RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 135, 4 March 1929, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Cosmo*.) Amauullah of Afghanistan is being forcefully reminded that when Kipling wrote “East is East and West is West,” he knew what he was talking aboutThe Scandanavian countries have not been involved in war for over one hundred years. They evidently haven’t had anything that a'ny other country wanted. ♦ • *• . Chicago’s next international exhibition will take place in four years’ time. Thinking, no doubt, that by 1933 a real live Chicagoan will be worth travelling half the world to see. “The rapidly-increasing motor traffic in Sydney threatens to end in driving all pedestrians underground,” says a visitor who has just returned from Australia. Judging by the news, we should say that it has already driven a fair number there. * * * The advent of talking pictures has created a demand for actors who can speak, and In consequence, many aspirants to the screen are being again considered. In the United States as much as £3 per day is now. being offered to those who can best howl like dogs, make parrot-noises, imitate cats, chickens and horses. When, in the near future, you see and hear - a chicken crow on the screen, it is very likely that the “crow” will have been provided by an unseen actor. Flight-Lieutenant Pope, whose secret high-speed ’plane lost its tail at a height of fifteen hundred feet and compelled him to descend by parachute, has now qualified for membership' to one of the strangest clubs in the world —the Caterpillar Club. The only way to become a member of this unique institution is to save one’s life by a parachute jump. An ordinary jump is not considered. The would-be member must have saved his own life in the stipulated manner. Other members of the organisation are Flight-Lieutenant D’Arcy Greig, the British air speedster; Colonel Lindbergh, and Captain Scholefield, the Vickers’ test pilot. That flying men should found a caterpillar club seems ridiculous, but the name is said) to be explained by the action of the caterpillar which, when falling, saves itself by a silken thread. The food shortage in China is only one mote to add to the long list, of famines'and pestilences that have accounted for more human lives than all the wars of the world. Although there have always been a few minor famines somewhere or other every year, since 1708 B.C. to the end of the nineteenth century, there have been 370 serious famines. To-day, when we read news of famines in China and other far-off places, most of us take for granted that countries like Great Britain have been spared these visitations. As a matter of fact Britain has had her share of famines, although most of them occurred at least a century ago. There have been no less than 160 recorded, famines in Britain since the-times , of the Romans. - t .-'-i As far back as A.D. 310, 40,000 persons perished in one of these famines, which often came four or five times in. a century. Some of them lasted six or seven years, whilst after even a fouryears’ famine in Scotland in A.D. 936 a historian of the time casually remarked that the famine was so bad "that people began to devour one another.” A famine in Britain in 1390 caused people to eat unripe fruit, leaves and other things until ‘they suffered greatly from ‘flux.’ ” The last serious famine in Britain occurred in 1846, when the potato crop failed. This famine lasted for seven long years. Ten million pounds were spent by.the British Government to alleviate suffering, and over a million Irish people emigrated to the United States. The difficulties of rendering effective assistance in famine areas are immense. During the famine in Russia, in 1919-1923, America made gigantic efforts to alleviate the sufferings of these people. Congress itself granted • 20,000,000 dollars, and in all, counting moneys raised elsewhere, over 61,566.000 dollars were spent in two or three years. At the height of the famine, which affected 24,000,000 people, some 10,000,000 were fed daily on imported food, of which no less than 10.000.000 tons were brought into the country » and distributed over areas manv times the size of New Zealand.

With reference to the note on scho.il games, which appeared in this column on Saturday, “A.P.H.” writes: ■ , “ ‘Knuckle bones,’ I always understood, dates back to the ancient Roman and probably Egyptian days* Fifty years or more ago. we played it as boys. My mother -lught us the game, which she used to play as a child in the West of England; it is from her that I base my statement of its very ancient origin. ‘Knife’ I played at school in the middle ’seventies, but know nothing of its origin, except that I saw it played in England as a small boy, when on a short visit;

“B” offers the following observations on the same subject‘‘l remember the game ‘Knifie” mentioned in your "oluuin on Saturday. Over fifty years ago it was played by boys at Holmes School, on the grass at the back of St. Peter’s Church. As my memory recalls it the game was called.‘Mumbje-'he-peg,’ but this may have become corrupted during rthe intervening years. The penalty for losing a game was to draw a peg,‘driven in the grass, with the teeth.”

A further contribution to the “Bubbles” controversy is supplied; by q correspondent, who forwards the following extract from an English newspaper:—“Everyone knows the late Sir John Millais’ beautiful picture, ‘Bubbles,’ which was sold tu Messrs. Pears. But evervone does not know that the lovely fair-haired boy watching the Hight of the bubble was the painter s own grandson, the elder boy of his daughter. Mrs. James, whose husband,' a sol of Lord Justice Janies, was in the 16th Lancers, and died in India. ‘Bubbles.’ in real life Captain George Millais James, was killed in action on November 4. 1914, near Ypres. He had a verv distinguished war record..having served throughout the SouJx African War in t) e Northumberland Fusiliers. He was mentioned in dispatches, and subsequently was transferred to the Buffs. . . . Like both his parents, he was singularly handsome, and a most attractive personality. He married the only daughter of ; Sir James Heath, of Oxendon Hall, Market Harborough.”