WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 89, 11 January 1923, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(Ry

T.D.H.)

The race may not be to the swift, but it looks as if Thrace is to the strong.

An American Senator says the United States ship of State is drifting. —The ships of the United States Shipping Board, however, seem to be mostly tied up.

Scie’ice had to come late in iran’t development, for the hard words had to be invented first.

It is in the neighbourhood of Dusseldorf, now the scene of the netf French move against Germany, that jhe last of the hills bordering the Rhine disappear and the river thereafter traverses perfectly level country in its course to the sea. Dusseldorf, which is one of the handsomest 'cities of Western Germany, now has a population running well on to half a million. and has doubled the number <1» its inhabitants since the beginning of the century, consequent on. its rapid development as an industrial centre. Among its chief glories is its Academy of Paintinc, which possesses no fewer than 14,000 original sketches and dtawings by the great masters. It was at Dusseldorf that Heinrich Heine spent his youth and became so impressed with the glories of the victorious Napoleon, who then ruled the roost on the Rhine. Marshal Foch, as is well known, looked upon the Rhine as the natural, frontier for a . victorious France, and the idea is a very old one, for the Rhino for two hundred years formed the boundary between the Roman province of Gaul and the Teutonic tribes until the Teutons broke down the barrier and swamped the valley.

It is unfortunate that the choice seems to be between sense and censorship.

Lord Curzon, Britain’s plenipotentiary at the Lausanne Conference with, the Turks, is sixty-four to-day. He has made a dignified progress up the stairs in the peerage, for though he began life as the heir to a baronv he was an earl on his own account long before his father died, and now he iS a mA’quis. with nothing but a dukedom left to hope for. Lord Curzon rather prides himself on bis ability to do his work under any circumstances, however adverse. His essay on Sir Thomas More, which .won the Lothian Prize at Oxford in his youth, was written in lodgings at Cairo, revised on a Cook’s steamer on the Nile, and thence dispatched to Oxford by post, and it was from an English newspaper which lie picked i p "in a coffeehouse in Budapest that he learnt or its success.

writes to point out that I was in error in saying that the climbing of Mount Egmont in 1839 was the first mountain ascent in New Zealand for it was in that year that Mr. J C Bidwill climbed Ngauruhoe, and. not 1841. which was the year in which, he published his little book about it. Mr Bidwill, as my correspondent points out. climbed Ngauruhoe about March 3, 1839, whereas Messrs. Dieffenbach and “Woiser Hebberly did not go up Mount Egmont until a few days before Christmas. 1839. H-B. also states that Mr. Bidwill did not o-o up Ngauruhoe in defiance of the Maoris. Strictly speaking, this is correct, but the fact remains that Te Hen Hen was furious when he heard of the ascent, and declared he would' have prevented it if he. had not thought it impossible of achievement.

Mr Bidwill notes in his book that it had been the Maori custom to cover the head with a mat on passing over the only track that went near the base of Ngauruhoe so as to avoid all dan<rer of looking upon the base of the sacred cone. No Jlaori would ascent of Ngauruhoe, but Dieffenbacli got two up Egmont as .far as the snow teie on the mountain, in spite of the tapu. They pulled out their books when thev got there and knelt down and prayed and refused' to budge further, the author dedarmg that no Native had ever before clunbed toisuch a height. ' He says he was told before he started that if he broke the tapu and made the ascent crocodiles on the mountain would surely eat him, or .f thev did not the moas would All he found was the skeleton of a rat near the summit, dropped, he supposed, by a hawk.

New Zealand naturalists who look out each year for the appearance ot our migratory birds may interested in tho theories winch an Enghsn writer,. Air. Herbert Mace, has put forward as to the migration of.butterflies. Air. Afaee, in an arti.-le in the December “Nineteenth points out That whereas before 1895 it was almost universally b « lieve^ q tl -“ t the clouded vellow butterfly uas in Jfenous to the British Isles it is now recognised that this and other butter flichravel from .the Mediterranean all over Europe during the summer. Mr Mace goes a step further, and holds that there is evidence tending to.show that at least two species, Fainted Lady and Red Admiral, come to Britain in the spring and o-o southward again m the a tumn. The record for butterfly . presumably destroyed on the advent of raid weather. Within living memory it has established itself on-the eastern side of Asia, whither migratory flig continually spread, and from time> - time individuals are captured in Britain and other parts of M est€nl one the survivors, it is supposed, of swarms that have left America on strong westerly winds.

Rate von heard this one? A Sc° ts ‘ man was showing an Amer.can frmnd tho environment of Loch Kntn , which the visitor described as a pool. Somewhat disappointed, his host asked Idm to taste the water. Apparen ly it pleased h’s friend’s critical palate, ter ho remarked. “W« could do with that in Noo York ”. “M hy not take it over, then?” Ins host suggested. “Impossible.” was tho reply. .Oh, no. not impossible,” was the .rejoinder: “all you need do is te construct two thin pipes, and if you can sook (suck) as well as you can blaw- there will bo little water left.” THE LITTLE ROADS.

O little roads so lovely and enthralling, Inset with-sunshine and with silver

rain, Across tho tho urge of you is calling— O little road*, so beautiful and vain. Who may retrace the paths his feet have wandered; . Who may bring back the vanished

golden age? . . The past is past : the shining coin is squandered; The hand of time has turned the

faded page. Wide ways there are that lead to light and learning, Broad beaten paths to triumph and i.o truth; But nevermore from out the Uureturuing . - Come back the little roads—the roads of fouth. —C. T. Davis.