RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 28, 27 October 1932, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

We are told that advantage should be taken of low prices to get odd jobs done. With silver at rock bottom the time seems ideal to reline a few clouds.

News comes from Auckland that a young rooster has been cured by faithhealing. If only they could get the idea to work backwards —especially in dealing with early morning crowing.

A journal on roads declares that the cost of roads is reduced by spring repairs. It is now up to a motoring journal to retort that the cost of springs is reduced by road repairs.

If wrestlers only realised that they perform on sufferance possibly the impromptu bout of temper that formed so prominent an ending to a recent match would not occur. It has been decided that under the laws of England an opponent who enters the ring with the intention of subduing his adversary with violence breaks the law. Together with the officials and onlookers he can be made to appear before a judge to receive his legal punishment. Moreover, it is not even necessary for the adversary to be struck. A boxer who squares up to his opponent in an aggressive manner commits assault. When his left connects with the adversary’s chin he commits both assault and battery.

In case some high-principled member of the public seeks to test the legality of prize-fighting or wrestling, mentioned in the paragraph above, it is as well to point out that these two pastimes are not alone in breaking the strict letter of the law. Nearly every popular game we play is banned under some old unrepealed Act that still forms a rickety foundation for the present laws of England. At one time the game of tennis could only be played by the King of England and a few of his friends. • There is reason to believe that this game even new is illegal. Certainly under an old Act it is still quite illegal for seamen and fishermen to play the game, as it is for them to play bowls, tennis, dice and football except at Christmas time. Moreover, the game of football was Illegal 500 years ago, and in Scotland it still is, not only to fishermen but to everyone else. There are no fewer than four statutes against the game of football. In the same way the game of golf, if played in Scotland, is still a capital offence.

A visitor from China says that the Chinese are so polite that even a coolie eating his frugal meal by the wayside will ask a passing stranger to share it with him. This is a challenge to the world. What country takes the palm for politeness? Is China really the politest nation in the world? After all the French are so polite they even say “thank you” when they mean “no thank you. 1 ’ The Americans are so polite that it costs the country £1,000,000 a year in extra elevator costs because the men insist upon taking off their hats in the lifts when a woman is present. The increased space of four hats held over four chests is equivalent to that of one passenger. But then Americans are so notoriously polite to women that they are ready to negotiate divorces at very short notice with the maximum of speed and the minimum of questions. In Japan politeness has reached such pinnacles police warnings are issued that householders should make it a point of honour to be polite to burglars.

Foreigners very often gain an impression that English people are surly and rude. Individually this may seem to be the case. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the manners of English people in public are exemplary. In what other parts of the world is it possible to find a traffic policeman willing to answer with polite patience questions gt the rate of twenty a minute? Try this on a traffic officer in New York and see what happens. As a matter of fact many Englishmen individually are exceedingly polite. One aviator who crashed badly in the middle of a field of crops is said to have apologised profusely to the farmer who came to rescue him. Every country has its own way of being polite. New Zealanders are' noted for their politeness to strangers. .But the palm for politeness to strangers goes to Papua. A murderer explained away his deed with the words: “The stranger asked me to carry him across the river. Of course I could not be so rude as to refuse him. As he looked so fat and heavy, and it was very hot, the only way out was to kill him.”

The four policemen who recently arrested a swarm of bees in a lane In England were doubtless reconciled to carry out a job not in the usual run of business. Just what a policeman should arrest and not arrest is a point that seems ill-defined. The policemen in South Africa who arrested an ostrich found walking down the main street of a busy township got kicked into an empty section. Two policemen who set out to arrest a hippopotamus that was eating up an entire field of corn met a lion and came back empty-handed. A policeman who arrested a skunk in an American town, on the other hand, left a problem in smells that, it is said, persists to this very day.

What to do with a swarm of bees that insists upon making of itself a free and often unwanted gift is a problem that seems to have no solution. In many countries the swarm belongs to the original owner provided he follows it up. One swarm that entered a moving train, however, set a pace that even the most enthusiastic bee-keeper was unable to equal. Eventually the train had to stop, passengers and staff were routed. Every cempartment was thickly covered with angry bees. A signalman who kept bees arrived on the scene- He persuaded the swarm to enter one of his own hives. Another swarm of bees is said to have settled on an aeroplane. While in one case a liner about to sail across the Atlantic was embarrassed by a swarm that settled in the rigging and refused to move. What the bees thought of life next day 300 miles out at sea is not stated. On several occasions bees have swarmed on human beings. It is said that provided one keeps calm, refrains from crushing any of the bees, and does not run away, there is nothing to be feared except suffocation.

This is a spray the Bird clung to, Making it blossom with pleasure. Ere the high tree-top. she sprung to Fit for her nest and her treasure. Oh, what a hope beyond measure Was the poor spray’s, which the flying feet hung to, — So to be singled out, built In, and sung to! —Brownina