RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 147, 18 March 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(Bv

Kickshaws.)

A Labour member complains that the Prime Minister is going to “diva his hands into the pockets of the workers," and extract therefrom about £19,000,000. We wondered where all the money had gone. • * • A Dunedin gentleman has had his gold watch, sovereign case, a sovereign, and a sovereign pendant returned to him by a thief. An encouraging symptom of the spirit of self-sacrifice animating citizens in these hard times. “New Zealand,” says a Labour member, “is a sort of Tom Tiddler’s ground, where the financiers of Europe may pick up gold and silver.” Not if we sea it first

The following is a copy of a letter said to have been written by an embarrassed citizen to a pressing creditor:—

“Dear Sir,—For the following reasons I am unable to send you the cheque you ask for: I have been held up, held down, sand-bagged, walked upon, sat upon, flattened out, and squeezed by the income tax, the super tax, the tobacco tax, the beer tax, the spirits tax, the motor tax, and by every society, organisation and club that the inventive mind of man can think of, to extract what I may or may not have in my possession, from the Red Cross, the Black Cross and the Double Cross, and every hospital in town and country. The Government has governed my business until I don’t know who owns it. I am inspected, suspected, examined and re-examined, informed, required and commanded, so that I don’t know who I am, where I am, or why I am here at all. All that I know is that I am supposed to be an inexhaustible supply of money for every need, desire or hope of the human race, and because I will not go out and beg, borrow or steal money to give away, I am cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked to, talked about, lied to, lied about, held up, hung up, rung up, robbed and damned-near ruined. The only reason why I am clinging to life at all is to see what the hell is going to nappen next.”

It is stated that the Arctic regions are becoming warmer. Nobody even knows whether we are enjoying the tail end of the last ice age or the beginning of a warm interlude between two ice ages. The more pessimistic experts declare that the world has suffered the rigours of at least six ice ages. The first one occurred so many million years ago that there was nobody to appreciate it. The last ice age is supposed to have retreated to the poles about 10,000 years ago. How long it lasted nobody knows, perhaps 25,000 years, perhaps more It has been estimated that one-fifth of the surface of the globe was covered with ice. The last remnants of this ice, some 6000 feet thick, may be seen covering Greenland to-day. ♦ * ♦

All we do know about our last ice age is that it did not come or go in a day. If five feet of the Arctic or Antarctic Oceans were frozen solid every year, it would take 33,000 years to freeze the whole right to the bottom. During the ice age there was just one solid coat of ice over half Europe, and over Canada, roughly, down to the United States frontier. Boulders were carried distances up to 1000 miles on this ever-moving ice. It is estimated that this transport job required 14,000 years. While New York was in the thick of the ice, London was free. The South Island of New Zealand, Tasmania, and the south-east of Australia were supposed to have been involved, according to some theories. _ What causes these frigid visitations is not known. Some think at regular intervals, a few million years or so. the world travels through a piece of colder space. Others think the earth’s orbit varies, giving the hemispheres in turn a long cold winter, and a short hot summer every 10,500 years. Others argue that It Is all due to ocean currents, the percentage of carbon dioxides in the air, the drifting of the continents, or just plain uplift.

Certain calendar enthusiasts, taking advantage of the end of summer-time, have written long explanations j this column on how to obtain a better distribution of the months. On top of all these suggestions a vivid yellow publication, from E. H. Eason, of Dublin, full of charts and conversion tables, has made it necessary to do something about the matter. In case most people have never realised that our calendar is defective, it may be wise to explain what is the matter with it. Our calendar it seems has never been' what it should be, a thing that happens over and over again every year for ever and ever and ever. The length of the real year is, as near as possible, 365 J days. Whatever we do it is impossible to 'divide this up into nice little equal partitions called months and weeks and days. There will be something over. If man wishes to harmonise his calendar with the solar system and so make the seasons come more or less at the same time every year he must make suitable adjustments to his calendar. Quite a lot of people must have been worrying over the matter. Mr. Eason, in his yellow book, points out that the League of Nations have had to consider no less than 186 proposals.

Most of the suggestions, that for some unknown reason are sent to this column, clamour for a fixed twelvemonth year. This necessitates one eight-day week every year and two in every leap year. Moreover, it leaves a. day over. This day it is Suggested should have a special name of its own. A typical eight-day Week might be Sunday, Christmas Day, Monday, etc. Enthusiasts anxious to put this across our present defective but nevertheless friendly calendar point out that Mo»es was a party to an eight-day week and a fixed calendar. He used two consecutive Sabbaths. But the second eightdav week has been the chief bone of contention. It is suggested that a brand new day should be squmed in between one Saturday and Sunday. « involves no little skill to make the adjustment. It is suggested that June 31 should be used for the purpose By further juggling, dropping August and giving February 30 days,- J 1 ™® 1 f March 31 and dropping May 31 ana adding an April 31, our present defective calendar would be too> wo^ en ful for words— absolutely fixed. all this had been done we should be able to say that this time last year really was this time last year o very name of the day, the week, the month, and—no, not the weather.Un fortunately there are other allerna fives. Some enthusiasts x'.int to „ive us thirteen months in every , l^ a ,U i ’ > ’„ the extra month would be called SoL