WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 14, 11 October 1927, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

The mysterious passage in the official history of the Dardanelles campaign to which they have been objecting in Australia is said not to exist. Whether this means that it never existed, or that it does not exist now, is a point not quite entirely cleared up. The interchanges on the subjects, however, have given General Sir lan Hamilton an opportunity to discharge another broadside at'Mr. Keith Murdoch, an Australian journalist, and so far as generals are able to observe insects like journalists, a very specially objectionable atom to the late Commander-in-Chief at Gallipoli.

Mr. Murdoch went to Europe in 1915 to run an Australian cable agency, and en route paid a visit to Gallipoli by permission of Sir lan Hamilton—and Sir lan Hamilton in yesterday’s message did not forget to rub in the fact that it was solely by his gracious, if mistaken, permission that the insectivorous activities of Mr. Murdoch became possible. Now there is growling about the Dardanelles r\ar history book, and the growling, the General points out, seems to have originated in the Melbourne “Herald,” now edited by Mr. Murdoch—the Murdoch dossier is evidently being kept up to date by the general.

What was the head and front of Mr. Murdoch’s offence ? The late Lord Northcliffe, at a lunch ion in London in farewell to Mr. Murdoch, let the cat out of the bag in 1921. “It is an open secret,” he said, “that it was due to Mr. Murdoch’s initiative that the Australians and the rest of us were removed from Gallipoli. Coming to Europe for the first time, he went to the peninsular, and for the first time the truth was told He brought a dispatch, a very terrible dispatch, which I believe Was intended to be sent to Australia. He showed that dispatch to me, aud I suggested that the time which would be spent in carrying that ghastly record to the Antipodes would be better used for the purpose of immediate action. I asked him to take it to Mr. Lloyd George, and one of the fine pieces of work the Prime Minister did in the war was to circulate the document to the whole Cabinet, which then consisted. of twentv-six people. As a result of Keith Murdoch’s dispatch immediate action was taken, and that horrible story was concluded.” ... Sir lan Hamilton’s view is that Mr. Murdoch stopped him fronr winning the war.

With three women on the list of Channel swimmers, it is interesting to recall that three years after Captain Webb first swam the English Channel in 1875 the state of swimming among women in Britain was pretty plainly indicated when a crowded pleasure steamer, the Princess Alice, foundered in the Thames. Of 350 ■ women .on board only one was able to swim.. What has been recorded as the first evidence of female interest in swimming in London occurred in 1861, when the Ilex Club shocked all proper people by daringly announcing that ladies would be admitted to their swimming sports exhibition—to look on. About ten years later a lady writer remarked that it was really only the lack of places where they could bathe privately and unobserved that prevented the ladies of that highly respectable era from taking to the water now and then.

In France, when they name the baby, it has to be a name that is on the official prescribed ' list of Christian names. In Britain it is any old name the parents fancy. ' The “Manchester Guardian” the other day printed a list of freak names tied on to unfortunate infants in England at various times. 11l the register at Hill Croome (1716) there is record of the christening of Tell No Lyes. In another family the three children were named Joseph, And, and Another, whilst parents in another instance christened their offspring Finis, Addenda, Appendix, and Supplement. Even the suggestion that children should be numbered until old enough to choose their own names is not quite new, for a Mr. and Mrs. Stickney called their daughters, so record says, First, Second, and Third, and their sons One, Two and Three.

The chameleon word puzzle appears to be the latest successor to the crossword puzzle. By changing one letter at a time one wotd is converted into another—as, for instance, "Army” into “Navy” in eight steps, each immediate step producing a recognised word. . In the specimen below, “Wolf” into “Lamb,” is worked out in eight steps, completing the missing words for the rhyme in their proper order. The first missing word, of course, is “wolf,” ana the last “lamb”:—

“The was roving on the To seek his prey, as often And take a from wandered sheen. Long s the vale (not the ) With horror deep: He did not seize the fierce hom’d ram, But took a trustful Those who want the solution win find it at the foot of this column. Those who don’t can work it out for themselves.

It sounds as if the All Blacks may be making a tour in Palestine before long. They have taken to football in that country now, as the following literally translated Monday morning report from the Jerusalem newspaper “Haaretz” bears witness:—

“On Saturday afternoon there was a football match on the Maccabee ground between Hapoel and the Maccabees. During the game one of the Hapoel players wished to take the ball away from the hands of the Maccabee goalkeeper, but one of the Maccabee play* ers drew nigh to him and pushed him, and the latter pushed him in return. Thereupon the sister of the Maccabee player burst into the ground, and with the parasol in her hand smote the Hapoel plaver who had pushed het brother. The congregation entered the ground, and there began a tumult.

The proceedings got quite exciting at this point. The report continues: “Policemen, mounted and on foot, then burst into the ground, and in the midst of shoutings smote many of the congregation and arrested the men whom thev afterwards freed. The Maccabee plaver and his sister have been kept in prison. The indignation of the congregation is very great against the police, who interfered in the matter unnecessarily and without being requested so to do by the referee.” , s PUNCTUAL. It’s eight when she comes out for wood. When wreaths of smoke arise Above her square old house, it’s nine— Ten—when she’s .crimping pies. It’s sure to be eleven if She’s‘scuttling down the street, A market basket on her arm And rubbers on her feet. For years we’ve told the time by her — So Punctual are her ways— It’s good for her she wasn’t born Tn those queer Grecian days When gods could change a living soul Into a tree or rock. They might have turned Miss ’Lisbeth t then Into a village clock. —Violet Alleyn Storey in the “Forum.”