RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 35, 5 November 1928, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS

LOCAL AND GENERAL

18,

Cosmos.)

News is to hand of an overseas politician who has just been made the father of triplets. He probably demanded a recount. » • • There were 14,000 burglaries reported in Moscow last year. The present state of poverty in that city shows that it is impossible to go on robbing each other indefinitely. » # » “What will the modern girl be 20 years hence?” asks a contemporary. Probably live or six birthdays further on. * * A tour of Wellington’s popular highways over the week-end has led us to believe that motor-ears are increasing by leaps and bounds, while pedestrians are surviving in the same manner. Very few New Zealanders are aware that Armistice Day, to which reference is made this morning, was the outcome of a suggestion made by a New Zealand journalist. In 1919 Edward George Honey was a patient in a hospital for consumptives in Northwood, Middlesex, when the thought came to him that Britain should remember its dead in a few minutes’ silence at 11 o’clock on the eleventh day of tlie eleventh month of each year. He wrote to the Press (states the Glasgow “Herald”), and the proposal was brought before the Kiug and referred to his Ministers. At first the idea was regarded as preposterous: but there was such vitality iu it that it could not be quenched. The first proposal was that the silence should be for five minutes. It was Lord Balfour who had it changed to two minutes. Five was unendurably long, he thought. And he was -right. For two minutes of such stress ami high emotion can feel like au eternity! And thus the King called ’ upon the nation to be still for two minutes. The thought that came to a broken journalist thus-filled the people with a great silence. Tlie newspaper man who thought of the Armistice Day Silence is a brother of Mr. W. 11. Honey, of Wellington.

Commander Byrd, the explorer, who is due to arrive in Wellington to-day. is one of three famous brothers. Harry Byrd is Governor of Virginia’; Thomas, who distinguished himself during tlie World War. is one of the biggest fruit farmers in the Southern States of America; while Richard is known to the world tor his exploits as an airman and explorer. In 1901, when he was 12 years old, Joung Richard Byrd •set out alone on a voyage round the world. He went first to Manila, where a friend of his father’s was a United States Circuit Judge. Tlie boy had some exciting adventures in tlie islands, as the natives had not then been thoroughly pacified. He was exposed to cholera and had to be quarantined with several others on a hilltop on one of the smaller islands. The natives refused to risk contagion by bringing food to the quarantined foreigners, so young Byrd’s diet consisted chiefly of carrots. Byrd completed his trip round the world by taking a British tramp schooner, which allowed him to visit Japan." Ceylon, India, Port Said.' and other places. Ou returning home he entered a military academy. Byrd organised the United States Navy Department’s commission on training ships in 1917, and tie following year was sent to Canada to command the United States naval forces in Canadian waters. Meanwhile lie had learned to fly, and after the war lie devoted all his time and energy to aviation and aerial navigation.

The ex-Kaiser appears to see in recent German events the possibility of that country’s return to the older system of Government, which would mean a Kaiser again leturning to power. The news to-day indicates that the exile at Doorn is intent on keeping the world posted with his activities, with a view, no doubt, to his return to Germany. What may happen in Germany cannot be predicted witli any degree of positiveness, it is admitted, but one of the few prophecies that may be made is that Wil he)in II will never again sit on the throne of his ancestors. Should the throne ever be occupied again, there are other more likely candidates for it than the ex-Kaiser, we are told, who has no following among his former subjects. The nominal homage that is paid to him across tlie Dutch frontier, it. seems concerns the monarchial principle, and not the personality in whom it found its last supreme embodiment in (.’ many. Tlie final and tinfo' ivable tiling done by tlie Kaiser to divorce him from the Germans, it lias been pointed out. was the flight to Holland, and we have been assured that Germans of all social classes and all political parties have tlie feeling that what tiie Kaiser did would have been treated as desertion if it had been done by one of lower rank in tlie army ; To crown all, we read, citme tlie ex-Kais-er’s second marriage, which event was resented hv the Monarchists, because it stultified tiiem. With scant respect for tlie sanctities of the grave, they seized upon the ex-Kaiserin’s death as a vehicle for propaganda. The Monarchist Press drew touching pictures of the Imperial exile, in his solitary banishment. robbed o- the sole comfort left to him bv an ungrateful people, and an unjust fate. A’great (leal of effect was being gained by this presentation .m tiie hearts of Hie sentimental, when the horrifying news arrived that the widower had hardly waited for the tomb to close over the remains of his first wife before pledging himself to a second.

A cable message recently announcing six months in advance a change in the command of Hie Atlantic Fleet was of more than ordinary interest, since this is the most important sea-going command in the Royal Navy. The piesent Commander-in-Cliief, Vice-Admiral the Hon. Sir Hubert Brand, who has held tlie post since April. 1921. with his flag on 11.M.5. Nelson, is well known in New Zealand, which is ed in 1924 as Commander of the. I irst Light Cruiser Squadron forming part of the Special Service Squadron. He is a brother of Viscount Hampden, the newlv-eleeted cliairmnn ol the National Mortgage and Agency Company, who is now on his way out to New Zealand. Another brother, the Hon. R. H- Brand, a director of Lloyds Bank mid a partner in Lazard Brothers, merchant bankers. of London, married the beautiful Phyllis Langhorne, of Virginia, one of Charles Dana Gibson’s famous “Gibson girls.” Sir Hubert Brand was Chief -if Staff to Lord Beatty in 1916, mid served under him in the Queen Elizabeth while he commanded the Grand Fleet.