RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 139, 8 March 1929, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Coatnoa.) The rays of the sun take eight minutes to reach the earth, says a contemporary. In Wellington, however, they are not working this week. A Judge claims to have tried cigars for forty-five years without success. We can recall some Christmas cigars which couid be sentenced to death without any trouble whatever. * » * ‘. It is claimed that aviation is now as safe as travelling by train. It should be pointed out, however, that two girls recently married airmen who made forced descents on their farm. “Each husband should be compelled by law to grant his wife a minimum yearly holiday of one month—alone.” .Thus ran the most; vital resolution adopted a few weeks ago by the Rumanian Women’s League. What the ladies have not determined, is how to ensure the presence of a husband at homo when they return from vacation. Ireland must now be added to the list of countries in which the ancient game of "Knuckle Bones” is played. A correspondent ■-writes: —“As children in Ireland,ive played a game with five small smooth stones. It required a fair degree of skill to toss one stone and catch the other four in the same hand, sometimes arching the other hand and Working four stones in, while tossing;arid catching the fifth. There were many ways of playing the game, which, I understand, was a very ancient one in Ireland.” I . ...z. Mr. C. A. Coles (Palmerston North) also offers some interesting comments on the game of "Knuckle Bones.” He writes: —“ ‘Knuckle Bones’ certainly did not originate in New Zealand. ;s I played the game as a boy in England some 60 years ago, and liked the game sb well (hat I have never forgotten it. J have recently returned to the Dominion after a trip Home, and, strange to say.'/brought! a set of ‘bones’ with, me. I collected them, one at a time, during the last few years, and my family have had much fun over it, at my expense. I believe the game w;ls played by the Romans in Britain. It was sometimes played with pebbles and called .‘Five Stones’.”

We read in the news of a woman who posed for years as an army captain, which recalls that an Amazon of that type would probably have been better suited'to the army life of Dahomey on the West Coast of Africa. Over one quarter’ of, the entire female population of that country at one time were enlisted in tire army, some even from birth. These troops formed the flower of the Dahomey army and always took the post of honour in battle. Armed with blunderbuses.’ flint locks and even bows and arrows, many a hostile encampment fell before their furious onslaught. Special manoeuvres were instituted annually for the benefit of foreigners. The powers of endurance of these women became a by-word amongst those who saw them in action. One of the set pieces of these so-called manoeuvres was a tall and thick thorn fence. Barefooted, and without any special protection, whole regiments of women dashed through it and emerged on the other side torn and bleeding, but apparently insensible to pain.

The Order of Merit, of which i the late Sir Edward Seymour was f one <’£ the oldest members, was instituted by Edward VII on the occasion ' of, his coronation. The Order, wbicli is similar to the- Prussian "Ilpur le Merite,” is more comprehensive, however, and includes not only those who have gained distinction in the navel and military services of the Empire, but also those who have distinguished themselves in science, art and literature. The number of British members is limited to twenty-four. Amongst the first recipients, which included Sir Edward Seymour, were Lords Roberts, Kitchener. Rayleigh and Kelvin. The badge is a cross of red and blue enamel surrounded by an Imperial Crown with the inscription “For Merit” inscribed in gold and surrounded by a laurel wreath.

A cable message reporting the meeting of the liner Jervis Bay and the Finnish ship, Grace Harwar, in the Australian Bight, is a reminder that the latter vessel' is one of the few fullrigged ships still afloat. Built on the Clyde just forty years ago. the Grace Harwar, a steel ship of 1877 tons register, was owned in London arid sailed under the British flag for 24 years, when she was sold to Russian owners. Though a large carrier, she had riiafiy good passages to her credit and as late as 1922 sailed from Melbourne to Tocopilla in 37 days. The Grace Harwar had an unusual experience 'in July, 1916, when, with another Russian ship, she was blown ashore at Mobile by a hurricane and washed right’ up on to the docks of the Texas Oil Cbmpanv. The Grace Harwar now belongs to Captain G. Erikson, of Mariehamm, Finland, whose fleet includes most of the best surviving square-rigged sailing ships in the world. She left Wilmington on November 5 for Port Lincoln, South Australia, to load wheat for the United Kingdom, this being one of the few trades left to such ships.. Her Jong nassage is probably accounted for by the smallness of her crew and her need of docking.

The experience of the Grace Harwar Is typical of the vagaries of sailing ship passages. There are several instances of sailing ships, bound from Melbourne to South Australia, having to sail right round the island continent after vainly trying to make the few hundred Mlles direct , passage to the westward. There is the notable (tease of the fourmasted barque Buteshire, which in 1909 left Panama for a Chilean port, but after vainly trying to get to the southward struggled back to panama 91 days out, during which time, owing to a long succession of calms and light winds, she had never been able to get south of the Equator. Another re* markable case was that of the shirt Beacon Rock, which once took 114 days to sail from Queensland to New Caledonia, a passage-which works out at an average of only 10 miles a day. In 1900 the Beacon Rock sailed from Port Pirie in ballast for Wellington to load wool for London. Arriving iff Cook Strait, she was blown away by a heavy north-west gale and being unable to' get back to the cohft, she ran right across to Chile, where she arrived 88 days later, when 90 guineas per cent, for reinsurance had been paid on hey. Subsequently, she returned to New Zealand and loaded wool at Wellington for London, the following year making the passage