RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 32, 1 November 1929, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERA!}

(By

Cosmos.)

An authority on fashions states that ears are once more In fashion for women. If one is worn on each side of the face the effect is said to be very chic. • • * “With the exception of golf,” states an exchange, “England invented most of the world-wide games.” Now that Scotland has officially accepted the blame for inventing golf we hope the matter will be allowed to drop. » • » On the walls of a school which has been excavated at Pompeii, the pupils had scribbled in Greek and Latin. Which proves that even then the classical languages were taught. Sir Joseph Robinson, the South African diamond pioneer, who has just died at the age of 90, started prospecting for diamonds in Griqualand in 1869. He has many curious tales to tell of his early experiences before the magic word “diamond” had been breathed in South Africa, “I asked the natives whether they had seen any pretty stones, and at last I found one man who had discovered a diamond,” he said. “It was a small stone, but when I offered' him ten pounds for it he refused to sell. I increased my offer to twelve pounds, but still he refused. I asked him what he would take for it and he said twenty goats, nothing less! I sent off to the nearest farm, bought my goats for £7 10s., and so got possession of my first diamond.”

A later acquisition was a little more complicated. “A Griqua came along,” Sir Joseph Robinson used to relate, “who produced a handful of crystals and pebbles mixed up with a few small diamonds. After I had bought the diamonds the Griqua, much to my disgust, took my hat and put it on his head. It was a piece of great impudence, but I controlled myself. When he saw that I did not appear to be angry he said, “Now I see you are a good young man,” and he produced a 23-carat diamond, for which he wanted me to give him my wagon. I told him that he could not have that one, but that he could have one just like it, with eight oxen, tobacco, sugar, and money. In a few weeks I gave the Griqua a wagon and oxen and the rest of the things, and he gave me the diamond.”

“The news spread that a white man was giving away wagons and oxen for bits of stone. I was besieged with offers. So I set all the natives who came to look for diamonds. I had bought all the land on both sides of the Vaal, so of course I was working my own property.” In 1922 there was quite a commotion concerning a peerage that was given to Sir Joseph Robinson, and was duly inserted in the honours list in all the newspapers. It transpired that neither the Cape Town Government nor any other responsible person had brought forward Sir Joseph’s name. All sorts of lurid sidelights on his past were brought up, and after a long discussion in Parliament it was discovered that this peerage had been recommended by the then Prime Minister for “Imperial Services” in connection with a banking concern that had gone bankrupt some 20 years before. Eventually Sir Joseph Robinson refused to accept the peerage.

A new process is to be exploited in France whereby artificial wool will be put on the market at a price considerably lower than the real material. At the present rate of progress it will not be long before many of Nature's products will have to take a back seat Even to-day when we go to sea the “iron cow" rattles out a concoction that tastes extraordinarily like real cream, and, of course, butter has had its margarine imitators for years. In fact there does not seem to be anything that at least one optimist has not tried to produce artificially. Even an artificial larynx has been invented. Any person who, by reason of the removal of the larynx is rendered speechless, it is claimed, can speak in a low monotone whine with the aid of this,, the latest artificial marvel. In appearance the apparatus looks very like a cross between a carburettor and one of those toys which, with the aid of. water, can be made to sing like a canary.

Synthetic rubber, of course, finds its way into the news at least once or twice a year. The Germans were frantically trying to discover artificial rubber before the war, but it is significant that during the war they went rubberless. Although it is possible today to produce a fair copy of rubber by artificial means, it is very costly to make, is not properly elastic, and can be used only for hard objects. Promising results, however, are expected from rubber produced from coal, but so far nothing has materialised. In the matter of precious stones, the number of artificial efforts is legion. Pearls can be made either artificially or by inserting Irritants into the shell of the pearl oyster. In parts of Japan regular “oyster farms” utilise this method so cleverly it is almost impossible to distinguish their pearls from the natural products.

Diamonds, rubies,' sapphires, and practically every other gem can be made artificially these days. In most eases the cost is prohibitive, but in the ease of rubles and sapphires there are factories in Switzerland that turn out regular supplies of these gems. Their cost, however, is about the same as the natural gem itself. The artificial product is by no means just an indifferent copy. The chemical conditions whereby these stones are made by nature have been copied faithfully by electrical means. Coal, it is claimed, can be made from wood, but it is not clear just how any benefit can be derived from the process. » » ♦ Thought for Australia’s Labour Cabinet. Again they shout: “Down with the Militarist!” And, as we turn Man’s little page of Time, . . Ever we find the same old cry persist, Voicing a lofty dream of Peace sublime. , . .. And yet—it rose by Tiber, ere there The northern rumour. . . muffled drums that beat; Till, roused from sleep, the drowsy Roman heard The Goths and Vandals thundering in the street I Iv. V . Wf