RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 189, 8 May 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on. Current

Events

LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

If this missing man in Greenland does not turn up soon, it seems as if the whole world will soon be wandering about the ice-cap, either rescuing or waiting to be rescued.

A man has been charged with being idle and disorderly because he wore women's apparel This back-hapded compliment to the impeccability of men’s clothing has caused the price of suits to rise.

• As we are having a “pipe week” it is just as well to know something about the pipes we smoke. Not the comparative merits of various pipes, but how we got pipes at all. One naturally imagines that Sir Walter Raleigh and other adventurers of his age are responsible for the pipe idea. This, however, is incorrect. Admittedly they gave us tobacco. But before the days of tobacco men were smoking pipes. In fact, the pipe goes back centuries beyond the discovery of tobacco. The first pipe was not even portable. It consisted of a small pit dug in the ground. A stick was inserted through the ground into this pit and withdrawn. This left a hollow tube. The smoker lay flat on the ground, applied his mouth to the tube, and sucked up the delectable fumes simmering in the pit. Pipe-smok-ing in those days was a fine-day pastime. One day an enthusiastic pipesmoker, not to be denied his smoke on a wet day, fashioned a rough bowl of clay above ground. "He fitted a detachable tube and was delighted to be able to show his friends the first clay pipe. To this day North American Indians fall back on this original clay pipe in emergencies.

In another part of the world, South America, to be precise, pipes consisted of a straight stem ending in "Y” prongs. The two ends of the prongs were Inserted in the nose, while suitable material, in some cases tobacco, smouldered at the other end. Considerable nasal dexterity must have been required for a really satisfactory smoke. Some three centuries ago the Indians of South America had made such progress that they used bowls made of nut shells with stems of. reed. This was the original counterpart of our modern pipe. Nevertheless, pipes of bronze and iron, and even clay, have been frequently found associated with Roman remains. It is clear, therefore, that they, too, knew something about the gentle art of pipe-smoking. The mystery is what they smoked. Tobacco was unknown to them. We know, however, that hemp in many parts of the world preceded tobacco. Henbane in those days was smoked in England. The pipes, in common with stone pictures of pipes, found in South America, had nb bowl. They were just straight, hollow rods closely resembling the modern cigarette holder.

General Pietro Gazzera of Italy declares that the next war will be one of lightning movements. Surprise, he says, will be the main feature of future wars. One is always interested in the views of military experts on war, if for no other reason than that when war comes they are always fully prepared for the war that preceded it. By the time the South African War started our armies were fully prepared for the war against Russia in 1854. When the Great War came in 1914 our fannies were bursting with the correct tactics for the Boer War. The British cavalry rushed out to Flanders brimming with knowledge applicable to South Africa fifteen years before. To-day we may be sure the military experts are fully prepared for the Great War. Indeed, one result of the Great War has been to turn the artillery into a corps of surveyors capable of working out every movement with the aid of seven figure logarithms. This is now done with a leisurely preciseness quite impossible in the early days of 1914.

Expert opinion as to the next war seems to be fairly. unanimous that it will be a war of surprise. As it has always been the aim of every general since the days of Alexander the Great to include this useful adjunct to victory in his strategy it will not be surprising if the prognostications have actually hit the mark. The next war will be a war of surprise. Strategists, it is stated, expect the next War about 1940. It will be a war according to these strategists in which gunners will hit the target at 17 miles. This is enlightening for in the last war gunners not only 'hit the' target at that range but a a range of 75 miles. Bombing aircraft are expected to have a range of 400 miles, while poison gas at its deadliest will be brought into use. We will send out the aeroplane unpilotted to bomb objects 400 miles away. As regards poison gas in war, however, the last war did teach us some lessons. The first lesson was that scraps of paper were of no value. Poison gas is only banned by small nations. Since the war not one of them has yet resorted to that method in their postwar wars. The last war also taught us that poison gas to be effective had to be used in considerable concentration over a huge area. An equivalent quantity of high explosive shell was otherwise more effective —and far more brutal in its effects. In the meantime must there really be another war?

A reader states, with respect to the recent air fatality at Oamaru: — As for the contention that a parachutist is killed by the speed ■with which he falls if his parachute fails to open, there is little in practice to bear out the truth of the statement. A human body falling through space does not continue to accelerate indefinitely. After a speed of about 250 miles an hour has been attained, requiring about 2000-3000 feet, air resistance keeps the speed constant. The position ordained by nature for a person falling freely through space is head first. It is impossible to assume any other position. This position offers the least resistance to the air and makes breathing an easy matter. A famous parachutist says regarding the matter: “I can quite definitely say that a person would not be dead before reaching the ground. In a jump you suffer no discomfort whatever from the rush of air that is supposed to suffocate you. Before the pa v aehiite -opens you are falling head first. 1 have written a postcard home to my mother while falling. I have lighted and smoked a pipe. I have had a girl descend with me, and listened to her chatting to me as we fell. A dog has been my companion. He showed no signs of fear anything else, except perhaps mild boredom.” Rich from the very want of wealth, In heaven’s best treasures, peace and health. —Thomas Gray.