WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 253, 9 July 1926, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.

The moral of the Budget seems to ba that if you want tick you must put up with tax. While the Australian cricketers battle for the “ashes” New Zealand’s Rose is beaten by the cinders. The one thing clear is that the new £l4OO city engineer is not to be allowed to have a finger in the Hill Street tramway pie. The motor-car has brought with it a new ground for divorce in California, for American newspapers to hand record that the Supreme Court of California upholds that “back-seat driving” constitutes a sufficient reason for severing the holy bonds of matrimony. “Back-seat driving,” it may be explained to the uninitiated, is the practice of telling tbe driver what to do from the back seat Thus, with Father at the wheel, Mother in the rear seat calls out: “Change down quick for this hill, dear, you’ll never do it on top!” “Move over to the leftl That taxi will hit. you!” etc.,

It is said to be a common occurrence in California for formerly loving husbands and wives to'descend from opposite sides of the family car . after what should have been a delightful tour and enter the house by different doors in order to avoid each other and avert an explosion. When the children are permitted to drive, entire families are arrayed against one another and gloom broods over the home. To such proportions has the evil of back-seat driving grown that the Supreme Court has felt that the homes wrecked bv it are ruined beyond redemption, and the only course is tn wipe the matrimonial slate clean and leave the, parties free to go their separate wavs. The newspapers do not exare making any orders in these cases as are making orders in these cases aa to which partner to the marriage retains the custody of the car.

An aviator’s wife has one peculiarity —she al wavs likes to see her husband down and out.

A correspondent notes a sort of geometrical profession in the British coal strike negotiations. A little while back everything seemed to hang on roundtable conferences. Now there is a postponement of legislation in order to reach a square deal. Tbe. acuteness of the situation, moreover, is alleged, to be due to the obtuseness of the parties, and to failure to work on parallel lines. Our correspondent’s further observations, however, go off at a tangent, and unless contributors keep to the point we cannot give them space.

Recent mention in this column of the old Spanish (or supposedly Spanish) helmet in the museum dredged up twenty vears ago in Wellington Harbour/is’ a reminder that Mr. Elsdon Best’ has remarked on the presence of two Spanish words in Maori. Thft Spanish for “dog” is “perro,” and the Maori is “pero,” and while the Spaniard calls a “ship” a “brique”. (pronounced biik-e). a Maori word for it is “puke, the pronunciation being the same as the Spanish except that the “b” becomes a Are these words merely coincidences, or is it possible that the first ship the Maoris saw was a Spanish brique r

If the world is going to the dogs ithas been on the way there a mighty long time. In his “French Studies and Reviews,” recently published, Mr. Richard Aldington quotes a French Abbe, Giles the Mouldy, who in 1350 was hard at work lamenting the degeneracy of the people in the most up-to-date manner. Workmen, Giles the Mouldy declared, do nothing but wait for the time to cease work. Wages are so ridiculously high that it is no use putting anything in hand. The currency is depreciated and the cost of living is terribly high. The good old relations between master and servant have quite disappeared. The Church is on its last legs. Children are ill-bred and swear without being smacked for it. People live only to amuse themselves. As for the new fashions in women’s. dress and the beliaviour of young girls—he can t trust himself to speak for them.—lf there, u anything in hereditary the genealogies of a lot of our bank chairmen and doctors of divinity must surely trace back to tliis dear old French Abbe, Giles the Mouldy.

A luminary of the screen recently received from a dealer an offer of £lOOO for the trimmings of his next haircut. Inquiry revealed that the dealer proposed to sell photographs of the motion pictura mummer, together with tufts of his hair, at two pounds a package and upwards. This curious proposal must not be pronounced a product of the jazz age by over-hasty moralists. Old Ecclesiastes knew be ter than tliaL

“Is there anything whereof it w b" said, ‘See this is new?’ ” that sardonic preacher asked, and proceeded, “It hath been already of old time, which was before us.” A commentator advises us to turn to “David Copperfield” and we will find Miss Mowcher rattling on to Steerforth about ff scraps of the nails of a Russian prince, who was one of her clients. The prince’s nails,” says Miss Mowclier, "do more for me, in private families of the genteel sort, than all my talents put together. ... I give ’em away to the young ladies. They put em >n albums, I believe.”

It seems, too, that tlie hair of even ordinary persons quite unknown to fame or notoriety had a commercial value long ago. A book published m England in 1860 states that long, flaxen hair was bought from the head at ten shillings the ounce, and any other fine hair at five shillings or seven _ riullnms the ounce in 1662. Within the eightihesHn Devonshire were let out by the vear at so much rent per po«- ™ Exeter periwig maker went around neriodicallv cut the locks and oiled the skull of each thus left in stubble.

A countryman came to Boston tn visit some' relatives and to see the sirrhts He remained untit patu-i"••• on tlie part of his hosts, a married couple, ceased to be a virtue. „ “Don’t vou think, my dear fellow, remarked the husband one day, 'that your wife and children must miss “Hadn’t thought of that,” was ttie calm replv, “Thanks for the suggestion; I’ll send for them.”

Mr. Chauncev Depew was once asked bv a fair neighbour at a dinner party if' he did not think women were the best judges of women. “Yes,” said the famous American lawyer, “and the best executioners too.”

KEEP OFF THE STAKS. Tn days when flying flivvers Dart here and there in schools, We’ll have to regulate them Through new air-traffic rules. Tn lieu of "cutting corners," Which now is not allowed, We’ll have an air rule reading: “You must not cut a cloud."' —“Boston Transcript. ”