RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 272, 12 August 1932, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

Now that scientists have discovered how to take the crease out of cotton, perhaps they will find a better way to put it in trousers.

Health experts have discovered that holding one's breath for as long ns possible is a very beneficial exercise. The idea is hopefully passed ou to exponents of the bagpipes.

It is stated that for the first time since 1928 our timber industry has shown a favourable .trade balance. Statistics reveal that unprecedented orders for local boards, political platforms and cabinet making are largely responsible for this.

In connection with historical recordings “Aussie Digger,” Mastertou, writes:—There is another historical phonograph record in the Auckland Museum as well as the record of Sir George Grey’s voice mentioned by your Napier correspondent recently in “Random Notes.” This is a message sent by the late W. E. Gladstone to Lord Hopetoun. the first GovernorGeneral of the Australian Commonwealth.

The suggestion on the part of the Californian State Board of Health that instead of shaking hands with our friends we should shake hands with ourselves, to avoid an exchange of virulent lurking germs is so utterly sound it is quite unlikely that it will be adopted anywhere. We may have to swallow a peck of dirt before we die, but assuredly it is our fate to be handed many pecks of germs before that event occurs. Not only hand shaking but other insanitary customs should be rigorously suppressed. Possibly the most insanitary habit of modern civilisation is the kiss. This habit, peculiar to recent civilisations, is the means of passing on every disease germ listed in the official text books, not to mention a few that are not. It is a tribute to the hardiness of humanity that it has not been wiped out long since.

Another insanitary custom that might well be stopped is the circulation of paper money. Admittedly during the last few years everything has been done to put a check on this habit. But if we only saw a specimen note under a powerful microscope we would gently but firmly refuse it as a gift, however bad the times. The same sort of feeling results from too close an examination of certain, forms of cheese. Indeed when one starts to think too intensely upon the subject of microbes it becomes apparent that the only safe way to live is in a special sterilised cubicle into which sterilised air and sterilised food are admitted at stated sterilised intervals. Actual experiments in this line prove that the patient dies prematurely from lack of microbes. .

It makes lively reading to see that F. R. Brown in a cricket match at the Oval, apart from scoring 212 runs, broke two bats and hit the ball seven times out of the Oval. There seems to have been a lethargy stealing over cricket. Brown has broken the spell. Possibly one day he will also break the record for long distance hitting; if a bat can be found to stand up to his onslaughts. At present this record stands al a total distance of 175 yards. The Rev. W. Fellows in a practice game on the Christchurch ground. Oxford, drove a bail bowled by Charles Rogers that distance from hit to pitch. Ccnsidering the feat was accomplished nearly eighty years ago it seems extraordinary it has never been equalled since.

The recent outburst of hard hitting on the part of the cricketer Brown seems to have had a z counterpart in a game between I Zingari and Gentlemen of England. Mr. Thornton hit eight sixes in just over an hour. One of his sixes went through an open window, another went over two streets of houses. Actually his score of 107 not out was compiled In twenty-nine scoring strokes. While on the subject of scoring strokes it would be a calamity not to mention the hit that produced 286 runs. This hit took place in a game played at Bonbury, Australia, in 1893. Tho first ball bowled was hit into a threepronged. branch of a tall jarrah tree. The umpire ruled that it was not “lost-ball” because it could still be seen. While the fielders went off to find an axe to cut down the tree the batsmen began running. As an axe eould not be found the fieldsmen eventually shot the ball down with a rifle. By that time the batsmen had scored 286. It is said that the ball was caught as it fell from the tree. Whether the batsman should have been declared out, as he was, is still a matter of controversy.

Freak eggs, black in colour, of the type laid by a Wanganui duck, are Indeed rare. But it must not ba imagined that this and other curiosities do not sometimes occur. Thera have been instances of hens laying eggs that looked to all intents and purposes exactly like turkey’s eggs. Gees# sometimes have been known to depart from the usual monotonous white of their eggs and produce all manner of mottled varieties. In fact many wild birds although they lay eggs roughly true to standard insert so many variations of their own that It is at times impossible for an expert to decide the breed by examining the egg. Yeliow h-aimers particularly like to show orlg—ality in their eggs. In some cases the usual scrawls are omitted altogether or, as in one case, inserted on only one half of the egg.

Claims come from one district is Australia that a goose actually laid a golden egg. At least the bird made a good effort to support the gold standard. Examination showed, however, that it was in reality mere gilt The largest egg ever laid by a hen seems to have been one of over seven ounce*, laid by a hen at Hepperg, Bavaria. This egg was really rather a Chinese puzzle for Inside was found another egg of about normal size complete with its own hard shell. The largest eggs in existence to-day were laid by a bird in Madagascar that Is now extinct. These eggs are a yard in diameter with a capacity of two gallons. One's sympathies are with the bird that laid them.

• • • A communist cobbler of Wells Had a passion for ringing church bells; When folks asked him why. He replied with a sigh, “Au I cannot ring necks I ring knells.’* —Anon.