RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 80, 28 December 1928, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Cosmos.) America’s foreign policy appears to be that she will initiate anything, but refuses to join it on principle. * ♦ ♦ If Germany isn’t careful her secret armies will rewind the watch on the Rhine. They say a mosquito can fly ten miles. But it isn’t the distance he flies that bothers us. It’s what he does when he stops. The man who says be runs things in his own house is probably referring to the washing machine and vacuum cleaner he presented his wife fur Christmas. * * Christmas gifts that failed to pleise is one of the principal holiday top.es. An outstanding example that has cane to our notice was that of a young nan who, in a determined effort to cult smoking, threw his pipe, cigarette cise, and tobacco pouch iuto the sea three days before Christmas, only to wtke up on December 25 and find that etch of his four friends had hit upon he bright idea of presenting him with a box of cigars. His life was disastrous from ea-Iy childhood. He was knocked dovn flights of stairs; he swallowed a ph; he was burned: by mistake he draik vitriol mixed with water; he was burned again and was thrown sone distance by an explosicn of gunpowder; he was poisoned; asphyxiation, aid drowning, too, nearly took his life. Bui Adolphe Sax survived these “sings and arrows of outrageous fortune” to invent the musical intrument winch bears his name—the saxophone. « • * In the enormous bulk of Christmas gifts carried by air between Britain and the Continent there must have been many a queer cargo. On the London-Continental airway queer cargoes are the rule rather than the exception. Almost since the very beginning of the service it became a normal method of transporting bullion, and fully £20,000,000 have flitted to and fro across the Channel in this way. Indeed, there are many advantages to this method, for pilfering is practically impossible. An air goods porter at Croydon was surprised one day to find a parcel awaiting transport to Paris labelled “Cremated human remains.” But compactness is not a necessary adjunct, for a well-known circus manager sent a full-grown lion by air from Paris to London in a special cage fitted into a Napier DH aeroplane. Cats and dogs are common passengers, and thousands of pounds worth of pedigree cats and dogs, not to mention their humbler brothers and sisters, make the flight across the Channel in a single week. Even motorcars have been carefully inserted into a giant aeroplane for a unique trip along these intangible roads of the air Instead of the dusty French roads and the Channel steamers. In fact, there is little that has not been sent by air. Even pig iron, coal, and tree trunks have figured in the bills of lading, nof in small parcels, but in consignment; weighing many hundredweights.

The recent cabled announcement th a the great motor liner of 27,000 tom which is being built at Belfast for tie White Star Line is to be called Britannic, is of more than passing interes, because she will be the third ship o bear that name in the flet of the famous Liverpool lin. The first Britannic, built 14 years ago, was an iron single-sere? steamer of 5000 tons, 455 feet in lengti and 45 feet wide. She had a speed <f 16 knots, and for many years was o® of the fastest ships on the Atlantr. It is interesting to recall that the Bttannic paid two visits to New Zealani near the end of her long career. Qi the first occasion the vessel, thin troopship No. 62, brought the “Imperiil troops,” representative of all the f.mous British regiments, who had been sent out to the Commonwealth inauguration celebrations, in a tour of tip D.mi-Jon. In the following year tie ship brought a draft of returned s<ldiers from South Africa. The Brittnnic was at Wellington on February 9, 1901, and on her secon ’ visit she irrived at this port on August 1, 19)2. A ; interesting fact i that on bothocc ions the ship was commanded byCaptain B. F. Hayes, now Sir Bertam Hayes, K.C.M.G., who was knighteefor his services as commander of the Olympic durin - the war and who :ommanded the Majestic from 192O.intil his retirement about three years ago. H had previously v’~‘ cd New Zealand as an officer in the first Optic an I the first lonic.

The second Britannic was buit to replace the ill-fated Titanic, Wiicli was sunk with great loss of life on April 15, 1912. after a collision vith an iceberg on her maiden voyage rom Liverpool to New York. The Britamic, which was launched o.i February 26, 1914, was a monster Of 41500 tons gross register, 852 J feet bng, and 94 feet in breadth. She was nearly 400 feet longer ijnd more than twice the breadth of the first Britannic, and with the ame length and depth as the Olympic tud Titanic, she had 18 inches tore beam than those ships. Like them.she was a triple-screw ship, propelled (y a combination of two sets of quadrple expansion reciprocating engines, ani a low-pressure turbine driving the ceitre screw. She had not long been labelled when the Great War started, md was taken over by the Admiralty md fitted out, first as a transport and liter as a hospital ship. She had a v>ry short life, for on November 21, 106, she was sunk by a submarine in rhe Aegean Sea. The new motor liner Jritannic will be the third of the name to be built by Harland and Wolff, of leifast, for the White Star Line.

The old Britannic had a remarkalle career. During the mai y years sie was in the trans-Atlantic trade, sle made no fewer than 271 round voyages f- m Liverp 1 to New York, durirg which she carried 395.396 passengets without • 'e mishap, steamed 2,032.500 statute miles, and burned 560.407 tons of coal. During the South African War she made 11 voyages as a troopship, carrying 20,728 troops and steaming 200.499 miles. She was then withdrawn from service, having steamed a total of 2.232,999 ,_i'ss, and consumed 626,000 tons of co in 23 years. Tr view of her si ’endid record the owner® * the W’ ' tfar Line were unwilling that the Britannic should lx ei ployed in any other service, anr when they sold her they stipulated tha she must be broken up, a conditio; Jhat was fulfilled in 1903,