RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 31, 31 October 1932, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) A cat has just had kittens in Parliament in a place set apart for distinguished visitors. The mother has done her best to give her offspring a good start in life. • • • A scientist has discovered that fish sometimes swim right round the world. The most persistent globe-trotters of all are goldfish. • * • News comes from Mexico that players in football matches often carry revolvers. What happens when, the crowd yells “shoot”? • • « The Bishop of Birmingham contends that if the accumulated knowledge of the next 10,000 years burst suddenly upon man to-day he would be utterly dazed. This is probably far truer of the coming 10,000 years than it has been of the past 10,000 years. For when one looks back along the read hacked out by the centuries from eternity the most striking thing discovered are the blank pages. Pages often covering centuries or even milleniums when absolutely no progress was made. Examination of skulls found at Peking and elsewhere gives reason to believe that- man has been on the earth for about one million years. Yet the record of his career, his deeds, his habits and his progress go back only 6000 years at the outside. If one wished to write a book on man occupying 250 pages and to devote an equal space to each period the 6000 years would occupy one and a half pages. There would be 248 i blank pages. Such has been progress so far.

It may be our distorted way of looking at things, but the last 6000 years of history seem to be the only years that are crammed with worthwhile facts. The remainder of the time, nearly 1,000,000 years, has been devoted to making a human being of man. Another remarkable fact about the 6000 years of observable progress is that until a mere 300 years ago progress was very slow. Indeed there was a period involving nearly a thousand years when progress, so to speak, had got into reverse. It may come as a shock to some people to realise that 300 years ago the only foodstuffs known in England were bread, meat and fish. Potatoes, sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa and the rest of our everyday foodstuffs were unknown. There were hardly any vegetables and no fruit except wild varieties. Moreover, in 1831 it took nearly as long to journey from London to Birmingham as it did in the days of the Ancient Britons. Out of the 6000 years of history, transport progress has been crammed into the last 100 years or so.

The only criticism of the new elixir of life, that an Italian doctor claims to have invented, is that it lengths the span of life by a mere 10 years. When it is realised that in the last 300 years commonsense and hygiene have lengthened the average span of life for millions of people by no less than 30 years, the new discovery seems triviaL Nevertheless those who are at pains to prolong the period of man’s stay upon this earth can rightly claim it to be a. step in the right direction. There is reason to believe that when flesh and blood were first designed they were imbued with the spirit of eternal life. Tests made on actual flesh and blood show that under laboratory conditions it may be persuaded to live far longer than the body of which it usually forms a part. In fact, the flesh of a chicken has been kept alive four or five times the life span of the chicken itself. It is still going strong.

Another line along which to attack the problem of living longer lies with the plants. It is known that certain plants have remarkable effects upon the body. Although yerba, a plant that grows in South America, has not been tested as regards its longevity properties, it is known that a man can live for days on end exclusively on a few leaves of it, and yet be capable of immense physical labours such as forced marches. Another plant that is receiving the attention of experts at the moment is hydrocotyle plant. This plant grows abundantly in Ceylon and many other places. It has been known to the Chinese for centuries that a few leaves of this strange plant eaten daily have pronounced effects in prolonging life. One man 250 years old, who lives in China, swears by it. A French chemise who has made a careful analysis of the plant has found that it contains unknown substances that quite certainly do have a markedly energising effect upon the tissues, especially the tissues of the brain.

However much we may disbelieve in the theory, recently asserted in Wellington, that the citizens of the British Empire are remnants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, it is interesting to investigate the contentions that underlie this belief. The brief fact is that about 700 B.C. the Lost Tribes of Israel that disappeared so effectively from history were captured by the Assyrians. The conquering forces took these tribes into an ancient territory lying to the north-west of modern Persia. It is said these tribes later on swarmed westward into Northern Europe, Some of them eventually turned up in England. Whether they swum the Channel, thereby being the first to do so, is not recorded. At any rate, they became the forbears of the Saxons, and therefore of the British Empire. It is only fair to point out that many historians refuse to tolerate this theory on the score that it is based on misreadings and misinterpretations of ancient writings.

Upholders of the Lost Tribes theory mentioned in the paragraph above have found all manner of proofs that some of these tribes founded the British Empire. It is even declared that the word Saxon itself is but a contraction of “Isaac’s son.” Moreover, in the Crimea earnest delvers have discovered tombstones of some antiquity that bear Israelitish names intermingled with names common in, England to-day. In the matter of Biblical prophecy whole libraries have been written to prove the whereabouts of these ten tribes so mysteriously swallowed up by time 2600 years ago. It must not be imagined that the Ten Lost Tribes hold an exclusive monopoly in being lost. There are all manner of other tribes that are just as lost. For example, nobody knows whence came the outcast race of Cagots who for centuries have contrived to survive in the Pyrenees. Some say they are the last pure blooded remnants of the ancient Goths. Moreover, the more remote fringes of Russia and Asia Minor are to this «lay inhabited by all manner of tribes so utterly lost that they speak, so it is declared hy explorers, old-time lammarea.