WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 97, 19 January 1926, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Like the Communists. Mr, Baldwin is of opinion lhat Britain needs to be electrified.

It is proposed to make Prince Carql king of a new kingdom of Transylvania,: —Well, there ought to be a lot of «eo ond-hand royal recalia to be picked up cheap in Eurone just now, and the expenses of starting a new kingdom should thus be at a minimum.

An American professor has discovered that modern life is being ruined by seven deadly values—speed, radio, sex, over-emphasis on health, jazz, modern psychology, and monev.—This shows if the world is not getting better it is getting different. Our ancestors were carried off by the seven deadly sins—pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, avarice, and sloth. Strangely enough, it seems to have been sex that carried them on.

This reminds us, somehow, that it was President Wilson’s fourteen points that were to save the post-war world from its seven deadly ills.

Mrs. Parkham, who has been reading the latest moral uplift and medical literature, is strongly of opinion that civilisation’s only cure is to stay away from the pictures and eat brown bread.

The people who believe that Lord Kitchener met his death as the result of treachery are sticking to their point, and the latest evidence is a letter stated to have been written by Colonel Oswald Fitzgerald. Colonel Fitzgerald, who also perished in. the Hampshire, had been associated with Lord Kitchener ever since 1901, when he was appointed his aide-de-camp in India, and in 1912 he caved his chief’s life in Egypt. A plot had been formed to assassinate Lord Kitchener in Cairo that year, and Colonel Fitzgerald received information of it, together with a photograph of the man who was to do the deed. In the drive through the city on Kitchener’s arrival at Cairo the Colonel watched closely to pick out the man, and sighted him near the carriage. He therefore placed himself in such a position as to shield Lord Kitchener ■with his body and fixed the man with his .eye. The assassin hesitated, his opportunity was lost, and before he could get away Colonel Fitzgerald had him arrested.

When Lord Kitchener visited New Zealand in 1910, in the course of his mission to the Dominions, Colonel Fitzgerald accompanied him as his chief of staff. This popular officer came of a family with a remarkable military history. His father was the late Colonel Sir Charles Fitzgerald, K.C.8., hts grandfather was General James Fitzgerald, and for two hundred years back his direct male progenitors were all officers in the British Army. His father married a daughter of the fourth Duke of Leinster, and one of that lady’s brothers has long been a resident in Australia. This gentleman is Lord Charles Fitzgerald, quite forgotten in Britain, and who never uses Ins title. He has been resident at.Euroa, Victoria, for many years, emigrating there after a romantic marriage with a beautiful Greek lady, Alice Sidonia, daughter of Pericles Claudion, ofi Corinth. and rearing a large and characteristically Australian family To this family the premier Irish Dukedom of Leinster may in , y 'j ars . possibly fall—if Irish dukedoms last that long.

A reform is frequently something that godlv persons wish on to othe persons whom they do not like.

' The death the other day of Mr. W. E Norris, the novelist, has recalled a curious deal by two well-known publidiimr houses. Mr. Norns was rated verv high as a storyteller in his young davs, and Mr. J- H. Harper the American publisher, has recorded a corner sation he once had with Ins fellownublislier Air. Holt, some forty-five vedrs ago. The talk turned on the respective merits of W. E. Norns and Thomas Hardy. Holt, er "expressed the opinion that Norns was the coming man. I stood out for Ha so Holt generously offered to exchang authors—he having b T ub,is ’ l^J and we for Norris. I accepted the proposition. From that time we have published all Hardv’s novels, and Holt and Co. have had first claim on any work by Norris.” Looking back now, it seems a curious example of a publisher’s mistake.

The above tale reminds us that literature is an accident that sometimes happens when a writer is engrossed in trying to tell his story.

The question under discussion was mottoes/ One was challenged to evolve a suitable motto for a boarding-house. “Let bvgones be rissoles,” he answered promptly.

Bret Harte was once lecturing at Richmond, in Virginia, and on the morning of his arrival had such a terrible headache that he would c Jl eer^ ll -. have died there and then. He <( Went for a walk, we are told by the Tatler,” accompanied bv the person wh was to take the chair at his le cture. The latter fold him that Richmond was a verv healthful place, that the deathrate averaged only one per diem. “Good heavens,” said Bret Harte, w io had been telling his companion how he felt; “has to-day’s man died yet?

A stranger in a Scotch vill ?ge thought he might improve the time by attending service in . the local church. At the conclusion of • fengthv sermon, the minister announced that he should like to meet _ the board in the vestry. Ihe stranger, in company with several otlle r sons, proceeded to walk towards vestrvL The pastor thinking there must'be some misunderstanding, said to him: “I believe, sir, you are. mistaken, this is just to be a meeting of the board.” “Well,” replied e visitor “I have listened to your talk for more than an hour, and if any one has been more bored than I have been I should like to know who rt

This is the time of year when the college student begins to struggle to trade the accumulated erudition of four years for a £2 a week job.

Guide (at ancient castle) : This fs the moat. Are there any questions you would like to ask? American: Yes. How in heck could a fellow get one of those in his eyeT

Mrs. Jinks: “How long have you had your last maid?” Mrs. Binks: “Three sets of dinner dishes.” THE PEDDLER. Come, ladies, 1 have drcams to sell, Of onyx, crystal, asphodel; Tissue’s of the finest gold, Quiet silver, pale and cold. In exchange you give to me All vour youthful ecstasy; All the brightness of your eyes Where your beauty lives ai d dies. Better give them with a smile. Taking dreams for change the while; lam Age—to none I kneel; What I cannot buy I steal. —Eleanor A. Chaffee in the New York -“Herald-Tribune.”