RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 49, 21 November 1932, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) A Russian is reported to have taught a dog to play the piano. He claims that its Bach is every bit as good as its bite. ■• • • According to Mr. Forbes there Is a decided improvement In the quality of hides. His ripe experience of politicians adds conviction to the statement. • • • It is stated that horseshoes are particularly lucky if they are found complete with all their nails. Motorists who find them in their tires are apt to be sceptical. * « • “Stewart,” Wellington, gives the following alternative suggestion as to the origin of the term “0.K.” He says:— “Your rum explanation may or may not be right, but Kipling differs. I happened to hear his version on a talkie film in Chicago some time ago. He was demonstrating a series of his ‘Believe it or Not* truisms on a blackboard, and in dealing with O.K. proceeded to draw a flagon with embellishments, explaining the while that this was the shape of the original container of an old and very excellent French wine named Aux Gayes. Hence ‘okay,’ and, in short, ‘O.K.,’ and believe it or not, tokay is okay in the States, Volstead Act nothwithstanding.” * • * The contention that elderly apples, as explained in greater detail in the news, pour out certain mysterious emanations that have a stimulating effect upon young, apples, may not be so far-fetched as might be imagined. In the matter of mysterious rays it would appear that we are on the eve of an entirely new horticultural technique. Experiments have already been made in considerable detail on the growth of onions. Every precaution has been taken to avoid all outside influences. Nevertheless it has been proved conclusively that the root of one onion grows far quicker when it is placed near the root of another onion. This curious result it was shown could not be attributed to the quality of nourishment, or any other known circumstance. When the two roots were sealed from one another by a plate of quartz the effect was even more noticeable. A thin plate of gelatine on the other hand cut off the influences at work almost completely. In that case growth was at once reduced to that of a root grown, so to speak, in solitary confinement. • • « Although the mysterious rays mentioned above are probably of the same nature as wireless waves, it is thought that they are on an extraordinarily short wavelength. Shorter even than that of light or X-rays. In place of onions, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, very similar experiments have also been made with “growth rays” on tadpoles and yeast. In every case there has been the same remarkable increase in growth when the two things under test were placed close together. Indeed, the discovery of these remarkable growth rays will probably clear up quite a number of mysteries that have puzzled biologists for years. Although it has been known for nearly a century that certain flies will not breed unless there are a large number of them together, the reason only now is beginning to be suggested. Again medical experts have often wondered why restricted cells have refused to multiply in a culture whereas a number of cells can be made to multiply exceedingly. It only remains to discover how to transmit these growth rays. Indeed, further technical investigation into this matter may throw light on such abstract phenomena as love, hatred and even thought itself.

It is said that the claim of Zara Aga, the Turk, to be the oldest man has been challenged by an Afghan aged 200 years. Everybody over 150 years seems to imagine that he or she is the oldest individual in the world. Even a cursory glance into the matter indicates that if this latest claim were pressed quite a small army of really old men are alive and ready to tear the claim to shreds. If this Afghan is indeed some 50 years older than Zara Aga he has yet to prove that a Chinese by name Lee Tsing-yunis not 50 years older. At any rate that is the age Lee claims to be. Moreover, a series of searching tests made on this gentleman by experts gives reason to believe that he is not overstating his age by more than ten years or so. Born in the seventeenth year of the Emperor Kangshi, Mr. Lee has met everyone, in China worth meeting. For nearly a century he carried out the profession of a mendicant doctor. He attributes his great age to the fact that he has never prescribed his own medicines for himself.

It must not be thought that there are not other claimants to be the oldest man in the world besides the Chinese patriarch mentioned above. Nilolai Andreyovich Shapkovski of Russia contends that although he can only produce authenticated claims to a matter of 156 years, all claims to greater age are without foundation. There may be something in his contention. For it is a fact that the further one goes back in history the less strict the baptism regulations, the greater the number of alarmingly old people. Finally we get back some thousands of years to the days of Methusaleh, who was aged no less than 969 years. His great age has never been exceeded. But it is on record that in the year 1014 a young lad names Johannes passed away at the remarkable age of 361 years. As there were no records of baptism before the sixteenth century any old man anxious to become famous was able to add on a few decades in order to keep pace with the'times. Even so it is probably correct that Henry Jenkins, born in the year 1500, at Bolton-on-Swale, Yorkshire, died nt the age of 169 years. At any rate there is no doubt as to the date of his birth, for it is recorded in the register of Bolton Church.

Regarding sailing ships trying to enter Wellington Harbour under sail, writes a Wanganui reader, whose name is undecipherable, may I quote a per contra? In the early ’nineties the writer was interested in photography, and on a Sunday morning was on top of “Kaka Peak” at the back of Khandallah. From this point a photograph was taken of Wellington Harbour with a shii> —fully for Home—lying at anchor near Ward Island, which was as far as she could get after leaving anchorge off Kaiwarra. On the camera screen and in the resultant photograph the reflection of the ship’s masts and yards was clearly visible on the sea, and the ship was there for several days. The distance between camera and ship was something like seven miles.