WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 184, 7 May 1928, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM ■

(By

T.D.H )

A Washington journal intends to pillory in its columns Dry Congressmen who are seen drunk in the House.— It's nobody’s business, of course, when aiiti-Dry members are drunk on duty. At Kish, in Mesopotamia, there was recently discovered a chariot five thousand years old, whose wheels were, spaced four and a half feet apart. Illis is within two and one-half inches ot regular A.D. T 928 width for . wagon wheels and standard-gauge lailway tracks over most of the world. Can it be that modern vehicles carry down from ancient Sumeria their very, width ? Au American writer points, out that the temptation to make some such assumption is strong. brom the Sumerians of five thousand years ago we have inherited not only the wheel, but its division —or at least that of the circle—into 360 equal parts, or six “sixties,” the units which correspond in the Sumerian system of notation to. the tens of our decimal system. From these ancient people we also inherit our hours, consisting of sixty minutes each.

A lawsuit seeking no less than £95,000 damages has been brought by the Omaha Bar Association against the National Refining Company, whose methods of advertising are not, in the opinion of Nebraskan lawyers, so refined as their product. The company, runs petrol-filling stations, outside which stand wqoden figures ot boys holding blackboards on which are chalked what it considers to be “amusing epigrams.” The “epigram” that has upset legal Omaha reads: “Tell the truth to your lawyer, and he will lie for you.” Mr. Edward R. Burke, president of the Bar Association, alleges that he himself has suffered nearly £lOO,OOO damages by defamation of character (the “nearly,” naturally,may stand for quite a lot), and more damage suits are to be filed- in other cities. The “epigram,” in tact, has ouite brightened up the future for every attorney for hundreds c-f miles around. If the lawyers win out, it will be the turn of other trades to collect next, and the comic papers that depict the plumber returning for his tools may have to take speedy cover.

The Russian claim to be one of the members of Asia’s family and not designing European outsiders does not, according to the cable news, seem to have counted for a great deal with King Amanullah of Afghanistan. There is a lot of truth in it, for the Russians are of very mixed blood, and until a few centuries back their rulers paid tribute to the Emperor of China as their predecessors had .done to the great Khan of Tartary. This state of affairs dated from the days of Genghiz Khan and the Golden Horde, and to the Great Khan the princes of Russia dutifully made pilgrimage—making their wills before they set out—and pouring their annual quota of treasure at his feet wherever they might find him in his wanderings across the face of Asia.

The news that negro organisations in America are proposing to run a Presidential candidate of their own this year is interesting, for in some. States the negroes hold the balance of power. In Ohio, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, and Illonois politicians in these days have to think quite a little about the coloured vote. In the past the Republican Party has got the negro vote almost en bioc, for its trump card has always been the fact that a Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves. Latterly, however, the negroes have been voting Democratic, and the negro vote has swung several elections for Congress, and what not, putting in Democrats for seats and offices never before held by them.

This is a curious state of affairs, for in the Southern States, where the Democrats rule the roost, they have all sorts of ways of getting round the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution that gave the Negro the vote, and in most States the Democratic Party bars out Negroes from voting in the selection of party candidates. In the South they don't, of course, say a Negro must not vote because he is a Negro. But when a Negro decides that he wants to rote and presents himself for enrolment, the sort of thing that happens is well illustrated by a Georgia story. In this case the registration officer glanced at the coloured applicant, opened a large book, and proceeded to read a section of Georgia’s State constitution. “Tell me what that means, and then I will register you,” he told the Negro in a businesslike manner. “Boss, it mean jus’ dis,” the darky replied, “dis nigger ain’t gwine ter vote.”

A letter received in America tells how the once mighty Mr. Trotsky set out on his exile to Siberia. The date for his departure had been suddenly changed, and he was not ready when, the police called at his home. His things were not packed, and he told the police he did not intend to start until next day. The police agents were of another mind. They threat-' ened force, but Trotsky was unmoved. Then thev set to work. Says the letter: “They picked up his. overcoat and began to force him into it. His wife tried to communicate with somebody bv telephone, and they dragged her roughly from the instrument. Trotsky s son attempted to defend his father and was subdued in a fist fight by one of the agents. Finally they dragged Trotskv out of his house by mam force, put him in an automobile, and drove him at high speed to the I-aus-, tovo station, forty miles from Moscow He was placed in a compartment with two soldiers on guard. On the road he fell sick. At Samara they took him from the train in a serious condition and doctors were summoned. That is all we know.”

He—“Mv dear, our engagement must be off A fortune-teller has told me I shall marry a blonde within a m <she—“Oh, that’s all right; I can be a blonde within a month.’

She: “Mama and Papa think we ought to wait at, least a month before getting married.’’ , He: “Aw, I hate these long engagements. n , She: “So do I-but we have to Rite them enough time to find a larger flat.”

IT RAINS. As to his hole the rabbit bounds From hunting hoofs My refuge is the tapping sounds Of rain on roofs. . Here in my room I sit, not sighing I hear the rain I Softly it conies in little dots of crying On the pane.

O elemental slumber song! O ancient rune! Give to my listening ears for long This quiet boon! Say to my love that turned away. When time grows late. •'Tis not so bitter In the rains of May To dream and wait. —John Lee Higgins.