WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 285, 28 August 1922, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM (By T.D.H.) The people who bought marks for a rise know more about German scraps of paper than most of us.

It looks as' if some of the sales ladies must have been keeping company with some of the Civil servants.

Hundreds of intelligentsia are being expelled from Russia. —The Bolsheviks might be found out if they let anyone with brains stay in Russia.

America’s claim that she won the war is no longer received with scepticism.

“We have seen it stated,” remarks the “Now Statesman,” of London, “that in Australia insurance companies charge extra for clients following the profession of referee.” In view o? recent happenings in Sydney, this seems a wise precaution, for it is not so long ago that a football referee there had to lock himself ,up in the pavilion and telephone for the police. Some local players might feel less embarrassment in expressing their feelings if they knew that the referee’s wives and children were properly provided for with a policy that would not be disputed.

The electric locomotive that is to rush the Flying Scotsman along at 90 miles an hour, if required, will be fifteen miles an hour faster than the present express engines on the Great Western system, which on the run to Bristol frequently open out to. 75 miles an hour for stretches of thirty miles or more at a time. The highest time-table speed on any line in Britain is tho 61 miles an hour from start to finish over the 107 miles between Paddington and. Bath. The famous American “eighteen ~ hour” train de luxe from New lork to Chicago carries passengers 1000 miles nt an average speed of nearly sixty miles an hour. It charges them only £7 a head for the trip, and is thus far cheaper than the British express run of 520 miles from London to Aberdeen at £.6 17s. The distances from London to Leeds and Paris to Calais are almost' equal, but tho French do their run in 3 hours 35 minutes, while no British train goes from London to Leeds in less than four hours. Fifty, vears ago it used to be possible to ride in a tram that did tho London-Leeds journey in 3$ hours.

Britain has probably Hie largest number of fast trains of any country in the world, and the average speed of her railway services is still claimed as the highest. Nevertheless, there has been much growling m the Press of late that while the companies are quite capable of running.trams at 70 miles an hour, they stick to time-table speeds round about 6U miles an hour. Nearly three-quar-ters of a century ago the Great Western was able to run trams from London to Didcot (about 53 miles) m 47 minutes. In the 1888 races from London to Edinburgh between the East and West Coast routes, the trains were run even over the most difficult sections at average speeds or over 60 miles an hour. The companies, of course, say that, what they aim nt is not shaking their rolling stock about at all-out speeds, but ata punctual and frequent service. If * r ® me ™’ ber rightly the tram used to go rather faster from Christchurch to Dunedin when the hne was firs opened that it does to-day. As for that matter, I believe the Mararoa went faster a quarter of a century back than she does to-day.

Jimmy Murphy at Indianapolis a month or six weeks back in a Sr race did better than the. WOT d S best railway express by .«' 94.48 miles an hour for 500 of Leinster m .July, for a drove his Rolls-Royce car from to Aberdeen against the express and won. The Duke has lately challenged an American for a sailing. race across the Atlantic Ocean single-hand-ed. It has been done, but not by dukes as yet.

Another candidate for the distinction of being tho oldest living white person in New Zealand is put forward by Mr. 1? Ulaster. of Levin, who writes. "On August 16, 1840 the de Paris (Captain Langlois) landed the French colonists- at Akaroa, and a little over two months after (on October 19 to he exact) our claimant, Charles de Malmanche, was born m a ® Akaroa and his claim to be the nrsa white child born in. Canterbury is beyond dispute. It is quite POStyWehowever, there are others still living who were born in or about Port Nichol- - previous to that time. Mr. de Malmanche is still hale and hearty, and lives with his eldest son in Levm, and is not satisfied unless he is uithe garden, which he keeps in splendid condition The de Malmanches must be firmiy established in New Zealand now. as Mr. Charles de Malmanche was one ©f a family of seven; and their descendants run into hundreds.

Lord Swansea, who has left his coronet and robes and documents and confidential papers to a servant and torbidden his half-brothers and sisters to attend his funeral, is the son of the first peer of the name, Henry Hussey the man who made Swansea “the metallurgical centre of the world” His father married three times.' The late peer was the on y child of the first marriage, white four daughters and one son of the third marriage survive. It was only tho other <£v that the late Earl of Shrewsbury willed most of his property to a Mr? Brownley, who had J lO " 8 ® him and the guardians of his grand son,’ the present infant Earl of ShrewsRr, tined to upset the> mH. The caae was' settled out of court, but the evidence showed that one of the Earl s reasons for leaving money away from his grandson was annoyance at Lady Ingestre, the boy’s mother marrying an American as her .second husband. Peers cannot will their titles away in hut I told in this column not so long ago how tho fifth Lord Bolingbroke sprung a surprise on his family bv a secret marriage and a secret heir the existence of whom was not revealed until his will was read to lus astounded relatives after one of them had actually assumed the title.

On one occasion the Duke of Marlborough was very much interested in an emu which he had at Blenheim Palace. It was expected to lay an egg, and His Grace left instructions to his steward to telegraph him when the event occurred. In duo course the telegram arrived: “The emu has laid an egg, and in absence of Your Grace I have placed it under the largest goose I could find.” LET NO CHARITABLE HOPE. Now let no charitable hope Confuse my mind with images Of eagle and of antelope: I am in nature none of these. I was, being human, born alone; I am, being woman, hard beset; I live bv squeezing from a stone The little nourishment I get. In masks outrageous and austere The years go by in single file: But none has merited my fear, And nono has quite escaped my smile. —Elinor .Wylie.