RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 83, 2 January 1930, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL » ■ ■

, (By <

Cosmos.)

About the time one gets familial! with a Chinese general’s name he quits. Seamen, it is reported, still put their faith in Mother Carey’s chickens. “I have spent all my life at sea,” one old fisherman la reported to have said, “and I have never known a mistake by Mother Carey’s chickens. Whenever we see them we know there is dirty weather coming.” A scientist on being asked for an opinion, declared that this la a mere fable. “These birds are useless as weather prophets,” he remarked. It would seem that all the old beliefs concerning tha weather are now shattered by scientists who, thanks to an almost worldwide cable system, are now able to miscalculate the weather with less consistency than a quarter of a century ago. Must we forget all we have learnt about the weather? A lively cat means. thunder may not ba known to all of ns these scientific days, but when a cat washes its face and keeps going on the job we still take heed and providently carry an umbrella. No scientist would take any notice of a cow’s opinion on the coming weather. Yet any fanner will tell you that when his cows He huddled together, tails to windward in the early morning when they ought to be feeding, a storm cannot be far off.

Strongly twinkHng stars and rings round the moon in some country districts in Europe are still used as a reliable indication of storms and winds. But there is a simpler way than thssa for telling the advent of gales. Ignorant peasants in some countries declare that pigs may be seen carrying mouthfuls of straw into their sleeping quarters just before the arrival of a gale. In fine weather sheep will scatter over a wide area. When a change is coming they will huddle together. Even - the spider has been pressed into the service of weather prophet. It is to theft advantage to have their webs as extended as possible for the larger the web the f more chance of catching something. f Some hours in advance of a strong wind or bad weather spiders may be seen hard at work shortening their webs. '

Plants, of course, make delightfully unscientific weather prophets. The pimpernel and the convolvulus close their petails before bad weather; the dandelion, on the other hand, dislikes too much sunshine, and if it closes up in the morning the day will be fine. Any scientist will laugh at you over these simple methods of weather forecasting. In company with Mother Carey’s chickens, these methods have been replaced by isobars, millibars, and depressions. But don’t mention to the modern weather prophets the time when they all beUeved that weather was determined by conditions in the fiery heart of the earth. They laughed at other fancy methods and declared that the heat of the earth’s interior varied and thus caused the weather. What could be simpler.

"Perambulators are now called baby carriages,” says Sir Henry Dickens; and one wonders whether the motorbus will yet be re-chrlstened by William Barnes’s name of • “folk-wain.” On every ground we shall be glad to be rid of “perambulator.” It means very nearly the opposite of what it is, for a perambulator is literally one who walks, not a convenience for one who is unable to walk. “Pram” is a much better word, and might well be retained if it were not haunted by the ghost of its perverse derivation.

An exciting story of the “uncle from America” variety is reported from Ruma, a little town in Syrmia, where a search is now proceeding for the next-of-kin of one Nicholas Bizoumovitch, a Serbian from those parts who died in London in 1906. Bizoumovitch Is known* to fame as the inventor of a barber’s clipping machine now in worldwide use and as the owner of a fortune of many millions. It seems that no claims on this fortune have been established since his death. The Yugoslav authorities have, however, been approached recently with a view to tracing the relatives of the inventor, and since then something like two hundred claimants have appeared from Ruma and some of the neighbouring villages.

What will our newspapers be recording in seventy years’ time? Not so very long ago the London “Daily Mail” published a prophetic issue dated January L 2000. The commercial editor tells the harrowing tale of a Stock Exchange broker who complains that a jobber by a new form of “L” ray had ascertained the broker’s thoughts before he had formulated them. The committee, while acknowledging that the man had the power to read the broker’s thoughts, decided that he could not anticipate them, and therefore dismissed the case. Aviation, of course, plays a prominent part in the “news.” In the business section there is‘a “Caution to Investors,” io the effect that the prospectus of the Mars Development Company docs not mention the absence of aerodromes for landing, yvhile elsewhere we learn that the London-Sydney daily express took its departure at the schedule time, an d an air-liner on the LondonAuckland route is claiming damages from the World Air Tanker Company for a collision in an air-lane which had been closed to all , but freight trafiic. Three tunnels are operating between London, Calais, Boulogne, and Ostend, and the paper is supplying televisors to subscribers, by the aid of which they can see things in America or elsewhere reflected on a screen as they happen. In the general news S. Brown is slibwn as being before the courts for blocking the traffic by crawling along at the snail-pace of fnrtv miles an.hour when the minimum cneed limit was fifty. Most of us will ieel thankful that we will be dead before then.

“Tay Pay” is g° ne and part of us g °’ es with him, Though gone from us—he lives—this Grand Old Man, H j s wonderfully understanding heart is stilled. But in this world of ours, nothing is lost, . , And reverberations of his once palpitating heart Beat through the Space which overhangs the Nations of the Earth, Sounding its message of Goodwill and Peace ~ , Through One Great World where frontiers are unknown. ♦‘Tay Pay” is Dead, but DivetbL —J, A.R-