RANDOM NOT

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 68, 14 December 1931, Page 10

RANDOM NOT

Sidelights on Current - Events IXXIAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) According to an expert the bill of the Godwit has an upward curve. Married men with steadily increasing families will doubtless extend their sympathies to the poor bird. While dressing a sheep a butcher received a severe gash in the leg. If he had been undressing a sheep it would have been easier to understand the animal’s resentment In an article on cruising holidays a writer in “The Dominion” says that nothing is more comfortable in a heavy. sea than a well-laden cargo boat. Others, however, are of the opinion that nothing is more comfortable in a heavy sea than a well-padded armchair on dry land. It may seem strange to read in a cable from the United States of America that while the Democrats have a majority in the House, the President is a Republican. The King of England, by tradition, knows no politics. The President of the United States by tradition knows far more about politics than is good for the country. Nevertheless, the fact that he may find himself a lone supporter of a party out of power or a helpless figurebead to a party just returned from the wil-» derness causes little concern in the complicated undercurrents of American politics. The President’s job is to show loyalty to his party when out of power by rejecting all the Bills - which political antagonists pass for signature. On the other hand, the party in power remains unmoved, happy In the knowledge that the rejected Bills, after being returned for their reconsideration, automatically become law. Short-circuiting the President, indeed, forms one of its more pleasurable pastimes. ♦ • •

At one time for a whole generation Republican administrations regumrly failed to maintain a majority in Congress for the whole Presidential term. The only fly in the ointment was that the President personally appoints most of the 60,000 first, second, and thirdclass postmasters, collectors of internal revenue, marshals, deputy-marshals, collectors of Customs, and the rest of the “faithful” who expect recognition of their services to the party they helped to elect. Some idea of what happens when President and Congress see eye to eye may/be had from the fact that Mr. Woodrow Wilson had actually to create 30,000 brand new jobs for those left out in the cold at an annual cost to the Treasury of £10,000,000.

Sir John Gilmour’s remark in the House of Commons that all imported eggs have to be marked so that the consumer may decide whether they could be described as new laid touches upon a rather tricky piece of egg law not known even to most people in England. Most of us are content to divide eggs into “new laid,” “fresh,” and “cooking.” The difference between the first and the last description is the difference between a poached egg and a sponge cake. In England, on the other hand, legal luminaries responsible for a certain Act of Parliament obstinately Ignored this accepted arrangement between the housewife and her grocer. For the Act explicitly lays it down that an egg, so far as English lawyers are concerned, to be new laid must be an egg laid in England. No interest whatsoever was shown in the important factor of time that enters into the correctness of calling an egg new laid or not.

So long as a hen can be persuaded to lay its egg in England, according to Act of Parliament, that egg could remain undiscovered for several centuries and still be technically new laid. Presumably the clutch of eggs recently found by workmen restoring a cathedral could have been correctly described as “new laid,” despite the faet that they were laid In the days of Charles I. Another source of controversy in various countries has been whether it is lawful to eat an egg laid on a Sunday. More than one Christian congregation has been riven to its foundations by such a schism. This technicality has also worried two great schools of Jewish thought for several centuries, if not since the days of Moses. So far no satisfactory conclusion has been reached. Surely if hens insist upon working on the Sabbath the matter should be no concern of man any more than the divisions of time concern the hen.

One may always derive some solace from reading foreign newspapers during a domestic crisis, writes R-J. in The Spectator,” London. Their versions, particularly, of our famous names east a fantastic sidelight, which makes; 'Le show unreal. Unfortunately their English is improving. Sir Grey and Sir Chamberlain appeared only once this week—in, the French Press; though the latter was transformed into Sir Chamtertain in an excellent Italian daily. A popular Madrid newspaper spoke, with guarded politeness, of Lor Fallodon’s letter to “The Times (no definite article given). He, too, I suppose, would be Sir Grey in another disguise and after an unknown step in the peerage. * * •

A message from Wanganui, in commenting on’ a broken moa’s, egg found during road operations, said it was thought there were not more than ten moa’s eggs in existence. If we include broken eggs subsequently patched up this may be correct. So far ns can be discovered it would be truer to say that there are somewhere about six complete eggs in existence. Of this total one egg is in the Otago Museum and another went to a London collector for £BO. In view of the rareness of moa eggs it might be well to take stock of the exact whereabouts of those that are still in existence. Information on the matter is somewhat vague. Indeed, it is nearly, but not quite, so vague as the reasons the moa decided to obtain an undying fame bv making itself extinct. Suggestions put forward vary from primeval floods to frostbite. Perhaps the traditional explanation of the Maori volcanic activity may be nearer the truth than imagined. Remains of moas buried in volcanic ash are frequently found. The following piece of verse translated into English from the Maori tongue, it is believed, by Hari Hongi, is therefore of interest: — One remarkable guardian only, O son, had this country, Which was the Kuranui (moa), Destroyed by Tamatea, Thine ancestor. With subterranean godly fire, The fire of Mahuika, Which was brought to earth’s surface By Maui. By that fire were the birds driven Into swamps to perish: To utterly perish; Yea, son; yeu.