WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 179, 17 April 1923, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM ( (By T. D. H.) How to live cheaply for a week.— Take a ticket to Lyttelton and travel in the Mararoa.

It seems that Mr. Fraser stays away from Oity Council meetings quite a lot, even, when they are not signing addresses to t'be Prince of Wales.

The British Conservatives are afraid that if Law goes order will go also.

Not being able to kill off either Lenin or Trotsky the newspaper correspondents fill in the intervals in their efforts by detecting signs of insanity in the ex-Kaiser. Now they are turning their attention to Little Willie, and trying to induce him to take, up with the religious mania, into which they seem to have failed to inveigle his once-Royal sire. Last May the American newspapers state') that Admiral von Tirpitz con a dored the exKaiser’s devotion to religion had. progressed to the point of mania, and that he was spending the greater part of the day reading the Scriptures, commentaries, and other religious books, and in prayer. The householdl at Doorn was said to regard their master’s mental state with some anxiety.

Two years ago we were told that Wilhelm had become extraordinarily loquacious and was developing exactly the same initial symptoms of insan-1 ity as his great-great-grandfather, George 111 of England, and his uncle, Frederick William IV of Germany. The ex-Kaiser was reported to have entertained a dinner party in June, 1921, with a monologue that began at 6 p.m. and ended at 3 a.m.; and we were reminded that George Ill’s insanity began with a speech to his Cabinet Ministers that lasted eighteen hours. It seems disobliging of Lenin and Wilhelm to disappoint the expectations of the American Press in their behaviour.

Are .human beings growing bigger? Professor Parsons, in a cable message to-day, is reported as saying that the ancient Britons were on an average three inches shorter in height than the average middle-class English man to-day. Last year it was noted that the Oxford crew in the University boat race, averaging 12st. 4Jlb., were described as a “light creiv,” whereas, even thirty years back, a ’Varsity crew of the same weight would have been considered a very heavy lot. In the ’eighties Hubert Ware, although a very fine oar, had to be left out of the Oxford crew because of his we’ght of 14 stone. The smallness of ancient armour has been much discussed. Baron de O>sson two years ago wrote a book on the subject and pointed out that the difference was mainly in the legs, particularly about the greaves. Shoulder and arm pieces and cuirasses were usually normal. He suggested (1) that Englishmen were of bigger build than the Italians and. Spaniards, who were the great armourers; (2) that the modern Briton’s lower limbs had grown because he walked whereas his ancestors rode. Now tho trams and tho motors must be shortening our legs again presumably.

Asa collector of anecdotes the Marquis of Aberdeen and Temair has .aoquired some fame, and in the “Nineteenth Century and After” for February appears a budget from his collection. This grave review has not suddenly branched out with a funny and the Marquis writes ostensibly about “The Scottish Vernacular,” and the need for its preservation. In considering this solemn subject he manages to work off about one humorous story per paragraph, including one about a Scot who told the shopman that his change was “riclit, but r:no inair tlinn ncht”—a story which has come flying from half a dozen quarters lately.

Another of the Marquis’s stories is of two Scots who inspected a very neat end spick and span city cemetery, in marked contrast with wilder churchvards of the countryside. Said one: “I dinna like it; I’d rather dee than be buried in sic' a place. Said the ’>ther: “Weel, wi’ me it s the verra reverse; I winna be buried anywhere else, if I’m spared.”

There is some talk m England about the possibility of broadcasting the Parliamentary debates.—The politicians may soon be supplying their constituents with free wireless sets.

With respect to stoats going about in numbers, “C.P.” v'rites: had stoats in New Zealand for forty years, and in place of increasing they appear to bo decreasing, as' only one is occasionally seen now in the open following a rabbit—never two together; and when it gets on a rabbit s track that particular bunny is doomed. The storv you quote from the Yellow Magazine’ looks very much like a bsh story. The car driver told his friend, who told Mr. Batten, who told the magazine, etc. This will not do —1 don’t believe the car driver know the difference between a stoat and a weasel. The stoat never hunts m packs, but singly. A weasel, with her Htle ones, may attack a rabbit together, as they usually play about together, but the stoat, never. Our New Zealand experience is that these valuable little animals go about ana ar« trapped by the rabbiters singly.

My correspondent is a doughty champion of the stoat and weasel, and declares that iho losult of their work here is that New Zealand exports more meat than all Australia and two and a half times as much cheeso and butter. ‘‘The stoat and weasel, adds “C P ” “were brought out to preserve the sheep industry (which they do most admirably), but the acclimatisaturn societies brought in th© deer ana other pests. They say now it is the wild cattle and pigs that mjuro our forests, not tho, deer. Wild cattle (of which there are not many) do good m the bush and the pigs.little harm. But the deer are now coming out into the open paddocks and do a lot. of harm. Tho ’possums, too, the societies got in are becoming a dread to everyone owning a garden or orchard. The hedge hogs they brought m will soon be all over the Dominion. New Zealand has no foxes, or snakes. Is tEis not a want the societies should take in hand!”

A young ladv from London who moved into tho country took to keeping fowls, and grew most absorbed in tne pursuit. One day a friend inquired if her hens were all good layers, ana she replyed: “Wonderful! Truly wonderful * Not one of them has laid a single bad egg yet.” BLINDThe Spring blew trumpets of colour Her Green sang in my brain. I heard a blind man groping “Tap-tap” with Ids cane; I pitied him his blindness : But can I boast “I see ? Perhaps there walks a spirit Close by, who pities me,— A spirit who hears me tapping Tho five-sensed cane of mind Amid such unguessed glories That I am worse than bln .d! —Harry Kenp?.