RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 75, 21 December 1928, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Cosmos.) Recent reports indicate that Melbourne is doing its Christmas shooting early. It is said that China is becoming so civilised that when a Celestial bandit shoots anyone he has to give a reason for it. ' * « » Looking over the year’s progress,, we have reached the conclusion that civilisation is just a process of getting rid of our prejudices and acquiring some more. A scientist has invented a machine that matches colours perfectly. We don't know the machine, but it certainly isn’t a husband. “Can ghosts speak?” asks a correspondent who has been reading the ghost stories published in this column. Personally, we are more interested in their locomotion. • * * * It appears that Lord Byng, who has cleaned up the night club element in London, commenced his activities as Metropolitan Police Commissioner by initiating many interesting reforms. He moved the youngest police superintendent from an outlying district to the heart of London as organiser of the campaign. He appointed a former night club campaigner in Scotland Yard to organise the work among the detectives. He ordered that the sergeants and men carrying out the raids be chosen afresh for each new case, thus placing the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the higher officers. Already his drive has had results. Panic has spread among the proprietors of the law-breaking night clubs. At least ten have closed down. One has been padlocked by police. Another has been placed in the hands of real estate agents. Secrecy reminiscent of New York bootleggers is being imposed by certain night club proprietors, who peep through slits in doors to see if their guests are real guests or detectives. The law-breaking proprietors apparently are being hounded all along the line. » » » Germany’s secret army is referred to in the news every little while, and although many people regard the question as one of minor importance, it is interesting to learn that the Black Reichswehr, which is mentioned today, is an organisation that has caused the German authorities no little concern. The Black Reichswehr is a name given to the so-called Labour Companies of ex-officers and soldiers —companies organised along the eastern frontier of the Reich in the troubled times of 1923. when Germany was constantly threatened with Communist revolts. It has been frequently alleged that the regular German military authorities were trying to organise.' under the guise of such companies, a whole secret army alongside of the legal Reichswehr. It now appears as if this Black Reichswehr has developed into a form of Fascist army, and having taken the law into its own hands in certain instances, it bids to become a troublesome element unless the German Government deals promptly and severely with it.

Several cases of murder have been traced to this organisation, and it now appears certain that certain Monarchist die-hards have introduced criminal forms into the organisation, and through self-appointed secret courts, have tried and “executed” comrades suspected of treason. This Black Reichswehr is not altogether popular with the Germ: neopie, many of whom regard it as a Monarchist organisation which has not the best interests of the Republic at heart. Cases of mysterious deaths and disappearances have been traced to thi- army, and last year four of its menilmrs were sentenced to death on charges of murder. It appears, however, that the Black Reichswehr is still very active, and it is possible that its suppression may prove a difficult task for Germany. Being in many respects a secret organisation. conjecture is rife as to its real objective. While some critics declare that it is part of a Government scheme to build up a powerful secret army, others regard it as a revolutionary force planning the overthrow of the Republican regime. Reference was made in this column yesterday to the discovery of preMaori carvings, which added weight to the belief that some of New Zealand’s earlier inhabitants came from the West. .Strength is lent to this supposition by a curiously-carved ornamentation to the ridge-pole of a hut discovered in the Kataia Swamp in the Auckland district. Similar ridgepoles are to be seen to this day in some of the uncivilised villages of Borneo. These. Muruiwi, as the Maoris called these first people of New Zealand, have left little from which they can be identified. Tradition tells us that they constructed crude barricades of interlaced logs, some 6ft. high, but without gates: entry was gained by rope ladders made from saplings. The Muruiwis lived in rude huts, and with crudely-constructed spears they repelled attackers by thrusts between the interstices of the log barricades. Eidson Best, in his collection of traditional Maori recitals telling of the arrival of the first of that race does not make the Muruiwis pictures of beauty. "Those folk.” says the Maori narrative, “lived in the open. They were tall as to stature and of spare build, straight bodied, and in no way filled out. having overhanging eyebrows, restless side-glancing eyes, flat faces, low-bridged noses, distended nostrils, and upstanding hair.” Such, then, were the twilight inhabitants of this Dominion, as seen by Toi and his party of forty when they landed at Whakatane, after • being blown out to sea in their canoe from an unknown Polynesian coral isle. It was evident that these original inhabitants were by no means warlike, in spite of their barricades, for they permitted Toi and bis followers to live in their country without molestation. The Maori of to-day has the blood of these early Polynesian voyagers blended with the blood of the darker-skinned Muruiwi, as Toi and his followers took wives from the local inhabitants, and his descendants eventually exterminated then),