RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 68, 13 December 1930, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL « (By Kickshaws.) A young man that blushes Is better than one who turns pale.—Cato. ♦-’ ♦ e Naval firing practice has been spoilt by the target capsizing. The motive actuating the target, the navy reports, was not cowardice .but a gesture to Geneva. ♦ » • A city councillor objects to spending £450 on a tiger. “I’d sooner liberate the tiger and feed the babies,” he says. The trouble is the tiger might then eat the mothers. * . ' . ♦, .? A reader wants an explanation of the degenerate mudguards noticeable on the front legs of the statue of Pegasus in Lambton Quay. -Regardless of cost this important matter has been referred to Professor Throbwhistle, M.1.C.E., R.A.T.S. He replies as follows: “I, too, have observed these curious growths on the front legs of the animal in question. By no possible stretch of the imagination could these appendages be styled wings. Any self-respecting aviator, even the type that builds and crashes home-made machines in other people’s back yards, could tell you that to venture into the air with inadequate, lifting surfaces of that nature would be hazardous even for a barnyard fowl. I am ashamed to couple such extrusions with the noble aerotails of the winged horse Pegasus that sprang from the blood of the beheaded Medusa. One has only to go to the Palazzo Spado, Rome, to observe what a magnificent wing spread was given to that noble creature, t Moreover, his crop of wings sprang from the shoulders in a manner that makes it impossible to mistake them for mudguards.”

“Bellerophon, one-time owner of Pegasus, would indeed look askance at this steed above the Quay,” the Professor continues. “Clearly the animal could never fly to heaven with Bellerophon on a pair of wings like that. Even bold, bad Anteia, who deeply loved Bellerophon and falsely accused his honour, out of jealousy, could never be taken for a spin. This would perhaps have been to the good woman’s benefit, for Bellerophon, unable to rise, could not have unceremoniously dumped the girl overboard when in midair. , The best that can be said to explain this unnatural degeneracy is that out of deference to the motoring age the poor brute’s wings have sloughed into anti-splash guards. Even then their dimensions are quite inadequate. < They would serve better for trimming the edges of a lawn on the Boadicea principle.”

Jack Diamond, who was shot in the Hotel Monticello, Manhattan, is reported to be recovering. A man with a record like his cannot die young. In 16 years he has been arrested 22 times. At the age of 17 he was sent to the reformatory for a burglary in Brooklyn. He has been .hailed into court five times on charges of homicide. On every occasion he has been freed by Tammany magistrates. Eight times he has got the better of the law on charges of robbery. When the war ended he was kept in a penitentiary for a year for stealing and desertion while in the army. He fled to Europe last summer and'was barred out of England, France and Germany. As soon as he arrived back at his home town, Philadelphia, he was arrested for vagrancy and hustled out of town.

A treasure chest containing jewels to the value of half a million sterling has been unearthed from a villa at Pompeii. The finds .include a dinner service, bracelets and other odds and ends. In this case., the treasures were found more by chance than anything else. There is no need to be despondent, however, the world is full of treasure hoards whose positions are well known. The names and addresses of one or two of these hoards inay be of interest to travellers anxious to pick up a few odd' millions.

Seventy years ago a gang, of Peruvian soldiers stole from the Government treasury gold ingots to the value of £3,000,000. They landed with their booty on the islet of Pinaki, one of the Tuamotus, south of the Marquesas, in the central Pacific. The ingots were buried on the beach. Before further plans could be made the soldiers died of an epidemic. Armed with a spade and a bountiful optimism almost any traveller should be able to dig up a million or two on this beach. If you do not believe it remember that a few years ago a skipper of a turtling schooner banked £2OOO in gold front a similar find in the Cayman Islands.

However, if you fail to have luck on Pinaki beach try Cocos Islands. Fifteen million pounds sterling lie buried in the Cocos Islands. Indisputable records in the British Museum prove conclusively that this treasure actually was buried in these islands. An individual by the name of Keating got away with a few hundreds of thousands ' from these very islands fifty years ago. But there is still plenty left despite the fact that fifteen . expeditions have failed to find it..

Trinidad, a small rock off the South American coast, still guards a million in gold hidden on it. Captain Kidd left, a mere four millions in six iron pots on Aesopus Island, in the Hudson River. It still awaits discovery. In the south-east corner of Alboran Island, on the Riff .coast, two large boilers full of jewels lie buried to this day. But there is treasure awaiting discovery nearer home. In an unknown cave on the Auckland Islands. 300 miles south of the Bluff, there lies the remains of a ship Which contained mote than two millions in gold from Ballarat. Becalmed among these islands a current drifted the vessel into a great cave, where she'sank. A few survivors reached this Dominion, bo far this cave has not been discovered.

Meanwhile it might be worth while to have a look for the famous Frenchman’s Gold at the Cascade. South Westland. The treasure is supposed to have been buried by a slip. A plan giving a saw embedded in a tree as a landmark has been found. It is significant that this identical tree and saw were subsequently discovered by a local squatter—there only remains the treasure.

“It is not raining rain to me. It’s raining daffodils; In every dimpled drop I see Wild flowers on distant hills.” —Anon.