RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 81, 30 December 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) According to a Swedish visitor, thero is a very tight State control of liquor in his country—on the sound principle that a tight State is better than a tight citizen. The general public does not enjoy a story in which the hero is killed at the end, says a cinema director. In some cases it would be much more enjoyable if the hero were killed at the beginning.

Experts declare that unless steps are taken to place New South 1 3 r ales in a solvent condition the necessity of installing a receiver becomes urgent. But the moment a receiver is installed they win not be happy till they get New Zealand.

A message from Moscow stated that workers in a factory are erecting in their spare time a statue to Lenin 65 feet higher than the Statue of Liberty. So the nations of the world, since time immemorial, have seen fit to honour special individuals. Dwellers in Moscow are to honour the unborn future with a likeness of Lenin. Indeed France, who gave to the citizens of America the Statue of Liberty, is considered by some shrewd Americans of to-day to have honoured them with the neatest piece of irony in the history of the world. It is doubtful if this unconscious humour on the part of France has not now been superseded by the monument in Serbia to the man, Ferdinand Gavrillo Prlncip, who started the World War. In Klondyke some other humourists erected a statue to “Soapy Sam,” the king of gamblers in the gold rush days. His statue, if indeed it can be so called, consists of his skull 25 feet high carved in a nearby cliff, complete even to his missing teeth. So we honour our dead.

London, in spite of her sedateness, erected a statue of a fat boy in memory of the orgy of gluttony in the city in 1666. Paris has her statue to the last victim of the anti-clerical riot erected indeed close by a famous cathedral Spain has her statue to the man who first introduced tobacco. His name was Rodrigo de Jerez. So far no cigarette combine has thought fit to honour Drake in a similar manner. This should be rectified. Even Germany boasts a statue to Sir Francis Drake—in gratitude for introducing the homely “spud” to their country. Japan in her turn has honoured her first orange bringer. This idea might well be extended, especially in New Zealand, a country that seems to make a point never to honour her great men except by curious and often somewhat derelict-looking erections in marble.

The daughter of a Breslau doctor has agreed to brave the rigours of midnight on a snowclad mountain to test out an ancient recipe for black magic. The rites consist of anointing a hegoat with bats’ blood, soot, honey aud scrapings from church bells at the full moon. The alarmed goat is then supposed to turn into a beautiful youth. This idea might well be copied in respect to other ancient superstitions that persist to this day mostly because nobody has ever put them to the test. For example, cannot some brave man be found to test the hoary superstition that it is unwise to thwart a woman while the moon is full? Is there any truth in this? Indeed, some people are guided not only in the treatment of a wife but in the planting of seeds by the state of the moon. Seeds being ' less fickle than women, perhaps this superstition might be put to the test once and for all by a select committee of the Agricultural Department

In the matter of certain abstruse charms, has anyone ever been brave enough to put a love potion to the test? The results would make interesting reading. One of these potions made from toads and spiders’ webs is said to be very potent. Another superstition that might well be proved or disproved is the habit among brides of barring Friday as a wedding day. An analysis of marriage announcements in 65 issues of the'daily newspapers in England shows that out of 725 marriages only 36 took place on a Friday. Will some long-married couples who took the plunge on a Friday please tell us how they have fared—for better or for worse—aud settle this superstition once and for ever?

The recent Incident at the Sydney Zoo in which the public refused to go to the assistance of a police officer struggling with three pickpockets brings under notice a liability on the part of the public concerning which 'not a few of us are somewhat vague. Policemen are admittedly provided and paid for by the public to maintain order. But the public have legal obligations toward the police, just as the police have a duty toward the public. It is a wholesome tradition as well as the law that the public must assist the police when called upon to do so in the maintenance of order. Our duties in this respect are to-day not nearly as exacting as they used once to be in Britain. In the year 1887 an Act of Parliament laid it down that every person in Britain “shall be ready and aparelled at the command of the sheriff and the cry of the county to arrest a felon.” This enactment merely brought up to data an ancient statute of the year

In the verv early days it was the universal liability of healthy males of the “tithings” or the “borghs” to take part at short notice in the “hue and cry” in pursuit of malefactors. We must be thankful that these, days it is not the custom to mobilise healthy males of a town into an impromptu “hue and cry.” Nevertheless the law does demand that when called upon to do so we should be ready, and presumably “aparelled,” to come to the assistance of the police in the maintenance of law and order. It is a moot point whether the recent changes in the status of women do not also render them liable to perform a similar duty.

The temperature of 108 degrees recently recorded in parts of South Australia must come very near to a record for coastal districts. It is well known that in some inland districts the thermometer habitually rises to as high as 120 degrees, but the dryness of the air prevents the discomfort that goes with lower but moister heats. An idea as to how long it may remain continuously sweltering in parts of Australia is had by the fact that at Marble Bar, Western Australia, the thermometer has been known never to fall below 100 degrees for 103 days on end. Adelaide has not had the thermometer above 90 degrees for longer than a fortnight on end. Perth, however, once,had to put up with those conditions for a day short of three weeks. Sydney’s heat waves, if short, are often intense. Only last vear a temperature of 107 degrees occurred in Sydney in February.