WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 149, 20 March 1922, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Thrift is the art of buying a complexion to match a hat, instead of a hat to match a complexion.

The Canterbury Education Board is taking steps to provide moral instruction in schools.—A correspondent sug- • gests that there seems to he room for a university course with special reference to the Eighth Commandment.

Sermons were preached in Erse in churches of all denominations in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day.—Dr. Bumpus is of opinion that. the sermons probably required considerable ren Ersing before delivery.

Argentina is negotiating with a Swedish firm for the building of ten naval vessels, in consequence, apparently, of Britain having dropped out of this line of business. —It Joes not look as if the Swedes will be able to give themselves the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

The “Irish Bulletin” warns Britain that if there is any attempt to keep order in Ulster by reinforcing the police with British troops, Southern Ireland will be quickly lost to the Empire.—Most of us are coming to the conclusion that the Empire wouldn’t break its heart about that anyhow.

Years ago a certain Mr. Tanner set out to sail arpund the world from Wellington in a barrel, and got as far as Terawhiti. Captain Amundsen is now setting out to drift across the North Pole in a craft built in the shape of an egg. According to his time-table he makes his actual start from Seattle on June 1. and expects to be away five years, but. will take provisions for seven years in case of accidents, and will carry two aeroplanes. and twenty-five dogs and sledges, so as to have alternative ways of getting out without walking in case his vessel, the Maude, takes jy fancy for staying in the Arctic instead or drifting out again. The egg-pattern design of her null is to prevent her from being crushed in the ice. Pressure around as the ice packs together will simply force her up on top.. Captain Amundsen’s theory of the ice drift is that in five years he will travel about 2000 miles, which gives an average progress of about a mile a day.

Only last year Captain Amundsen came down from somewhere at the back of beyond compared with which the climate of Siberia is almost subtropical. He thawed out and brought down with him two little girls to be educated in Norway, one the daughter of a Russian trader and an Eskimo squaw, twelve years old; and the other a full-blooded Eskimo, five years or age. Since he went south with the Belgica in 1897, Cantain Amundsen seems to have spent more of his time in the Polar regions than out of them. Previously, as when he sailed through the North-West. Passage, he has disappeared from civilisation for three and four years at a time, but a five-years’ voyage without any. ports of call is a novelty even for this persevering exnlorer. According to Captain Amundsen’; our whole terrestrial existence is regulated bv what is happening at the Poles—“the steam boilers of the earth,” is what he calls them. It is the Polar ice and cold water which create the ocean currents and winds, and regulate the general 'moisture supply of the world. The North Pole is, from his point of view, the spot where things are really doing on a colossal scale, and an exact knowledge of what takes place there may ultimately provide the clue to many things. '

A somewhat incongruous note struck in the St. Patrick’s Day procession on Saturday was a bevy of little girls m white dresses and brilliant green sashes backed in a motor lorry, singing in chorus, “Abe. Abe, My Boy,” a ditty which vaudeville performers sometimes allude to as the Hebrew national anthem. Can it be that Sinn Fein is •flirting with the Zionists or that someone has discovered that Mr. de Valera is a Jew?

It is not often that one sees a penguin in the water around the wharves Fn Wellingte 1, but I noticed one at the end of'the Waterloo Quay.breastwork on Friday afternoon. It was swimming about at a great rate, ana bobbing up here and there, and. appeared to be taking a lively interest in its surroundings. An old man was fishing at the end of the breastwork, and 1 was wondering whether the penguin might not presently take a fancy to the bait on. his line, but neither he nor I knew whether these birds are to be caught on a line. Penguins, norpoises. and such things seem seldom to come up the harbour now through twenty years or so back. I ’"ememher seeing a school of porpoises one day follow the Penguin undo about where the Clvde Ouav Wharf is iw. Sandflies also have no liking for the city side of the harbour; bathers receive attention from them on some ot the benches over Muritai way, but sunbathing at the city baths is accompanied by no such discomfort. ,

St. Patrick, tradition tolls us. dealt it out to the snakes of Ireland, and St. George gave the dragon—there seems to have been one only—all it wanted, but neither St. Andrew nor St. David were so truculent. Tradition, in their case, does not record that they went out and slaughtered anything other than ignorance and superstition. One Irishman, showing half a yard of emerald ribbon about his person, was heard to put forward an interesting theorv after the publichouses closed on Saturday. “Pwhat I thought out for meself was that St. Patrick, bein’ a gintieman, was a traveller.” said he. “T+. must have bin so. Luk at New Zealand —how did it get rid of its shnakes? Australia’s full of ’em—this country’s got none. Somebody must have cleared thim all out. It was St. Patrick—he knew all about tho business. He was that same Patarika—the Maori deity, who is said to have banished all evil from the land. , and encouraged the manly practice flf warfare. ’Tis tho same m Ireland, you know. St. Patrick was a ' gintieman, all right; but whilst he banished the shnakes, he left it open i for the Irish to fight. An’ they’re fightin’ still—south against south, as well as’ south and north, and west against east. Och, ’tis a foine country! A shnake’s a shnake, but hurroo for Donnybrook!”

England’s country houses are finding new owners, and a story reaches me of a certain genial profiteer who had purchased a sumptuous mansion and fitted it out regardless of expense. A visitor was being shown over the house, and when she had seen all its glories, she turned to the host and asked, in all innocence, "But where are your books?” “Our books,” he ‘ replied, "oh, we keep them in the City, of course.” AN OLD SONG. The almond-bloom is overpast, the cherry blossoms blow; I never loved - but. one man. and I never told him so. My flowers ‘ will never come to fruit, , but I have kept my pride— ' A little, cold, and lonely thing, and I have naught beside. The spring wind caught my flowering dreams, they lightly blew away. I never had but one true love, and he died yesterday. —Dorothea Mackellnr.