about a dozen things at once on a single telephone wire a repenter with a high vacuum three electrode thermionic valve is needed. There is a certain politician here who must have Ixirrowed one of tlie'o instruments. He is certainly n. first-class repeater, and I had always suspected tho existence of a vacuum myself long before Air. Shrimpton mentioned the matter.

"Movie” stars, it would appear, are, not the only people just now who are finding themselves uncomfortably, popular. Af? Bergson, the great French philoeoplier is said to be absolutely pestered bv popularity. In fact, popularity has driven him out of his university in tho hope of finding peace jn retirement. “Creative Evolution" seems to have begotten as much excitement in Paris as Charlie Chaplin’s smile ahd howler hat have caused in London. But while "movie” stars angle for and like this kind of glory, Bergson hates it. . He is pursued hv u prout flock of fashionxible wemeu. Alnny crowd his lecture room though thev scarccl.v understand a word ho <wys. Thev come not to learn But to worship. It is his misfortune to bo the fashion, and the law is unable to protect him from bis persecutors. Now he’ has given up his job and sought sanctuary in the country. PERSISTENCY. I’ve found the maid I’ve been looking for I Long was the search, but I’ll search no more — Yet in mv joy there’s a single flaw, The maid—she hasn’t found me! Gold is her hair—her eyes aro blue. I know if she loved she’d forever bo true—

But here is the secret—between us two— The maid—she doesn’t love mo! Bat I’m going to keep a-hanging ’round, Just sort of being "on the ground”— And, possibly some day 'twill be found That the maid—well—wait and see!