RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 149, 20 March 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) The philosopher who said that there is no such thing as perfection in the world could never have listened to a motor salesman. Mrs. McAdam, the Auckland lady who disturbed the decorum of Parliament by attempting to deliver a speech from the Ladies’ Gallery while Mr. Speaker was reading the prayer, says that she was unaware that the House opened with prayer. She must have been reading some of the speeches. Miss Mary Watson, of Granity, Westport, writes in correction of some statements recently made in this column concerning Mr. Krishnamurti. “I am able,” she says, “to speak from personal knowledge, having had the privilege of attending international camps established by him in Europe and America. Since 1917 I have attended these camps, where thousands belonging to almost every nation and religion have gathered to hear Mr. Krishnamurti. Firstly, Mr. Krishnamurti does not claim to teach any ‘new philosophy’ nor does he ‘owe his fame or advertisement to Mrs. Besant.’ Mrs. Besant has never ‘tried to persuade anyone that he represents the actual incarnation of the Christ’ His book, ‘At the Feet of the Master,’ was written and published when he was but a child in years, and during the last few years he has written many books.

“I do not know,” she continues, "of any ‘discarded philosophy,’ nor has he ever ‘been popular’ at ’Deauville and Cannes,’ or ‘spent considerable time at tennis parties and dances,’ but rather has he been very strenuously engaged in holding international camps every year in Europe, India, and America, speaking to crowded audiences in Scotland, England, and other parts of the world, also granting interviews to many people, including reporters from leading newspapers and magazines. If you have any idea as to how long it takes to travel to India, Europe, and America every year, speaking to thousands, answering innumerable questions concerning life and its problems, you would know how absurd and untrue are the statements regarding his ‘trip to the Continent.’

"The Theosophical Society, or any other organisation, is free to accept or reject Mr. Krishnamurti’s teachings. The London Lodge have not ‘refused to have anything to do with Krishnamurti’ nor have ‘all other lodges’ of the Theosophical Society done so. It is not my desire to enter into any discussion regarding Mr. Krishnamurti; it Is quite probable he will be visiting New Zealand next year, when those who desire will have an opportunity to hear him and judge for themselves whether he is an ‘impostor’ or not.”

The Lord’s Day Observance Society is presenting the British Parliament with a petition eight miles long. It contains over one million signatures against the Sunday opening of cinemas. This curious right to petition the Crown goes back to the days of Magna Charta. Henry IV assigned two days a week to listening to petitions. While the famous Bill of Rights, so popular a subject at examinations, confirmed the right of a subject to petition the King. Prosecutions for doing this were made illegal. To this day in Great Britain a petition, which is no more than a prayerful request for redress, may be made either to the Crown, its officers, or to either Houses of Parliament. In the case of the Houses of Parliament all petitions must be presented by a member of Parliament. Nevertheless, in spite of the legality of the proceedings on the part of the subject, there is no law whereby a member may be forced to present a petition. At one time much of the control and governing of the country was done by petitions. People petitioned the Government for, say, dogs to wear muzzles. If the petition were granted, it became the law of the land. This method eventually became so unwieldy and so abused that the present system of “bills” was introduced. Incidentally the right to petition Parliament is a younger right than the original right of petitioning the Crown. Petitions to the Lords do not go back beyond the days of Henry 111. No petition to the Commons has ever been found before the time of Richard 11.

At one time petitioning became such a craze an Act had to be passed against “tumultuous petitioning.” In order to obtain an advertisement for their petition, men used to be hired to roll it to Parliament. Petitions were purposely made so unwieldy they would not fit into the doorway. Men would then he employed to chop it up amid great publicity, so that it might arrive in an atmosphere of publicity and trumpeting. It is now Illegal for more than ten persons to present the actual petition. In some cases there is even a limit of 20 to the number of people who may sign a petition. For over a hundred years it has been illegal, furthermore, for meetings to be held within a mile of Westminster for considering a petition. An idea of the popularity of petitions, generally useless, of approaching the Crown or its officers, may be had from the fact that in one year anything from 10,000 to 25,000 petitions may be presented, containing in some years over five million signatures.

During a thunderstorms over Chicago an aeroplane with three people aboard disappeared behind a black cloud. It was struck by lightning and crashed into a municipal gas tank. Unless someone can devise a special lightning arrester suitable for aeroplanes, hazards of this nature presumably must be accepted as part and parcel of man’s conquest of the air. In 1923 when the ex-German airship L 72, renamed the Dixmude, was lo£t with all bands off the coast of Sicily it was thought that she had met her fate as a result of a thunderstorm. So far the mystery has never been cleared up, as only one body was recovered and a few fragments of the vessel itself. In the case of aeroplanes there have been several disasters directly attributable to lightning.

The great trans-continental aeroplane City of San Francisco was struck by lightning in New Mexico while trying to cross a mountain range on the edge of a desert. The. machine contained five passengers. After being struck, the aeroplane crashed in the desert and the bodies were recovered. On the very same day day Major Wood, a famous air mail pilot, while trving to lower the record between Los Angeles and Cleveland, was killed when his monoplane mysteriously exploded in mid-air. His mechanic jumped in a parachute. He stated that lightning struck the machine and crumpled it up ’ n n moment. This accident also took place on the fringes of a desert