RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 53, 26 November 1930, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Curr*"* Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) The fact about the 'Wellington carillon is that it is not in Wellington. ** ■ • Mussolini states that Italy was the cradle of civilisation. What particularly worries Mussolini is why the hand that rocks this cradle still only rules Italy.’ It is hoped in the near future that gold-mining will take a turn, for the better. Prospecting is being encouraged in new areas at Thames and Coromandel, and in the South Island. Since the war there has • been a small but steady gold output of roughly half a million sterling every year. Present day figures compare very, unfavourably with the boom years of 1862 to 1871, when New Zealand exports of gold were well over two millions annually. In 1871 the record, still unbroken, of just under three millions sterling, set a standard for emulation when the new boom arrives. This new gold boom, if it does arrive, will be the third that the Dominion has enjoyed. The other boom period occiirred between 1902 and 1906, when gold-dredging became fashionable. Altogether something like £94,000,000 worth of gold has been mined in New Zealand since 1853. Wellington has contributed to this total the huge sum of £706, the remainder being more or less evenly distributed between Auckland, the West. Coast, and.Otago. We have erected statues and consecrated shrines to s e '' era J notable New Zealand pioneers, but the man who first discovered gold in the country seems to have been overlooked. The honour of being the first man_to discover gold in New Zealand, so far be ascertained, falls to Mr C Ring, of Coromandel. He washed the first gold in this country in 18a2 in a creek that now bears his osul ® Natives unfortunately put an end. to the proceedings, len years at ® r ® area was officially proclaimed a goldfield. in the meantime Mr. Edward Peters, a native of Bombay, had found gold in commercial quantities in the mairiri River, now the Woolshed diggings. He subsequently found another rich field in a gully near the northern bank of the Tuapeka River. Moreover, samples of gold had been found in Otago at the “Fortifications,” now the V est Taleri goldfield. The first commercial goldfield was opened in 1857 in the Nelson district. Some £40,000 worth of the metal was produced in the first year. Shortly afterward workmen constructing a road to Llndls Pass put their picks into another goldfield. • & -b°ut this time other areas were discovered at Gabriel’s Gully, and neighbouring sites.

The attraction of gold in Australia in the “’fifties,” 1 however, made people overlook the gold to be found at home. The first gold rush took place in 18b-, when men eagerly gave up positions for the honour of washing gold in the sands on the beaches of the Clutha River. The demand for teams was so great that freight a ton. Flour was sold on the fields at 2/6 a pannikin, while empty gin cases fetched £5 for the wood they contained !

Until it was mentioned in the news, few people can have known that Sir Percy Fitzpatrick of South Africa was the originator of the two minutes . silence on Armistice Day. It is curious how short a memory the world is developing. In olden days, when there were no printed aids to memory, man carried details of this nature in his head. They were passed on from generation to generation and remembered far niore generally than such things are remembered to-day. It would seem that the art of printing, the crystallised storehouse of the brain, killed memory.

Who, for instance, knows the name of the author of the famous German “Hymn of Hate.” Probably few Germans could recall his name off-hand. Yet the hymn of hate was Germany s National Anthem during the war. A tubby, benign, placid-faced little man, by name Herr Ernest Lissauer, not only wrote the hymn of hate, but subsequently became so carried away with himself 'that he claimed to be a poet, dreamer, and philosopher. His famous hymn, he says, was composed on the inspirational spur of the moment. It was never intended for propaganda purposes. Nevertheless it was syndicated to every newspaper in Germany. Lissauer himself never made- a single penny out of it. He says he is ashamed of the poem whose fame eclipsed the name of its author.

Although the postcard is only b 0 years old this year, few people could say whence came the idea. Curiously enough, it was another German who gave the worjd the postcard. Stephan, postmaster-general of Germany, suggested the idea in 1865. Bureaucratic opposition delayed its introduction for five vears. On the first day of its introduction nearly 50,000 postcards were posted in Germany; to-day the number annually posted in that country alone amounts to over two billions. Yet the originator has been forgotten by the public, probably in Germany itself.

Even Uncle Sam, whose name is «• on the tip of everybody’s tongue thqse days, is a forgotten nonentity. Why? There was a genuine one hundred per cent. Uncle Sam. The present lean and lanky gentleman in Ins cutaway coat had a human original. His name was Sam Wilson. He looked after a shop on the shores of the Hudson. Over the doors were printed the initials of the proprietor and the initials “U.S." When asked what these last initials stood for, Sam jokingly replied “Uncle Sam.” His little joke enjoyed unforeseen popularity. , * » * Tommy Atkins, who is immortal as tiie living symbol of the British soldier, was the creation of the War Office itself. Yet few people living can recall the printed form which was purported to help a newly-joined recruit fill up his fir?t conduct sheet. The name of the imaginary soldier on that sample form, issued for guidance, was none other than Tommy Atkins. How the world forgets. Even the origin of “Digger” has been lost- can anyone make a helpful suggestion? Never am I so alone As when I walk amid a crowd; Blurred masks of stern or grinning stone, Unmeaning eyes and voices loud. —Nichols. ,