RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 248, 15 July 1932, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

The latest report is that those “understandings” supposed to have been arranged between the nations of Europe are only misunderstandings after all.

It has been stated that no race killed men and women in a more brutal fashion than the Aztecs of Mexico. No race, that is to say, that flourished prior to 1914. ■

Statistics prove that flying is decidedly cheaper to-day than it was last year. Will economists please now explain how the cost of going up can be coming down?

Mr. Paterson's very amusing cartoon of motor signals, writes “Aussie Digger,” reminds me of a unique paint.ng in the Hobart Museum, the “Pictorial Proclamation to the Natives of Tasmania,” issued over .one hundred years ago. It contains six pictures. The first Shows a native spearing a white man.-1 The next shows the black suspended by the neck from a tree. Tue third picture shows a white settler shooting a native. The fourth dep.cts the white man being executed.. The next picture is a group of white men and natives with the Governor in the centre placing the hand of a white man into that of a blackfellow. The last picture is a group of whites and natives of both sexes, intermarried and living happily -together, surrounded by a crowd of half-caste children.

It makes one marvel at the -entrenched conservatism of the ea.ly days of motoring when one reads the amusing reminiscences of Dr. Purcbas, reported in the news recently. Considering the ingrained hatred of all change that forms so powerful a feature of life it seems unbelievable that the motor-car ever burst its red flag bonds at all. When one goes further back it is obvious that the motor was no isolated instance of “red flaggery.” When the railways were first introduced much the same “progressive” instincts made farmers insist that a gate should be provided at every boundary fence which must be opened by the driver of the train and closed when his train had passed.

But there were other “red flags” anxious to deter the railways. The stage coach owners complained bitterly about the' unfair competition and demanded that toll'charges be instituted every tew miles, m their turn the stage coach proprietors had encountered, long before that, the savage conservatism of manuiacturers of riding breeches. These gentlemen rest ited most strongly the introduction of stage coaches because people, they said, would no longer want riding breeches. They would forsake the trusty horse for the coach.

It, will be interesting to see if the machine that the late Thomas Bata has left behind will long survive the man wno gave it life. Of all the monarchs of the world not one can ciann that his subjects belong to him so much as Bata was able to claim, in ten years he had created a boot and shoe mechanism that by turning out 135,000 pair of shoes and boots a day, had given him a fortune estimated at £1(1,000,000, 20ut) retail shops, and nearly 20,000 factory hands, who were more his than their own. ' But it must not be imagined that there were complaints—far from it. » • *

The wages Bata paid his workers admittedly were not high, some 15/- a week for girl operatives, But rue house that the worker lived in had been built b; Bata. Even the bricks were made by his furnaces, the stone cut from his quarries, and the wood from his forests. The rent was 2/6 a week, Bai a provided the mid-day meal. It consisted of three good courses. Its cost was 3jd. The work people's clothes were made by Bata. They cost shillings where they usually cost pounds. Lastly, the cinema■ that everyone patronised in the evenings was supplied anu run uy Bam. Admission cost precisely one penny. « * •

Even the two newspapers, a serious and a comic, that tne Bata operatives read, was owned by Bata. The paper cost subscribers nothing at all. The bicycles upon which many of the operatives rode to worn were provided by Bata. Moreover, in order that his workmen should not arrive tired out he repaired the roads at his own cost Intensive production was Bata's aim. Workmen were never allowed to let their hair grow long. The time taken brushing it to one side reuuccd output, has e>er a king owned his subjects like Bala did. ’Have subjects ever been more contented? But now that Bata has gone, can the queer monarchy survive the shoe-king?

The occasions upon which a bowler has taken all ten wickets at an average of only one run apiece, as Verity has just done in England, can possibly be counted upon the fingers of one hand. But the number of times that a bowler in first-class cricket has taken all ten wickets in one innings is far more frequent than one might imagine. During the last ninety years this lent has been recorded no less than fortyf Jur times. Every two years, therefore, we may confidently expect a bowler to uphold this tradition of firstclass cricket.

If we permit ourselves to stray from first-class cricket into games which, although -of a high standard, cannot be considered to have attained to that dignity, all manner of remarkable bowling feats may be discovered with a little search. For example, in a small match in Australia, some fifty years ago, a demon bowler by name Spofforth, made a monopoly of all the ten wickets of his opponents in each innings. Curiously enough die feat was repeated six years later in Australia by J. Bryant in a match in Melbourne against a team of deaf mutes. These records are only equalled to-day by the schoolboy in South Africa, named Paul Hugo, who took nine wickets in nine consecutive deliveries, a year ago last February. ■• • • Art thou poor, yet bast thou golden slumbers? O sweet content I Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd? 0 punishment! Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd To add to golden numbers go'den numbers? O sweet content! 0 sweet, 0 sue, t content! Work apace, apace, apace; Honest labour bears a lovely face; Then hey nonny nonny—hey nonny sonnyt —tTJjoms Dekker.