WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 175, 12 April 1923, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOS

(By

T. D. H.)

Mr. de Valera seems as slippery in his person as in his language. Gambling in any form is prohibited to British Post Office employees.—lf thej r gamble at all it will be with their, billets. •

Britain’s Victory, the Navy League says, can no longer keep afloat. — Franco’s victory also seems out of repair.

“An impossible position, prejudicial to the successful working of our railways, is arising in this ‘ country, T.D.H.,” said Dr. Bumpus yesterday. “I refer,” added the Doctor, “to the demand "that the Railway Department should spend vast sums of money in discouraging tho owners of motor-cars from committing • suicide at railway

crossings. To commit suicide is in itaelf an. illegal act of a grave nature, for although no words may be used, it is evidence of a blasphemous opinion that this pleasant orb, on the rotund surface of which we bask, is a place not worth living‘in. No person holding such a view is, in my opinion, fit to live, and it is not beyond the mark to say that the death penalty should invariably bo exacted in all euch cases. Having said so much on the general question, we will now proceed to the particular form of suicide under review -—that of the owners of motor-vehicles at railway crossings.”

“A person,” continued Dr. Bumpus, “who svends several hundred pounds on a mechanicallj'-propelled passenger vehicle for going to that end, as is very often the case, the inexpensive purchase of a family perambulator operated by hand-power—such a person may be* set down as being initially reckiss. The recklessness .of these people is such that they think nothing of breaking the laws of God and scratching the paint off the railway carriages in committing suicide, but even break the Railway Department’s by-laws as well. Parliament, when the railways were first laid down, made it humanly impossible for any law-abiding person to be killed at a railway crossing, Anyone who drives a vehicle over shell a crossing when-a railway engine is within half a mile, as I think I onco before pointed out, is a lawbreaker, and as such is undeserving of the sympathy or consideration of any right-thinking man or woman. Respect for the law is the foundation of civilisation, and I am pleased to see that a number of these law-breakers who missed being caught by the trains have lately been’caught by the police.”

Major Fitzurse, who joined the Doctor during this discourse, objected strongly to his views. The Major held that it was the hounden duty of tne Railway Department, .if not to stop the- trains until motorists passed, at least to install warning bells or signals. At this the Doctor chuckled. “Major,” lie said, “you' are behind the times. Although as. a concession to popular prejudice the Railway Department has. installed a number of bolls at crossings, you will find figures in last year’s Bail ways statement demonstrating beyond dispute that the more signals there are the more motorists hurl themselves against. trains like moths against a flame. It is shown by the Bailwav Department,” added the Doctor, “that of 1273 persons in motorcars killed at level crossings in the United States in 1920. nearly 1150 were killed at crossings where there were danger signals of some kind.” Major Fitzurse was astonished at this information. ■ “This is new to me,” he said. “It certainly puts the question in a new light.”

“Yes,” observed tho Doctor, “I have always contended too many safeguards are dangerous. In London there are more police constables than in any other city in the British Empire, and it is to my mind a very sinister and significant ttiifflz that mo*w people are killed in the streets in Louden than in any other British city. This is not an isolated instance; for I find that in New York, where there aro ten thousand policemen, a thousand people aro killed in the streets each year. At Day’s Bay, on the other hand, where wo have but one constablei, I am quite unable to recall" a single fatal street accident.” “These facts,” said the Major, “should certainly be brought under the notice of the City Council. I have often felt myself that even our present number of' constables constitutes a) grave inconvei|ience.”

Some time ago I wrote of the Purkis family, who held a farm in the New Fbrest, in direct male descent from their ’ ancestor Purkis, tho charcoal burner, who found the body of William Rufus, and- carted it to Winchester. It appears' that, although other Purkises still inhabit the Now Forest, .the actual farm was sold by charcoal burners’ descendants two generations ago. One of these direct male descendants is Mr. William Purkis, groundsman at the Manchester University College School. This Mr. Purkis claims that up to recent times Ips family had in its keeping a genuine, spoke inf the wli€ol of tlici cart which. tooß t-no King’s body to Winchester! “It was kept in a glass case,” he told an interviewer, “until one night, when my grandfather, in a fit of temper, threw tho spoke in the fire. The burning of the spoke caused a great stir, and next Sunday the parson preached a sermon on it.”

People who like a slice of lemon in their tea may be interested to know where the lemon and the habit cams from. Mr. Okakura Kakuzo says in his “Book of Tea” that so early as the fourth century of the present era tea wJSe highly prized by the Chinese for fatigue, delighting the soul, strengthening the will, and repairing the eyesight.” The Taoists claimed it as an important ingredient in the elixir of immortality, and the Buddhists used it to prevent drowsiness during their long hours of meditation. But at this stage of history it must have been fine, confused drinking, for it was boiled with rice, ginger, salt, orange or lemon peel, and, horrible to relate, sometimes with onions I It was the Russians who learned to make tea from the Chinese, who retained the slice of lemon.

When Mr. Justice Darling is on the bench in England he always supplies the newspapers with humour. At a case heard in Kent recently a- witness before him remarked that he went to the “Elephant” Inn to telephone. “A trunk call, I suppose?” came the Judge’s instantaneous suggestion.

: “How do vou like vour new quarters?” asked'the landlord pleasantly. The fresh tenant gazed around and sadly rejoined: “These aren’t quarters, these are eighths.”

NIGHTFALL. Alone I lie, My lamp is like a jonquil flower Hung in the skyMy bed is green. And brown my coverlet. Beach leaves tha' are fallen down Shall cover me. —E. V. Limbeer, in the “New Statesman.”