TITBITS FROM HERE AND THERE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 26

TITBITS FROM HERE AND THERE

THE ISLE OF HORROR. Tilburn Island, 17 miles away from the Mexican State of Sonora, in the Gulf of California, ,bas been known for many years, as an island of horror. Now its savage inhabitants are nearing the extinction point. The Indians are reputed to be cannibals, and the few whites, or membets of other tribes, who visited the inland, are‘not known to have left it again. It is .surmised that they were cooked and ; eaten, in just the same way as the Maoris used to treat their visitors a century ago. Col. C. J. Velisde, a native Mexican authority on Indian jore r states that for the lastifour centuries they have been continually at war, with the result that there are now only 250 survivals, of’ who only 50 males have reached the adult stage. Their chief characteristic is that they, are completely Isolated in contact, thought, and custom, and consequently they have a hereditary hatred of all other humans. Their closest neighbours regard them as belonging to another world. For hundreds of years they have repulsed all would-be invaders including the Spaniards, Mexicans and Americans. Like the Red Indian, their favourite method of attack is the ambush, and those who have fought against them declare that they fight with tooth and nail, and these weapons are more t) be feared than their poisoned arrow?, clubs and spears. Upon rare occasions, they have visited the Sonorans md bartered for blankets (called “Sarapes”) with gold dust. While oie cannot quite see the animals have a particular partiality towards blankejs, it is said that the Seris pride themselves upon being like the animals the,’ worship, and among their numerous deities are the pelican and turtle, and the sun and moon. The unforgivable sit on the island, is a marriage to a member of another tribe. HONOUR FOR MOTORISTS. Motorists who have a clean driving record over a rumber of years have founded the Order of the Road, and every applicatioi for membership is considered upon its merits. Members of the order are receiving ten per cent, reduction in their insurance premiums from three companies. THE DREAMfj THAT DID NOT COMS TRUE. When Lieut.?Ctinmander H. C. Macdonald, who set out from Newfoundland in a Moth to fly the Atlantic was first reported imissing, Sir Herbert Basker, the manipulative surgeon dreamed that he law the missing airman cast away on a rocky island, and told Mrs. Macdonald so. Another friend had an identical dream, so his wife, who hoped that she was not his widow, went to the Admiralty to see if there might be any hope of her husband being found pn Rockall, a lonely island 200 miles west of Scotland. The official, however, ' had to shake his head, like a doctor who knows there is no hope, and tell her that it was only a rock. Incidentally, Air Vice-Mat’-shall Sir Sefton Branckner, said that before the flight he was prepared to “bet 10 to 1 on the Commander.” WHEN THE ‘SMILING PRINCE’ DARED NOT SMILE. While the Prince of “Wales was visiting Nairobi, Kenya, he went outside the town to meet the wild Turkhana tribesmen,, who broke- into a wild dance which grew in vigour as the Prince approached and continued all the time he was there in the camp. ( her tribes like fie tall Masai, gave their greeting, when clad in skips and feather headdresses. Others, again who had probably come under the influence of’ the missionaries again thought that an ordinary British welcome would be the best thing in circumsta” es and standing stifty, broke into a very unmusical version of the National Anthem. Thp guest of honour managed to keep his straight at this spectacle and sound. Everywhere he went he was keenly interested in the native attire . and weapons. He handled the swords and spears and ask.-d questions about the prevalent styles in headdress. When he left the whole 2000 natives who had gathered swarmed around his motorcar, waving spears, shields, bows, arrows, and knives and shouting dancing, and chanting, in a hundred different dialects. £llO6 FOR 2/6. In a London sale room recently. 30 penny stamps, were sold for £11(0. Thev were the “Penny Blacks _of 1840. the first stamps, and were printed from the same plate 1.

“G. 8.5. ROBBED. George Bernard Shaw, Esq., has been robbed. A forged cheque for £5OO has been honoured by his bank. Even then, he pursued his policy of astounding everybody, and astonished his bank ma: iger by refusing to prosecute. He decided that if he set the machinery of the law in motion, he would not r- ‘ the money ba :k, and v.hile would >t do him any good, it would do the criminal a great deal of harm. But if occurred to him, that this was a fine opportunity to state his opinions on the prison system. Criminals according to him were of two classes, first, the ordinary type amenable to treatment, and second, the wi'd beast type, incurable. The former, ho said, were invariably transformed into the latter by our prison system, and these “wild men,” of whom the man who threw his wife under the dray, is a specimen, Shaw said, should be got rid of in a lethal chamber. “When a tiger preyed upon a village, we didn’t argue about the morality of taking life, we shot it,” was his sage conclusion. THE SPORTING MUSSOLINI. When one of “Il Duce’s” interviewers called upon him the other day, he was loath to discuss politics, but when the talk turned upon sport, he spoke with great animation. “I am a sportsman myself,” he exclaimed, and by vivid movements and gestures, he showed what sorts of sport he was interested in. ,“I fence,” he said, and made a forward lunge with an imaginary foil. Then he flung his arms out breaststroke-fashion, and said that he swum; then put himself into a pugilistic attitude which might have impressed even Gene Tunney. (One wonders what is the penalty for giving him a red nose, to say nothing of a black eye) and then he finished up with the intimation that he was a would-be “road hog.” “I conduct the auto,” suiting the word with an appropriate action. Any sporting movement, in Italv, it is said has his support, and both Rugby and Soccer are taking on there. A GOOD JOB. The Mayor of New York (U.S.A.) has found it necessary to appoint a social ambassador who will eat dinners and shake hands for him, at a salary of £lOOO a year. The mayor said that he could not do his work and accept all the invitations to public functions which he received. It may hanpen that those who send the little cards will not do so now that they find that the mayor will not come himself, and what might have been a fattening job will become a very lean one. WHEN IS A MOTH A BLUE-BIRD? Captain Malcolm Campbell,, who established the world’s motor speed record of 207 m.p.h. has ordered a “Gipsv Moth” plane. This will l>e named, like his car, “Blue Bird,” and will be used for an aerial survey of various parts of the globe to discover, if possible, a natural speedway which will allow of a speed of 250 m.p.h. The speedster, who never worries over traffic regulations, and policemen, was in the Royal Flying Corps during the war, and had much experience as a pilot. However, he has not had any flying lately and will go through a refresher course to take his civil license.

THE HATE THAT SPRINGS ETERNAL.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff are not now, the chums that they were a little over ten years ago. Hate, it seems, like hope, springs , eternal in the human breast, and since the pair cannot hate Britain together now tinformer is president of Germany, so they hate one another. Last Jcar Ludendorff can hardly bring himself to meet Hindenburg at the unveiling of a memorial on the field of Tannenberg, but in Max Baden's Memoirs, the author gives the credit, for the battle to Ludendorff, who claims it. But recently he sent an urgent telegram to the President, as read “I have received through the post notice of death sentence by the Free Masons. Tins is the freemasons’ reply to my smashing exposure of their crimes Millions of Germans expect you to intervene immediately, and liberate the . reopk from the plague of these crimma s. Please confirm receipt of this tc gram personally.” Hindenburg was away from town then, ano aitu fo davs had elapsed, his secretary tele graphed in reply. "I have the honour respectfully to acknow.oc ge Urn e ceipt of vour telegram on behalf of ne Se’ch President.” The. Ludendorff newsuaner then waxed furious and de Glared that anyone, who still that the names of • UffieXff belong -- (rnf- something to think about. iu the meantime, S there has been no news of any assassination.