RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 6, 2 October 1929, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS

LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By Cosmos.)

A guest never knows how much to laugh at the family joke at the dinner table.

The tendency to strip popular heroee of their glory knows no limit. Documents have come to light which prove that the early bird was really a late bird getting home at dawn, and that he brought In the worm as a peace offering to his wife.

Mr. F. B. Kellogg, the author of the famous Pact, who has been awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, is a very lucky man. Usually one starts as a Chevalier of the Order and works upward through the five classes to the Grand Cross, a proceeding which takes fourteen years. He will now wear a broad scarlet ribbon from the right shoulder to the left hip, where the gold badge of the order is suspended from IL This is a five-rayed star of white enamel, each limb being double-pointed, and having a silver ball on each tip. Between the rays is a wreath of oak and laurel, and in the centre on a sliver-gilt ground is a female head, and the legend, ‘Re‘publlque Francaise 1870.” Also, his left breast will be adorned with an ornate silver star, of somewhat similar design. The number of Gjand Crosses is limited to 80, and this is the highest honour which France can give.

Founded by Napoleon Bonaparte, the order has supported an institution for the education of the daughters, grand-daughters, sisters and nieces of its members. Though apparently the mnlP relations of those honoured can kick for themselves. Not only do politicians, soldiers and other limelighters receive the award, but the French Ministries have the happy knack of rewarding merit in the home with it A fairly recent Instance was that of 'a widow, the mother of nine children, eight of whom are still living, and attached to the soil. “For the dignity and honour of her life,” read the citation of the woman who had been husbandless for twenty years, and who conducted her farm with the aid of her children. “She deserves to be cited as an example.

The simplest way to explain the Black Reichswehr, and the curious verdict of legal murder recently passed on Lieutenant Eckennann, is to give an actual instance of how this secret society carries out its self-imposed duties. As far back as 1928, what was expected to be the last of the Black Reichswehr murder trial sensations was staged in the German Law Courts. Lieutenant Reim was charged, together with Sergeant-Major Busching, with having killed Sergeant Major Legner on the Doberltz manoeuvre ground in 1923. The trial was delayed five years because Reim had escaped abroad and had been only recently arrested and extradited from Italy. Busching his accomplice, had disappeared entirely and was never found. Reim did not deny that Legner had been shot in cold blood as a traitor whilst accompanying himself and Busching on a patrol. He declared, however, that the actual murder had been done by Busching.

They had been serving in one of the so-called Black Reichswehr Labour Companies. Every evening, patrols were sent out to prevent thefts of timber stacked on the manoeuvre grounds. Reim was ordered to take Legner with him and was Informed that he was a spy for the “Entente," and must be got rid of that night. Everything was carefully arranged. The body was to be buried in a trench dug that morning. When they approached the trenca Reim was walking In front and to one side. Suddenly he heard a shot and saw Legner lying dead on the ground. Two spades, previously placed conveniently beside the trench, were used to bury the body. Reim escaped with three years’ imprisonment, and prob ably considered he had been severely punished for his patriotism. In many cases these Black Reichswehr crim - nals escaped with nothing more than a warning.

In 1927, for instance, Lieutenant Schulz and his sergeant-major were formally arrested for a very similar piece of elimination. They were sentenced to death. However, the National Steel Helmet League appealed to the President and they were both reprieved within a fortnight. The Reichstag even went so far as to give these illegal secret societies and other patriotic organisations a nice little coat of whitewash when the trials were at their height They declared that although there was a certain amount of collusion, the individuals who carried out these political murders acted contrary to the approval of the organisations who had planned the deeds. These organisations, it was declared, alwaysi opposed taking the law into their own hands. The fact remains, all the same, that these officially non-existent organisations were really responsible for not a few astounding murders. The present one has come echoing down from 1923, but is probably by no means the last.

“G.J.8.” writes: In the history of an armchair in the office of the Education Board it is stated: “This chair is made from oak taken from Noah’s Ark, formerly an American vessel, which stranded on the Lambton foreshore in 1850, and now lies buried under the Bank of New Zealand, Lambton Quay. The correct history of the ship, written bv Mr. John Plimmer. known as the Father of Wellington, who arrived in New Zealand in 1841 in the barque Gertrude with Captain Stead after a passage of four months with 250 immb grants and 30 other passengers, is as follows: “In 1850 an American ship struck on a rock at the entrance to the harbour and was leaking badly, sO J“ e captain ran her ashore at Te Aro. She came into my possession for the sum of £BO. She was a vessel of 650 tons named the Inconstant, built at St. John’s. New Brunswick. Sir George Grey gave me permission to place the ship opposite Barrett’s Hotel, for the purpose of making a wharf. The people of Wellington christened her Noahs Ark. I cut down her upper and built a large building over the hull 68ft. by 30ft. The Government allowed me to make a bonded store of the lower part and granted me a license for it. This is the history of the old ship, the remains of which are in the cellar of the Bank of New Zealand.”

A lady motorist asks: “Which is the right side of the road to keep on when you’re running down a hill backwards ?”