WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 120, 6 February 1923, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H )

Air. do A’alera says the Government of Ireland must be determined by the pcop'e.—Hitherto his idea lias been that it must be determined by Air. de Valera.

The French are getting so heated they will be able to keep warm without any German coal this winter.

New Guinea, the scene of much exploring of late, and from which one expedition is reported this morning as emerging, is recommended as a place of residence by that famous travelle! Miss Beatrice Grimshaw. After travelling all over the world. Aliss Grimshaw thought so well of New Guinea that she finished up by settling down at Port Moresby. Last year Aliss Grimshaw told a London audience that she could not understand why tr e hundreds of people who wished to live in the South Seas never contemplated Papua as a possible home, with its man-ellous scenery and rich resources. Aliss Grimshaw says the Nev Guinea native is grossly libelled, for she bad lived fifteen years in the country slid had never been eaten. Cannibalism she declares is going out, and intertribal warfare ied yihg out also. Pcr-1-aps the battle falls flat without a feast at the end of it. Aliss Grimshaw, however, admits that fever is responsible for a good deal of bad health in Papua, but no doubt a dose of malaria now and then merely adds to tlie interest of life when you look at things from the right angle.

Dr. Bumpus tells me he has been endeavouring during the past few days to sound the political situation, but has found it a wearing task. The Doctor has interviewed a large number of gentlemen interested in politics, and discussed the position with them, lut almost invariably when he felt he was reaching the real inwardness of things 6 o’clock struck. “Aly object,” sa'd the Doctor, “was to get down to fundamentals on the issues between the Reform and Liberal Parties. I found, however, that my quest was regarded as an anachronism. But I fear that is scarcelv a happy word’to put in your column, T.D.IL, as it sounds rather like anarchism, and may lead to the police revoking my pea-rifle license. To make a long story short, I may say that fundamentals'do not seem to bo in fashion just now. Several of our most promising politicians of the rising generation told me the Liberal Party bad discarded such things a long time ago. As becomes this era of retrenchment and economy, the real question to be discussed so far as I can discover is one of finance —whether it would be cheaper to solve the political ■ impasse bv doubling the number of Cabinet Ministers or having another general election.

Asked for a forecast of the political grouping when the figures went up, Dr. Bumpus was most non-committal. “There are more things,” he said, “about which it is reasonably safe to prophesy, such, for instance, as too statement of the Feilding ‘Star about the shearing season in the South Island—that ‘there must be nianv thousands of sheep still unborn’ —a thoroughlv sound deduction, except for the fact that sheep unborn are usually lambs. It would be equally safe to sav that there must be many thousands of politicians still unborn—were it not we'l to banish so depressing a train of thought from the mind. I**’*; inp- at politicians in the flesh, I find in the House of Representatives five parties or groups. The smallest party consists of one. and. in the seating arrangements of the Chamber I find the place obviously ind ented for a party of one is the capacious chair below the Press Gallerv. The next group consists of five, and taking a average of human nature, it would be a. reasonable deduction 10 assume that three of these will do the right thing. Further than this the Doctor won d not go. bevond advising me to add three to 38, and subtract the result fiom eighty.

Prohibition is going to be wade very strict in the United States.—Hie National Committee for the I revention of Blindness is asking Congress to legislate against the sale of wood alcohol.

There are orders and orders. All the way from Georgia, in the United States, the American mail brings iims from the American “National Older of Pipe Smokers,” on a card ornamented with a pipe, a tobacco l«it. and tho motto “Tolerance—Peach. Anyone possessing these qualifications can join, providing he sends a dollar to a gentleman named Radensleben, or somewhere m Georgia, who acts as secretary-treasurer. M hat the member gets for his dollar does not appear, the only fact visible from the literature being that Mr. Radensleben gets the dollar.

I am reminded that Charlotte, Countess of Newburgh, mother of the Scottish lady of whom I wrote the other day, who married the Italian Prince Giustiniani-Bandini in lio7,was the heroine of a singular romance, tor she is said to.have been the only peeress in the annals of the Britisn aristocracy who was won by a suitor clambering down a chimney to her bedchambei Her first husband was ihomns Cliff oi cl of Chudleigh (one of. her curiously enough married a V Id),and she afterwards wedded Charles Radcliffe. Earl of Derwentwater. who Io his head over the Jacobite rising. Boid Dorwentwater made repeated proposals to the lady after her first husband s death, but was as often refused. _ Ho was not the man, however to ta..o a widow’s nay. He clambered down the chimney to her sleeping apartment tb.ev were wide chimneys in those day. -and pointed out to the lady that she would he. hopelessly compromised ’f ho were found there, and extorted Per consent to a marriage. and Juliet scenes usually take place on the balcony, which seems able, except where the clumnejs ai particularly well swept.

Youth will have its flinc. but it is doubtful whether any other youthful playwright ever got as much for his money as Douglas Jerrold hl * nlav “More frightened Tnan tlnr. Written and produced at Sadlers Wells when Jerrold was only fourteen, the farce was translated into French, nlaved in Paris, then retranslated into Emflish. and again staged in London as the latest Parisian success!

Old Garge. in Yorkshire, had a watch a fine “old turnip” of which he was very proud. One morning about five o’clock there was a discussion on the farm as to the time, and the old man pulled out his watch and, referriivr to the sun’s rise over the top or the hill, said: “If she’s not over them trees in three* minutes, she s late. CHILDLESS. At night, in dreams, they come to me Along the city street— The motherless of every land. On little, eager feet. Thev lift expectant eies to mine. Their arms they open wide, Mv wondering heart awakes to feed A hunger long denied. Their faces are like flowers poised

Upon a fragile stem : I had not known lips were so sweet. Who long have yearned for tJi»m. O little children, motherless, You are no more alone —- I take vou all, in place of one — The child I have not known. —Helen Frazee-Bower.