WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 102, 16 January 1923, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM < (By T.D.H.) It now remains to be. seen whether tho Germans will go without coal in mid-winter in order to be disobliging to tho French. If the European situation becomes much worse tourists in search of peace and quietness will have to go to Ireland.’

It is four-years ago to-day since the United States went dry, and a year to-day since tho Irish question was settled bv the Free State taking over Dublin Castle—l record these achievements as otherwise readers of the new« might forget them.

The death of M. Ribot, the veteran French’Statesman, recalls a momentous yesterday in French history, for it was Al. Rioot who put his signature to the Treaty of Alliance between Franco and Russia. That alliance MRibot did more than anyone else to bring about, and he may thus be regarded as the man who grouped th# European Powers in the positions they occupied at the outbreak of the Groat War. If M. Clemencou in his day was the most forceful personality in French, politics, M. Ribot was generally r#curded as the most dignified, &nd m later years h’s tall, handsome figure in the Senate was as if a Gladstone or a Salisbury had remained alive to rebuke the Winston Churchills of today. M. Ribot was Premier of France four or five times, some of nis 1 remierships being a matter of weeks. ±iis last was for a month or two in 1917, when ho was well past his prime, and represented by his critics as a poor old man saying one thmg to one person and another to the next. His, most, exciting Premiership was in the nineties, when the thrifty French were almost crazy with exasperation at finding that untold millions of their savings had disappeared in the failure of the French Panama Canal Company. Al. Riibot’s death leaves M. Clemenceau iust a littlo more lonely among the elder statesmen of France.

The refusal of Greece to receive tho body of King Constantine reminds m# of what a small human barbarian once said to me. I lifted him up to show him some empty cicada shells on a tree trunk. His infantile lordship was not interested. “I don’t pke [( lookmg a dead things,” he said. Oh, don t you 1” said I, thinking what a superior creature the modern child is. nntil ha added as an afterthought But I like watching them getting dead! ibe Greeks also seem to find this the mor# interesting stage.

The eel caught in Maitai River at Nelson, which measured five feet and turned tho scale at 271 b.. was a formidable specimen, but very far from being the largest on record. Ina kokopu eel found in the deep waters of slow-running streams has been known to weigh as much as /01b.. and to run to six feet in length. One this size was reported as being caught in Lake Wakatipu many years ago. bucn monsters’, however, appear to be rare. Mr T. W. Downes, in a paper on the subject in 1917, recorded as notable catches of recent years a 381 b. eel in tho Wanganui River m 1916, one at Moumahaki, 6 feet 1 meh long and 20 inches in circumference, and two at Upoko-ngaro ’Tspectivey 461 b. and 321 b. Te Whatahoro, th? Maori writer, says the kokopu must be handled with care or it will bite, and when it does bite the event wd be long remembered. An old Maori lie knew boro all through his life a large scar on his shoulder, the mark ot such a bite received while bathing as a youth.

The eel is a mysterious fish, and it is only the patient research of the last few vears that has disclosed a spot in mid-Atlantic somewhere near the Azores as the breeding ground of the eels of Britain. Where our own eels breed is unknown, but the general concensus of opinion is that eels wil never lie found in water from which they cannot gain access to the sea. Rapids will not stop them ascending rivers, nor even large-sized waterfalls, for they climb the Waitangi Falls, where the water has a sheer drop of twenty feet, smell eels two to six. inches in length wriggling up the rock in thousands. Captain Mair has recorded seeing “millions of them climbing the 36-foot fall at the mouth of the Ohura Raver, and described them as "wriggling up the fall in solid masses, apparently hanging on to each other, for if you swept away two or three at the head of the column the remainder all fell back into the water.”

The Huka Falls on the Waikato River, according to all accounts, are too much for the eels in consequence of the terrific volume of water rushing over. It is said that no eels are found in the Waikato above the Huka Falls, and none in Lake Taupo or the streams flowing into it. In the streams flowing into the Rangataiki River a few miles away there aro eels, but though the Maoris have carried them across and tried to acclimatise them in Lake Taupo they apparently never succeeded. If waterfalls of even 36 feet do not stop eels it appears that one of 100 feet does, for while there are eels in Lake Tarawera there are said to be none in Lake Rotokakahi, the waters of which flow into Tarawera, but en route pass over a fall of the height mentioned.

There is ust ono thing that can be said for tho Turk—he does not claim that he is making a mess of the Near East on moral grounds.

This dry Scottish story from the London "Morning Post” will bear repetition The new “meenister had turned out vastly disappointing as a preacher, but the morning after the first local ball, which he, attended, the glen was agog with his accomplishments as a dancer. Two old worthies discussed tho news. I m tell t tll« mecnister’s a graund dancer, observed ono. "Ayl” returned the other drily, “it’s the wrang end the man s been eddicatcd at, I’m dootin’.’

The little girl had questioned her grandfather many times during the evening—and now, with the nurse tugging at her arm to remove her to bed, he could see that she had still another question to ask. ‘Grandad, she said, “were you in the Arkr “Why, no,” he exclaimed smilingly. “Then.” said she, innocently, "why weren’t you drowned?”

A PLEA TO POETS. When Shakespeare told of Rosalind And brooks through Arden flowing, He sang, ‘‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind!” — And still the wind is blowing. Lord Byron penned the words “Roll on. Thou deep and dark blue ocean. The sea continued, thereupon, Its undulating motion. Again. “Sail on, O Ship of State! You’ve heard Longfellow hailing. Please note that still, in spite of fate, That ship is somehow sailing. Then, Poots, masters of the spoil Of thaumaturgio phrases. Restrain vour wrath, and never tell The world to go to blazes! —Arthur Guiterman.