WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 104, 28 January 1924, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM ' t [During the absence on holiday of “T.D.H.” this column will bo conducted by “Wi,”] Perhaps if they had been able to have taken a look at Lenin’s brain before tho Red Revolution things might have been different. The social amenities had a day out; at Trentham on Saturday when .Lovesign and Civility won. Happy be ha who hitched his chariot to romance. The other day, apropos of the obliviousness of the obvious, I related the story, told by Sir Basil Thomson, or tho' detective who was effectively disguised as a policeman, and also the story told by Poe of the stolen letter .that was effectively hidden by the simple expedient of planing it whore evterybody oould see it. Yesterday I fell a victim to the same ocular perversity. Desiring to open a tin cf peaches, I looked round for a tin-opener.. I looked first at the nail from which it usiMlly hangs; then in trie spoonbasket; then the knife drawer; then the mantel-shelf; the top of the dresser; in the potecupboard; up amonc the jam pots; in the sink and under the sink; in the living room; four bedrooms; the bathroom; the wash-house; and the tool-box. By this time my tongue was having out for peaches. I went back to tho living room, and addressing imyself to a male, relative who was smoking, and reading, in a recumbent position on the window seat, said): P «_| —| —11! —???” «I B tiiat so?” he replied. “Yes,” I said, “and — II! rri* — 11” "By Jove!” he exclaimed, “that s serious. . , ~ ~, . He got up, went into the kitchen, and picked up a tin-opener that was lying on the seat of a chair. “Is that what you’re after?” It is a poor story that will not yield two morals. The above repeats the moral concerning the obhviousness .of the obvious and adds another concerning the universal and urgent indispensably ness of the tin-opener. Consider what the world would' be like if every tinopener were to morning. When you come to think about it, modern about the tm-opener. A onener will spoil a man’s Meafrtast reverted to . the Tin Age- E™? highly-domesticated male knows by cut fingers and other bitter enoes just how many useful articles can be fashioned from an empty benzine tin with a rin-opener. and a hammer. Such common objects, as im provised coal-scuttles, sugar-tms, and bread tins, .stand on the .very threshhold of feminine ngeniuty. The zle- “MTiere do the flies go in winter time?” is nothing to the mvstery of the vanished benzine tins It is on y when you pick up the threads of the invesfic'ation and follow it along amazing ramifications that you begin teTSive the vastness of the subject. It is a matter for post-graduate research work, in fact. Next on the list of indispensables I would put, I think, the corkscrew.. I don’t propose to go very deeply into the corkscrew question at present If you have ever studied the facial expressions of three or four extremely dry gentlemen who suddenly that although they have a hottie they have ho corkscrew, you will not b grudge that homely article s place on the list of human necessities Such appalling results have been follow from the absolute and definite lack of corkscrews cn certain occasions that engineering science has taken time off to consider the matter. Hence the various types cf pockecorkscrews now in vogue lhey can he attached unostentatiously to one s watehchain or key-ring, or form part of one’s

En route to Day’s Bay on Saturday morning I met a friend who me that I had promised to go with him to the raves that day. heeling-a trifle frayed, I was about to myself, but weakened, when he assumed aii expression of piteous dejection. “Oh-all right, I’ll RO,” I Well, we went. I had never reen a race meeting in my life, let me confess. I don’t know that I was particularly excited over’ this, my first one.

In the first place I was never entirely free from physical discomfort. Everybody, it seemed to me, had bought first-class tickets on tho tram. At all events, when we sought seclusion and comfort in a first-class carriage I found myself wedged m a corner" by the increasing pressure of two distinctly matured ladies, who exuded “information” and violet powder.. Before leaving the citv I had called m at a. draper’s shop and was presented, incidentally, with an “absolutely stonecold moral” by a polite assistant It wag to the effect that if a certain jockev was put up to tide Lovesign I was to keep off. but if anybody else was put up I could safely, invest my entire outfit, to say nothing of my shirt.

You begin to leak your good money liefore you leave the c ’U~? ab _ railwav tickets and so forth. By the time you get on to the lawn you are bleeding pretty freely, and rather m a. mood for patronising the 10s. However, we didn’t. Me were in.time for the fourth, race, and we agreed that each would back his. fancy m every race, and halve the winnings—tr any I saw that Loresign wasn t being'ridden by the jockey I had been warned against, so I put one pound on him —or was it a she? I don’t know. My pal put his pound en Enthusiasm, which enthusiastically lost. Lovesign paid —no, I mustn’t. Dy the way, if the Government wants to get back next election it had better repeal that tomfool legislation against publishing the dividends. However, the result was so satisfactory that we. shook hands and adjourned unanimously, mem. con., con. amore, to‘the nearest raspberry fizz stand. We also had a win on Civility. So we made our expenses, left before the last race, and returned to the city with a credit balance.

Frankly, I don’t think the majority of the people out there really enjoyed* themselves. It was fearfully hot, and there was very little shade from which you could see things. Everybody, it seemed to me. wore a strained, tense expression. You spent your time gazing up like rtjiber-necks at the tote figures, boring into your race cards, climbing the stairs in the broiling sun to the stand to see the next race, and climbing down to the tote to watch tho betting—or, merabile dictu! to collect. I suppose there is really more in it than that, but it seems to me that the man who goes out to the races with the sole object of trying to get money without working is a fool both wavs —he has to work mighty hard all day, and never really gets ahead of the game. If he goes’ out merely for a dav’s fun the chances seem to be that he will win money too. That’s the irony of it. I said to one man: “Well, bow did you get on?” “Oh. all right t Lost thirtyfive bob only,” said he. Racecourse philosophy is a funny thin®.