RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 84, 3 January 1929, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Cosmos.) “It is a bad habit to break into song,” said a Magistrate when imposing a fine on a New Year’s Eve reveller. It would not be so bad if people always found the right key. Ex-soldier motorists will be interested in a new car siren which sounds a few notes from “Reveille” when approaching a pedestrian. It would have been more appropriate, however, had the inventor provided a selection from “Taps.” • • • Another point that many have learned about Christmas gifts is that women’s stockings are no more durable than men’s socks. They have a longer run, however. Mussolini, we are told, has decided that the house-fly must be abolished. IVe never hoped to see the day when public good would result from baldness. • » • A few months ago a scientist claimed that the earth was not as heavy as we had been led to believe. Today we learn that, on the contrary, it'is actually heavier than has been reported. What we gain or lose by an additional few pounds might concern us as individuals, but when applied ,to the earth in which we live is hardly likely to create more than passing interest. Indeed,, one wonders if the scientists who spend years on investigating such problems might not devote their energies to some problem of vital concern to the people of the earth. Dr. Paul R. Heyl, of the United States Bureau of Standard, announces that the earth is some 592,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons heavier than had hitherto been known. Five rears ago he set about the task. of weighing the earth with the intention of obtaining a more accurate result than that arrived at about 30 years ago. Now some other scientist will come along and prove him wrong, but the old world will keep rolling on quite indifferent to its alleged gams or losses in weight b » » •

Sir John Salmond, whose appointment as British Air Chief Marshal is announced to-day, was a visitor to New Zealand a few months ago, and displayed a keen interest in the activities of the trans-Tasman. flyers. Sir John has had a long and distinguished career in the Royal Air Force. He gained his pilot’s certificate in 1912 and became an instructor at the Central Flying School. He was one of the original band of pilots who went to France at the outbreak of war, and became Director-General of Military Aeronautics at the War Office in 1917. He was closely in touch with all peace-'< time training of the Royal Air Force, and was in charge of the Inland Area x from 1920 to 1922. He grappled with the problem of utilising air power for the control of Iraq, and was the firstair officer to hold supreme command of. all the military forces there. He then returned to England ■ to assume the second most important command in the Roval Air Force, which included the responsibility for the air defences of Great Britain. In June last he visited Australia, and reported on the Commonwealth’s air defences. • A; ' AL’ Those hundreds of bowlers who are about to try their skill on the Wellington greens have much to be thankful for. Had they lived in an earlier age they might have found their popular pastime prohibited by law, while licenses had to be obtained even to play within the confines of one’s own gardens. The ancient game of bowls can . be traced to the thirteenth century, while some historians claim that it originated some time.before that. Next to archery, it is the oldest British outdoor pastime, and has been in and out of favour with the kings of England on more than one occasion. As the game grew in popularity it came under tlx ban of Parliament, as it was feared that it would jeopardise the practice of archery, then so important in battle; and statutes forbidding it were enacted in the reigns of Edward II and Richard 11. In the days of Shakespeare, however, bowls was a recreation which enjoyed the royal favour. It was about this time that biased bowls were intro, duced and ladies were also accustomed to' play the game in those days. All good bowlers wirecall 'the story of. Drake playing the “right noble game” when the Spanish Armada had been sighted. To-day the game of bowls is popular in nearly every civilised country, and is doing its share in bringing the peoples of the world into closer touch with each other.

Trouble between the Wahabi and the bordering tribes in Transjordania is reported from Jerusalem, and it looks as if those regions may be in for another of the perennial Holy Wars. This Mohammedan sect was established as far back as the eighteenth century by Ibn Abdul Wahab, who propagated his religious ideas by the simple expedient of putting all unbelievers to the sword, but its power was broken by Mahomet Ali, and Wahabism wasted itself literally upon the desert air until 1900. At this date there came upon the scene Abdul Aziz, whose father, the fourth son of Faisal, had been sent into exile. Bent on re-es-tablishing the dynasty of his ancestors, Abdul took Riyadh by a bold stroke, and in 1914 he had recovered practically all the lost territories. His subjects, however, were nomads, and. though useful fighting men, were not exactly the sort of material out of which an empire might be built up. Some effective mortar was required to hold these loose stones together, and their leader resolved to settle his wandering populace in villages under the influence of religious fervour, thus accustoming them to the tilling of the soil.

One of the world’s rarest books has been discovered in a public library in the village of Wigan, England. The book is “The Epistle of the Persecution,” written by Robert Parsons and printed by him in 1552 after his exile to France. It was condemned as a pernicious book by the Elizabethan authorities, and as fast as consignments arrived in England a bonfire was made of them. Two copies escaped. The other is in the Bodleian at Oxford. Parsons, the author, nearly lost his head on the block. He had been Fellow Bursar and Dean of Balliol College at Oxford. In 1574 he “resigned or was dismissed for reasons which have been disputed.” Parsons, in Louvain, entered the Jesuit Society and with Edmund Campion was sent on a secret mission to England. Campion was cap- . . tured and beheaded: Parsons, escaping to Rouen, went to Spain when the Armada was sunk and founded five seminaries for English priests. His ambition was to be Cardinal in England, but in- ’ . stead he was appointed head of the English College in .Roma