RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) "I learned nothing «t school, not even what I could and would have learned if any attempt had been made to interest me. I congratulate myself on this.”—Shaw. ♦ • • Members of the honey-producing industry in the U.S.A, are forming a company to finance investigations with a view to the evolution of a “superbee.” Even if the investigators don’t get stung, the investors probably will. —“Pissing Show.” » * » A- reader submits what he calls “six silly questions.” Here are two of them. If any reader is sufficiently interested to submit reasonable answers they will be published: No. 1 —“ If a thin wire was stretched from the top of the eneral Post Office, Wellington, to the top of the General Post Office, Auckland, which direction would it take for the first five miles from Wellington?” No. 2 —“lf it were possible to ignore or repudiate the National Debt, and all the money and interest owing to the money-lenders in England and America, would the ratepayers and rent-payers in New Zealand be any better off in pocket?”

The Hutt River Board consider it has received fair value for money from its recently wrecked rowing boat The boat was lost in the last bad floods in the Hutt River, and only cost £ll fifteen years ago. There must be a number of small boats of this type approaching their twenties by now, not to mention one or two sailing boats in the boat harbour which will never see their twenty-first birthday again. Wood as material for boats has a phenomenal lifetime. The old Zettland lifeboat at Redcar, England, for instance, celebrated her one hundred and twenty-sixth birthday last year. She is the oldest lifeboat in existence and started life at Redcar on October 8, 1802. She was built by Henry Greathead two years before that

There are larger wooden boats considerably -older than a century, but It would be untrue to place them on th« active list Many of them are monuments to a forgotten age, like the. “Victory,” held together by cement and modern surgical operations. The “Victory” must have been nearly 100 years old before she was too old for use. At the time of Trafalgar she was by no means a chicken. Other old vessels have been converted into training ships and still do good service in a floating static sort of way. Examples of these are the “Arethusa,” “Exmouth,” “Conway.” and “Worcester.” The “President,” off Blackfriars, is another oldtimer now ‘out at pasture.”

Some old ships are kept together for sentimental reasons. An old woolclipper still lies off Charing Cross pier, London, while the Cutty Sark was recently rescued from a foreign environment for the same reasons. Perhaps one of the oldest vessels made of wood still in genuine service is to be found trading between St. George and Hamilton, Bermuda.- This sailing vessel is reputed to be 150 years old. She is made of Bermuda cedijr, a practically everlasting wood. Judging by her condition, this small schooner is good for another century or so. Perhaps some reader knows of older vessels than this still in harness. It would be interesting to hear about them. *

A small baby fell out of the open door of a car in Christchurch, right in the way of another car. In some miraculous manner the child fell between the wheels of the passing vehWe, which passed over her without injury. Why does destiny take so much thoughtful trouble over one individual and become sO impatiently callous over others, it the child in this case was not destined to be killed, surely it would have been simpler on the part of the particular guardian angel of the moment to have slammed the door shut before the accident. In an extreme case destiny has guided a general or a humble soldier unscathed through a long war only to trample him to death under the slowmoving wheels of an ice-cream cart. Instances one way oi the. other may be multiplied until reasons become more and more obscure.

A Devonport publican was killed by a bullet a few years ago. That may be a perfectly natural frolie of fate, because the man was accidentally shot through the heart. But just consider the path of the bullet after it had fulfilled Its destiny on this unlucky gentleman. After passing through his heart and out the other side, it pierced the bed on which he was lying; the ceiling of the public bar below; bounced off a beer machine, struck a barrel; glanced off that finally landing into the pocket of a customer. It lay unnoticed in this gentleman’s pocked for 20 minutes. Can one see the hand of destiny slowing down the bullet, in this roundabout manner, so that for some unaccountable reason the second man should escape unharmed? If the firearm had not been fired off all this trouble might have been saved—but then destiny would have been thwarted of the first victim.

Existence grows more and more complicated. In four or five recent instances cars and lorries have performed double somersaults without injuring the occupants. About the same time a bookkeeper merely turned his head suddenly while at work. Perhaps an unusual thing for bookkeepers to do. The pen he was holding pierced his nose. He died in a few days from blood poisoning. Not long before that a spider in a cellar bit a plumber. Quite an excusable thing to do. But the plumber died from the effects of the bite. Three days before tha a school principal had handed a diploma to a girl graduate. With the diploma he presented a bouquet of roses.A thorn pricked his finger. While the spider was busy with the plumber’s destiny, the school principal was dying from an abee.-s caused by the thorn. A few weeks before this a man was working on the fifth floor of a London building. He fell down the well of the stairway. After falling forty feet lie struck bag of concrete, bounced off that on to it screen of wire netting, fell another twentv feet on to some bags of soft sand, ‘finally landing fifteen feet below on a pile of sand heaped the hard concrete at the bottom of the well. He survived. What a lot of trouble fate takes to save ns sometimes why” * ♦ » I am tired of being patient. 1 am tired of resignatiou, I am sick to death of waiting for :i joy tlist never comes; I am tired of stingy half loaves, I am tired of imitation, I am tired of tasting other people’# crumbs. -Anon,