WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 151, 23 March 1925, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D H.)

Mr. Chamberlain likens Europe’s security plan to a jigsaw puzzle.—lsn’t it more of the cross-word variety?

An advertising magnate describes the United States as a tempting morsel for warlike nations to swallow.—Perhaps he has a digestion cure to sell.

Major Fitzurse went home last evening to sharpen his sword and get the moths out of his uniform after reading the exhilarating speech delivered by Sir Charles liigham in New York. The Major has for some time past felt that the degenerating effects of a too long peace are making themselves apparent throughout the world, and the peoples are losing their virility. “1 am of opinion,” said the Major, “that Sir Charles Higharn did not go far enough in his statements. It is not enough to warn the great peace-loving democracies of the .world that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and' that they must be armed at all points against all passible foes. The lesson must be driven home, sir, that the true defensive is the offensive—a grand principle of strategics that a nation neglects at its peril. Consider, sir, the amazing folly of standing idly by until such time as the warlike nations'of the world are ready to attack us. Are we to leave these lawless and misguided communities to use the instrument of force when and where thev please?”

“Such a policy,” continued the Major, “is in the highest degree suicidal. The policy of disarmament is a policy of madness, sir—madness. The interests cf international security will only be secured by curbing the power of warlike nations at our own convenience, and not waiting for them to take us at a disadvantage. They should be crushed now, sir. The world can only be made safe for democracy by making use of any available pretext to at once exterminate, or at least completely cripple, any nation now in a warlike condition, or considered capable of hereafter becoming warlike. If the Protocol were amended to provide for •his, it should have the unqualified support of all desiring to see the world placed on a permanently secure basts. I wish good evening, sir.”

The late John London Macadam must turn in his grave at some of the things that are called macadamised reads.

“E.N.” writes:—“Reverting to paragraph appearing in your columns recently on the conventional names of New Zealand hostelries, 1 should like to mention a few exceptions recalled from travels in Canterbury, a province in which, when one recollects the type of its earlv settlers, it is not surprising to find some degree of originality or lariatiou from more common names. Christchurch still has its ‘White Hart’ and the ‘Bush Inn’ at Riccarton. ■There was also the ‘Halswell Arms,’ perhaps now vanished. The ‘Courtenav Arms’ may have given way to the ‘Harewood Arms.’ Rangiora has its ‘Red Lion,’ and Teddington its ‘Wheatsheaf,’ while on the West Coast I remember the ‘Golden Eagle’ and the ‘White Swan.’ ” \

Some years back the late President Roosevelt in an expedition up the Amazon succeeded in putting on the map a previously unknown river, the Rio Roosevelt, over a thousand miles long, long enough, that is, to reach from Auckland to the Bluff or thereabouts. At present there is an expedition, under Dr. Hamilton Rice busy exploring the upper Amazon with a full range of the very latest scientific equipment. English amateurs have lately been picking up radio messages from the Rice Expedition, but the London newspapers have been too busy writing the requirements of their readers in the matter of divorce court news to liave space to spare for the Amazon, and what Dr. Rice is up to up there with his hydroplanes, aeroplanes, and bo on.

These up-to-date explorers in the wilds of South America use the radio to receive wireless time signals and in this wav determne their longitude with more accuracy than is possible even by the best chronometers. The hydroplane traverses the endless miles of river waters making reconnaissances and surveys, while the aerop ane soars aloft over the forests and beyond them into the. uplands. Aerial survey in the Upper Amazon country is attended by great risk to the observers. On one occasion the hydroplane travelled fiftv miles over impenetrable forest,, and the river was a continuous series of rocks, rapids, and broken river bed. A forced landing would have meant certain death. Seen from above, the vast tracts of primeval wilderness have seemed eerie and awe-inspiring to the aviators. Through it runs, the nver, in a series of boiling, foaming rapids, past jagged-edged islands selvaged with impenetrable forest, seemingly endless,’and dark and z silent. In places huge tracts are stripped bare of forest, and crumbling plateaus of red sandstone thrust great ribs of rock aloft. A lot of blank spaces in the map will be filled un by the Rice expedition, even if it makes' no sensational finds of hidden cities and lost civilisations.

Scotland has given up its porridge, and according to the Rev. Dr. Black at the Edinburgh Section of the Scottish Burns Club, it has had enough of long sermons. Dr. Black, on going to preach in a country kijk, was asked bv the beadle, “Ha’e ye your sermon written?” When the reverend gentleman replied that he had, the beadle exclaimed: “I’m rale gled, because when thae folk come wi’ a paper, ye ken they’ll stop when that stops; but when thev ha’e rae paper ava’, the Almichty Himsel’ disna ken when they’re likely tae feenish.” Not so long ago the written sermon was anathema to the Scotsman.

They met during a quick lunch m the city-. “Hullo 1 old man, eating eggs?” said one to the other.. “Yes, and whv shouldn’t I?” replied his friend. '“Why,” went on the other, "I thought you were a vegetarian, ana eggs turn into chickens you know.” The vegetarian smiled, “Ah,” he replied, “the one’s that I eat don’t!”

TO PHYLLIS, WHO HAS SPOILT HERSELF. Phyllis, whose beauty shone most fair Where feathery tendrils used to cling Under the shadowing wealth of hair That gave to your head its loyely shape— Why have you done this dreadful thing? ' Whv have you shaved your neck s nice nape?

Boys may approve you shaved and shorn. But, ere they are real men, rashion’s tide Will turn and von will be left forlorn, Waiting for Time to bring escape From the shame of a crop too short to hide The prickly scrub cn your neck s nice nape. And the maids of to-morrow, taught again That a woman’s hair is her glory’# crown, Will marvel much in a world grown sane How a girl in her senses could choose to rape Her own bright locks and the delicate down That bloomed for a charm on her neck's nice nape. —O.S. ia "Punch.”