WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 8, 4 October 1927, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

With a Tongariro Park Bill before Parliament, it is interesting to note that a proposal has been mooted in Britain for a National Parks Department to safeguard all public playgrounds and open spaces not under municipal control. Canada and the United States each have all their national parks under a strict national control, and even then have big fights occasionally to preserve them from despoilment. Some of New Zealand’s national parks are controlled by boards' and others ate not. Even with a board in control there has gone on in the Tongatiro Park a steady unofficial building up of a game preserve, first by the planting of heather, and then by Hie importation and liberation of game birds. As grouse shooting over a preserve must be restricted to very few people indeed if the birds are not to be shot out, the Tongariro project is an amazing misuse of a national park.

As to the other national parks, several could vanish in a moment without Parliament having a voice in the matter. The Mount Cook national park, the Waimakariri national park, and the huge Otago Sounds national park, covering a vast area of fiord and lake country, were brought into being only bv Lands Department proclamations in the Government Gazette. These proclamations can be lifted apparently at any time.

This interesting little fact may not matter much at the fnoment, but at some future date a Minister, of Lands, not particularly interested in national parks, might easily have an obscure Gazette notice inserted, cancelling the proclamation of such-and-such date, over blocks number so-and-so, in district number so-and-so. It would look very unimportant to everyone who read it without turning up a survey plan to see what the blocks were, but it might quite effectually result in the handing over of a lump of a national park to other purposes altogether, and even to its sale to private persons. The first the general public and even members of Parliament might know of it would be by finding private parties in possession of what had been supposed to be a national heritage for all time. Our national park policy does seem a trifle casual.

The recent news message* discrediting the Glozel alphabet as a complete fake lends interest to the announcement that a French archaeologist, M. Cannnille Julian, professes to have deciphered the strange markings on these clay tablets. Their discoverer, Dr. A. Morlet, holds that they represent the earth’s earliest alphabet, and .date back to 3000 B.C. M. Julian, on the other hand, says the tablets are Roman, and date,only to about 300 B.C. On one tablet he professes to have deciphered a magic formula in cursive Latin dedicating the tablet to Diana and the animal sacred to her, the stag. Portuguese scientists think there is a strong resemblance between the Glozel writings and some inscriptions found at Alvo in Portugal, also the subject of heated scientific argument. If the arguments get any hotter there may be some money for the lawyers in these interesting archaeological discoveries —and even the most practical-minded persons will then have to admit that archaeology has a real practical value.

How many know that the 96 per cent of us who are not left-handed are. not only right-handed but right-footed, rightarmed, and right-legged as well as* righteyed? According to an article by Dr. R Kingman in the American “Medical Times.” the skin is more on the right side of our bodies, and our hair grows slightly faster or thicker on the right side until the age of forty-five. The senses of touch, taste, and smell are more acute on the right as well aa sensitiveness to heat and cold. And it is easier to perceive faint noises or sounds from one side rather than the other. Most of us are firmly persuaded that our looks are the same on both sides. Nothing of the kind! In taking a profile picture, the photographer prefers the left side, for the lines. there are less firmly set. So we are righ - faced, too. In short, a right-handed person is right-sided in all his muscles, senses, and’ functions, and correspondingly leftlbrained. #

It is said that children who have been scientifically brought up in a way which prevented arty suggestive bias tor the use of the right hand have, as early as the sixth or seventh month.. been found to develop a distinct preference for the use of the right hand. Conversely, children who later prove, to be naturally left-handed persist obstinately in their preference for the left “and. One theory is that the right-hand habit dates back to prehistoric days, when the primitive hunter used the left hand to hold a shield over his heart, while with his right hand he wielded the spear or club.

Curious cases of "mirror-writing sometimes occur when right-handed people use the left hand. Some years ago a teacher in a small school in Bermuda, whose right arm had been broken returned to her class and proceeded to write questions on the .board with her left hand. The result was unintelligible to the children. She had begun at the right side of the.board and written backward toward the left without perceiving the difference. Dr. T. J. Carpenter, an American medical man, lias also put on record the case of an expert stenographer who was forced, by a gunshot wound, to make use of the left hand for writing. . Unless he preserved concentrated attention the .left hand invariably tapered off into mirror writing. That celebrated person, Leonardo da Vinci, in hi- declining years, when his right arm was paralysed, wrote a whole book, his "Codex Atlanticus,” in mirrorwriting, which had to be held before a looking-glass to be comprehensible. “I’ve had a terrible warning of approaching death.” “No, really?” “Yes, I bought one of those hietime fountain pens, and it’s broken. TO SLEEP. A flock of sheep that leisurely pass One after one; the sound of rain, and Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, <• <. - Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky; I’ve thought of all by turns, and yet Sleepless; and soon the small bird s ' melodies .. , Must hear, first ’ utter d from my orchard trees, And the first cuckoo s melancholycry. Even thus last night, and two nights more I lav, And could not win thee. Sleep! by any stealth: So do not let me wear to-night away. Without Thee what is all the morning’s wealth? Come, blessed barrier between day amt da v Dear mother of fresh thoughts and jovons health. —William Wordsworth,