WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 191, 8 May 1924, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By '

T.D.H.)

An international women’s organisation has brought out a proposal to remake the government of the world. — And while Alania is busy planning it all little Willie is at the street corner learning how to run an yworld in just the same old way.

According to' the American Labour Party there is too much of “thou slia.lt not” in American law. —Still nobody else over there seems to be letting that worry them much lately.

“H. 8. writes:—When I gave you notes of the visit of H.M.S. Warspite, I did not know' the Rev. V. Ward Thompson, chaplain of H.M.A.S. Adelaide, was also interested in the history of naval matters in the South Seas. He supplies the following supplementary notes (“H.M.S. Warspite, 74 guns, arrived in Sydney on October 19. 1826. Commodore Sir James Brisbane. Bart., C. 8., died on December 19. 1826, aged 52 years, from the effects of dysentery and malaria contracted during the operations of the Irrawaddy. He was buried in the old Devonshire Street cemetery, Sydney, the site of which is now occupied by the Central Railway Station. A ‘Government and General Order’, published on the evening of the day on which he died, contains the following : ‘Tlie name of Sir James Brisbane will be associated with an event which forms an interesting epoch in the annals of the colonies of Australia—the arrival of the first line-of-battle ship in the harbour of Port Jackson; and will be handed with it as a record to posterity.’ . A mural tablet to the memory of Sir Janies Brisbane was placed in St. James’s Church, King Street, Sydney.”

Die history of that gradually vanishing piece of headgear, the “hard-hit-ter” hat, is told in odd hunting memoirs of “GMrmley” Wilson, which have just been published by his nephew, Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson. Originally the hard-hitter was known as the billyeock hat,, and the etymologists have hunted in vain for the origin or the word. The “New Oxford English Dictionary” casts away back to a chance phrase of a writer in 1721, a century before the hat came in, and suggests that “hillvcock” is apparently the same as “bullycock,” and means “cocked in the manner of the bullies or blades of the period.” as in a passage describing the Oxford “smart.' of 1721 as being “easily distinguished bv a stiff silk gown, flaxen tie'wig. and broad hullv-eocked hat.” If old “Gumlev” Wilson is to be believed, the learned dictionary-makers have been barking up the wrong tree altogether.

“Billycock,” according Io Mr. Wilson, is simnlv a corruption of Billy Coke, and Billy Coke was the inventor of the hard-hitter. Tin's gentleman whose full name was Thomas AViJliam Coke, and who was a first cousin of the late Earl of Leicester, was bom in 1793. and died in 1874. Here is what “the Old Squire” in notes of the hunting season of 1832 has to say about him: “ ‘Billy’ Coke was a very hard man across country, and had one celebrated horse. ' ‘Advance,’ the sire of some of the best natural hunters In the shires. He was a most inveterate kicker, and when Coke rode him he had a large K in white on the back of his coat. He invented the ‘Billy Coke’ hat. called Jn tfi»se days the ‘Billycock.’” From other sources it appears that Mr. Coke first wore his hard-hitter at shooting parties ;at Holkam, and Dr. Brewer, writing thirty years ago. stated that certain old-fashioned hatters in the West End of London still referred to this stvle of hat as the “Coke kat..’’ It does not appear that Mr. Coke did anything else of note in his life, but it is not given to everybody to make a new break in headgear, and have it copied from one end of the earth to the other and still in vogue half a century after its inventor’s death.

A correspondent writes inquiring whether the mole has ever been introduced into New Zealand. In his big book on the naturalised animals ana plants of New Zealand, the Hon. G. M. Thomson gives a list of the thousand and one living things that have been brought into this country, but the mole for some reason or other,, seems to have been entirely overlooked bv the acclimatisators. The mole Hyes on worms, and Mr. Thomson tells us that no less than nineteen kinds of earthworms have been thouditfully imported into the Dominion. and it seems remiss that having got the worms in, no one has thought of bringing the mole in to get them out again.' If anybody still wears moleskin trousers in New Zealand, the skins, so far as T.D.H. knows, are all imported, and local industry contributes nothing towards this durable article of attire.

Moles are found all over Europe, Asia, and North America, and Australia has its marsupial mole., but common as this little animal win Britain, there is a great diversity of opinion aa to whether he is injurious or not. Mole clubs flourish and farmers subscribe to them, but it remains an open question whether the amount of good the mole does in destroying worms does not make up for the damage he does bv messing ud the ground ins mole hills. The late Mr. W. HHudson, the English naturalist, quotes instances of farmers who buy moles from mole-catrhers to let loose on their farms, while other farmers declare that the moles cause them to lose a fourth of their grass crops. Jhe moles with their burrowings will sometimes make a meadow so hummocky that it cannot be properly mowed with either machine or scythe. As, for the non-appearance of the mole in New Zealand, it may be because no one has been able to provide enough food to keep a mole alive on the sea voyage. Moles are terrific eaters and drinkers, and will die if left only ten or twelve hours without food, and if two moles are left foodless for a few hours in capta-vitv together the stronger will mfalliblv eat the weaker. Whatever it is that has kept tho mole out of New Zealand, he has not been missed, and it is something to be thankful for that the importers have forgotten him.

The caddie bad watched tho lady for some time. Her club kept flying out of her hand at each stroke. . I can see von becoming r champion soon, ma’am.” I’P said. “Oh. do you really think so?” sb" beamed. “Yes, ma am. At throwin’ the ’ammer.” GOOD-BYE TO OXFORDSHIRE. These are her jewels, these small sacred towns. . . Unique in the universe! These miniatures. Initials on a. mediaeval text. . Brilliant as Chaucer’s death-defying page, Enrich the map of England. Such she was. Is, and shall be. whatever else tho Fates, Conspiring in their gloomy cavern, threaten, Or the dark skies forecast, or foes at home — Enemies, or tho avengers of the world- - Wreak on her distant realms through peace or war. —John Jay Chapman.