WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 89, 9 January 1926, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

“Away with Judaism and Jehovah P says the ex-Kaiscr.—ls this the final dissolution of the partnership between "Me und Gott”?

Contrary to generally, received ideas, it seems that it really is cricket to go on a world tour and leave one's wife behind.

“I want silence,” says Prince Carol —but he can’t want it as badly as the American Sunday papers want a royal scandal to put in their next issues.

The oldest oak tree in New Zealand, according to the details in yesterday’s Dominion, is a hundred and one years old. This easily wipes out the original claimant to the title, which was stated to have been planted at Petone in 1842. According to the Hon. G._ M. Thomson’s big book on the Dominion’s naturalised animals and plants, the oldest oaks in Auckland are in the Government House grounds there. They grew from acorns sent from Sydney, which Mr. Cleghorn, Superintendent of Public Works, sowed in the Government gardens in 1841 or 1842. The young trees were planted at Government House in 1844 or 1845. The fine old oaks in the Domain at Auckland, were planted by Mr. Chalmers in 1863.

Talking of the first oaks, in New Zealand, is a reminder that in Mr. C. E. W. Bean’s intensely interesting little volume “On the Wool Track,” just published in Australia, there is some account of how Australia got its first sheep. It seems that George 111, who was a great experimental farmer, badlv wanted some merino sheep, but Spain was doing so well with merino wool that it had been made a crime to export merino rams. By a lucky chance the King obtained some merino ewes. A British fleet happened to pass a Spanish fleet, and by way of complimentary exchange the Spaniards passed over the sheep as sea stock. They were not eaten, and on arrival of the fleet in port came under the eye of our old friend, Sir Joseph Banks, the one-time scientist of Captain Cook’s first voyage.: Sir Joseph immediately had the ewes presented to the King.

The problem now resolved itself into securing some rams. The Spanish Ambassador was asked but. dared not promise any. The Spanish Ambassadress was then closely watched, and it was discovered that she had a weakness for the cream cc/ich horse's which drew the royal State coach. Two of these were imported from Hanover at a cost of £BOOO, it is said, and presented to the Ambassadress, who then had what no other lord or lady could boast of. It was hinted that a few merino rams would be welcome in return, so the lady, knowing it useless to ask the Spanish Government for them, applied to the Spanish smugglers to select a few. The smugglers “selected” a few from various flocks by their well-known methods of selection, and drove them across France and Germany to Hamburg, where they were duly shipped to England. In' 1804 Captain John Macarthur bought eight of the sheep, apparently in pretty bad condition, from His Majesty’s sale at Kew, and so the golden fleece reached Australia.

That nobody ever has a tale to tell about a sheep is a complaint made by Mr. Bean in his book. Everyone has a story about his dog and his horse, and even his cow and his cat. But who is there ever tells yarns about his sheep? A sheep, it seems, is just a sheep. Nevertheless Mr. Bean says that since he first made this observation, a one-time stockman’has told him a story of a sheep that had a character. Its little peculiarity lay in always wanting to veer off to the right when it got a chance, and so lead the mob astray. As a result it had to be shot.

This is pretty mild for an animal storv, but later‘in his book Mr. Bean does incidentally tell another sheep story without stopping to label it as such. He quotes a New South Wales stock-owner as saying, as an instance of hereditary transmission: “I remember two Border Leicester rams., imported from England to a station in the hills. Some time afterwards there was a fall of snow in the paddocks, apd we noticed that the sheep—not those rams, but their children who had never seen snow _began to paw the snow away to get at the feed beneath it. None of the other crossbreds on the place, attempted to do so.”

We always thought it was the proper thing when we wanted to write a business letter to start off with “re.” Apparently it isn’t. Here is what the lexicographer of the New York “Literary Digest” has to say on the subject: “The term re is not an abbreviation of ‘referring,’ and should not be used as such. In law, re designates an action or matter and is from the Latin res, thing. Its use should be restricted to that profession. The practice that some writers on commercial correspondence commend, of using the formula, ‘Re your letter of the Ist instant,’ claiming it to stand for ‘Referring to your letter, etc.,’ should be discouraged as not countenanced by reputable commercial practice.”

Chang Tso-lin of .Manchuria,* whose worries and woes have been much in the news of late, has a happy way of dealing with exuberant college students. At Mukden not so long ago some students wished to hold a procession at Mukden. Permission was refused for them to do this according to their own ideas, but Chang Tso-lin allowed the procession on condition that it followed a six-hours’ . march which he had planned for it. The day came and it was blazing hot. The students started their procession and were amazed to find that Chang I solin had provided troops to follow them. The heat was such that the students, after two hours, were anxious to cease processing, but the troops made it quite clear that as they had demanded a procession they had got to go through with it. And they did—for six liours, though many fell by the wayside. It looks as if some of our university reformers might pay a visit to Manchuria to see how Clung keeps things going. Mrs. A: I make it a rule never to ask another to do what I would no do mvself. Mrs. B: But, my dear, surely you don’t go to the door yourself and tell vour caller you are not at home.

“A good chef gets more than a college professor.” “Whv shouldn’t he? A lot more people'take his Courses.” OUTWARD BOUND. Dear Earth, near Earth the clay that made us men, The land we sowed The hearth that glowed— O Mother, must we bid farewell to thee ? Fast dawns the last dawn, and what shall comfort then The lonely hearts that roam the outer sea ? Grey wakes the daybreak, the shivering sails are set, To misty deeps The channel sweeps— O Mother, think on ns who think on thee! Earth-home, birth-home, with love remember yet Thy sons in exile on the eternal sea. —Sir Hengy Newbolt