RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 293, 7 September 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

A man is said to have found otB pearls In an oyster he was given at * restaurant. Fired with enthusiasm, h» hopes at any moment to find a piece of pork In a tin of pork and beans.

The sculptor responsible for the Web llngton War Memorial states that the green stain on the marble makes the whole a unit. A similar reassuring Hue of reasoning might well be employed by every husband who has the misfortune to spill the gravy on the newly-launder-ed tablecloth.

If this habit of learned judges at luncheon parties to fire off general knowledge posers at fellow diners becomes general, not one of us will be safe. All of us will sympathise with a member of Parliament under these exacting conditions who was unable to name correctly the first Premier of New Zealand. There can be no doubt that everyone of us would have the name pat on our lips If It were but rammed. Into us with the persistency of the name of Captain Cook, Wakefield, and others. Whether we are better citizens for knowing off by heart the names of dead men, or, for that matter, the names of some live men, is open to doubt. The chief art of knowledge after all Is knowing what not to know. Most of us, for example, pride ourselves that we know the name of the King. Yet It is doubtful If many could give his family name, while the number that know his full name and title could possibly be numbered on the,fingers of both hands. Indeed, those who could quote the correct initials of the Prince of Wales are sufficiently few to be confined to the fingers of one hand.

All manner of tests have been devised to sort out intelligent people from unintelligent Examinations still make use of a knowledge of names, dates, formulae, equations, and the like, forced Into a long-suffering head under considerable pressure. Doubtless we could all cultivate our brainas so that the answer to the most recondite questions on the part of fellow diners could ba answered in one mouthful, we might even be thought Intelligent, but just where this leads Is still unknown.. Efforts to evolve some form of Intelligence test for grading pupils are still as full of pitfalls as ever. Possibly Intelligence is not measured In any units known to man. While we are naturally ready to forgive a member of Parliament for not knowing the name of the first Premier, we are all the more ready to forgive the lad who, when asked in. an intelligence test, “What would happen if nobody had any teeth?” replied, “We should have to use scissors to cut cur nails."

A story has come through of the discovery of a modern Crusoe on a lonely Island in the Indian Ocean. When an air mail pilot was driven off his course to this island he was ordered off the premises by its one and only Inhabitant, a long-bearded man In sackcloth, who had been there for 23 years. Possibly vanity makes us feel too sympathetic toward these Crusoe types. We like to think that they aro missing something of the Joys of civilisation. In this case, at any rate, and possibly In the case of the real Crusoe, our sympathies are misplaced. When civilisation gets unendurable most of ns long for a spot in which to bask and dream. We long for a place free from human beings, polities, economics, gold standards, crises, and cranks. If the real truth were only known, the island upon which Crusoe was voluntarily abandoned fulfilled all these desirable attributes.

Those who have visited Crusoe’s Island say that it has changed little since he lived there. For a good “loaf" it Is a most desirable little island, standing In its own well-stocked ocean, with green wooded valleys, fresh streams, and exemplary weather. Vines and luxuriant plants soften the homely lines of any shelter that an outcast might erent —but there are no parrots. That, too, was an outburst of imagination on the part of the real Crusoe. To-day Crusoe’s Island, “Mas-a-Tierra,” Is inhabited by a few contented fishermen. They know nothing about the outside world—not even Its lust for vitamines. They catch enormously large lobsters for no other reason bnt to trade them for tinned salmon and tinned pork and beans from passing schooners. They live without vanity In an Island world that contains a vegetable kingdom more than 60 per cent of which is unknown anywhere else. Irieidentally, every Imaginable vegetable or plant useful to man grows luxuriantly without any trouble.

After his rush to London, as a result of the political crisis in Britain, excellent weather is now favouring the King's stay at Balmoral. Although disappointing in size and not very modern in its appointments, Balmoral Is one of his Majesty’s favourite castles on account of the excellent shooting obtained there. Provided affairs of State permit, there can be little doubt that his Majesty will look forward to the opening of the season on October 1 with just as great a thrill as ever. Although it has become customary to give to Royalty attributes which those who know them well realise to be absurd, sportsmen are sincere in their praises of the King as a fine shot Reared on an airgun, apprenticed to a singlebarrelled gun as a youth, and presented with the best double-barrelled shotgun that money could buy whei. he came of age, his Majesty has never »ost an opportunity to improve his marksmanship, Instances of King George’s skill with a gun are Innumerable.

One of King George’s finest performances in the shooting field was taking four pheasants with four successive shots. The last of the four birds was hit before the first had dropped to the ground dead. Possibly the best proof of bis skill may be seen when he is out grouse shooting. King George's accuracy on these occasions reflects the careful training of his boyhood days. He has been known to drop two birds approaching him with a quick right and left, another as the birds sweep overhead, and two more going away. Anyone who has taken five consecutive driven birds knows that it involves not only a fine eye, skilled judgment of speed and height, but also changing guns twice. Rapid adjustment of eye and arm has to be repeated five times In, roughly, four seconds. Probably skill with the shotgun accounts for the fine performances that his Majesty put up when out tiger shooting in India. In one instance a tiger burst from corer and took a flying leap over a ditch close to the King. While in mid-nlr his Majesty killed it with a marvellous shot through the back of the neck. In an-

other case two “rhinos" in swift flight nt some 40 miles an hour were dropped in a clearing In the jungle with a swift right and left, just as if they had been e. coupl# of Jialmora| Jiam,