RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 196, 16 May 1930, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Cosmos.) A dead letter is one given by a wife to a husband to post. • • * It is impossible for a Government to keep its nose on the grindstone while keeping its ear on the ground. ♦ » * Why do so many men take up a life of crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest? The difference between an investment and a speculation is that if you are lucky it is the former and if you are unlucky the latter. • • « We read about the weak inheriting the earth, but somebody seems to be having a good go at contesting th® wilt * • ■ It is revealed that during a friendly game of Rugby in France one of the players tried to strangle an opponent When the referee remonstrated he was kicked heavily on the thigh. lucidentally in the ensuing melee thirteen players were hurt seriously and one subsequently died from spine injuries. It will not be long .before French players will have made a name for themselves in the game not eveu second to the rough tactics of the United States. In that country the annhal death roll from football is put down as at least twenty. A thoughtful writer in one of the better college magazines said quite definitely regarding the matter: “It pays to hit an adversary as hard as you can, for the sake of weakening him, although doing so does not materially assist the play of the game.” It would seem that even before this timely advice the idea had been put into operation. As far back as 1894 a friendly little game between Yale and Harvard deteriorated, on this principle, into a carnage. Players were hitting their adversaries as hard as they could, in all parts of the field. There can be no doubt that it did not materially assist the game, for there was nobody left to play it. As a result of one of the most astounding games in the history of even American football, Yale and Harvard were suspended from sport by the authorities for a period of two years. Since then, of course, a footballer in the United States has accepted the prevailing roughness of the game. As a slight precaution he wears, normally, breast and shoulder paddings of leather and felt, a leather helmet, leather and felt abdomen protectors, leather thigh guards, knees padded with horsehair and leather, padded elbows, and, at times, leather face masks,. It must he indeed diflicult to hit an adversary bard enough to weaken him. When “Digger” and “Jack,” players in two leading Transvaal teams, tried to adopt American hard-hitting tactics, however, it didn’t work at all. They immediately began to fight one another. Matters became so lively the police had to intervene* the game came to an end, and there was a terrible to-do about it. On another occasion the fire brigade had to wash the players off the field of play to stop them fighting. We do things differently it appears. Even Mussolini has a subtle way of ensuring his side winning. In an important match between his country and Austria it was evident from his isolated box that things were not going too well with Italy. So he bluntly let his team know that if they did not win every one of them was in for two years’ military service. Italy won.

The suicide of beautiful Allyn King, a famous Ziegfeld Follies star, has drawn the attention of the world to the dangers of “slimming” as the mode of dietjpg, either to reduce one’s figure or to maintain it at a certain minimum, has come to be called. Miss King, we are told, reduced her weight from lOst. 51b. to Bst. 31b. She signed a contract worded as follows: “It is expressly made part of this agreement, and is an essential term thereof, that if at any time you should, during the term of the said arrangement, increase in weight more than 161 b., or decrease in weight more than 101 b., or let the dimensions of any part of your figure vary more than one-half inch from the following —weight, Bst. 31b,; neck, 12 inches; bust, 34; upper arm, 11; lower arm, 71; waist, 26; hips, 34; thigh, 18; calf, 12; ankles, 81; then, and lu that event, we shall have the right to cancel this contract by giving you one week’s notice.” For six years Miss King rigidly lived up to her agreement. This was her diet: —Breakfast—thin butterless slice of brown bread toast, glass of orange juice, cup of black coffee. Luncheon —either apple or pear. Sii]»per—a few lettuce leaves and tomato, or a mixture of celery and spinach or olives. She also took reducing pills. On this diet she starred in “Ladies’ Night,” “Ninety Horse-power.” and in Earl Carroll’s “Florida Girl.” She toured the United States in the Follies, and was rehearsing for a leading part in “Pearls of Great Price” on Broadway in 1926 when she suddenly collapsed. For two years she was a patient in a sanatorium. -

Now comes the news that Anna Q. Nils, sou, the world-famous film star, is reported to be dying, and she is said to e the latest martyr to the slimming craze. She broke her hip when thrown from her horse, but when tier doctors t<>' 1 her to build up her strength with go<>d, nourishing food, she answered: “I-dr re not risk it, because it might make me fat.” It is alleged that the deaths of a number of Hollywood “stars” were caused by slimming. The craze I’t'S brought many others to hospital. A' •• resses in New York are expected •> weigh not more than Sst. 131 b. Eva opera singers are being expected 'o .conform to slim standards. Atti o Baggiore, a Chicago-I«’rn tenor now singing at. the Royal'' Opera IJon-e, Rome, will only receive contracts from the Opera House. Chicago, if lie reduces his weight by 201 b. John McCormack, the famous tenor said recently be would not allow hlmsell to be cast for “a slim young lover nrrt nn-ain.” American doctors say 'he slimming craze is almost entirely ■«- sponsible for the increase in the number of deaths from tuberculosis among girls The great increase in neurone troubles, say the doctors, is also caused bv injudicious dieting, ns starved nerves wreak vengeance. Miss Sybil Thorndyke. the brilliant English actress, has summed tip the posit on It is nonsense'' «iw> said “rn 4 ' v eases laugh-b’r if 't were r-t pt" Look at bow very disappointing it ‘o go to a show and see a row of girls all looking exactly alike. I hate to see a collection of lathes on the stage.