RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 147, 17 March 1933, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

Peshawar, it is said is a paradise for plotters. It seems funny that so far no international conferences have been held there. , • • • When just off New Zealand the Mararr.a is reported to have encountered a dense fog. Perhaps a whiff was inadvertently allowed to escape when the session ended. • • * Mr. MacDonald claims to have produced a concrete disarmament plan. The chief disadvantage will be the nasty jagged lumps that will be left when it is smashed to pieces. • ♦ • Excellent as the marksmanship at Trentham undoubtedly was—several "possibles" at 800 yards —"W,” Feilding, says it is nothing to what has beeu accomplished in America. During the American Civil War, when, in the winter of 1863, the Northern and Southern armies were in cantonments with only the river Potomac flowing between, the sentries of the rival hosts posted opposite each other, frequently indulged in friendly banter. One day a Southern soldier was beard to call across to the Northern sentry opposite—“Ho, Yank! Can you fellows, shoot?” “Waal, I guess we can, some—Can you?” “Why, shoot!” called the Confederate back—- “ Down in Mississippi, where I come from, we can knock a bumble bee off a thistle blow at three hundred yards!” "Oh, that’s nothin’ to the way we shoot up in Varmont. I belonged to a company of one hundred men up thar; an’ every week we used to go but to prac- • tice. The captain would set a cider barrel rollin’ down hill. Each man took a shot at the bung-hole as it turned up. The barrel was afterwards examined, an’ if there was a shot found that didn’t go in at the bung-hole, the man that fired it was expelled. I’ve belonged to the company ten years, an’ there ain’t been nobody expelled yet!”

President Roosevelt’s decision to make drastic reductions in the pensions of War veterans is a far braver decision than might appear at first sight. Tn the British Empire war veterans, apart from recording their votes, play a comparatively humble part in the active political arena. This is not the case in America. Time after' time the War Veteran’s Association has imposed its will on Congress by threats to withhold its votes at polls. Twice this society has over-ridden the veto of the President. The result has been that America is the only country where the cost of the last war has increased steadily since 1918. Despite the fact that America had fewer men in the field than Britain and fought in only one great battle in France, she spends £150,000,000 a year on war pensions—three times Britain’s total. » » •

Under pressure from the American War Veteran’s Association, officers with a 30 per cent disability are entitled to a fife pension of 75 per cent, of their war-time pay. A general therefore draws £BO a month, and a second lieutenant £22. Moreover, every veteran is entitled in 1945 to a bonus averaging £220; on the grounds that he was grossly underpaid while ou active service. - In 1931 war pensioners were given permission to "borrow half this bonus at a cost to their country of £250,000,000. In fact the recent march on Washington was engineered to obtain possession of the other halt.

The war pension paradise in America is not exclusive to veterans of the European War. Civil War and Spanish war veterans share in the goiden harvest. In fact Spanish War pensions, which cost £850,000 in 1920, now cost £24,000,000— surely a record considering there were only 8000 casualties. Civil War pensions incidentally cost to-day four times what they cost in 1880 when the war had been over lo years The next move of this association is said to be to demand pensions for all veterans, wounded or not, juat because they are veterans. Mr. Roosevelt has a hard job ahead of him. ine War Veteran’s Association not only controls a huge block of votes, but it is immensely wealthy. expenses alone have totalled £100,000.000 since 1917.

The Japanese printer , who neariy caused international complicationsi by changing the word "forefinger to formay take heart in the fact tha he has not erred alone. The of a printer’s error that cost the United States of America £400,000 istoo we known to be resurrected. But there are other errors which, if not the cause of international trouble, at least are sufficiently homely to amuse theman or even the woman in the stieet. When one reflects upon the millions of printed words that pour into the world every day, the marvel is that the printer only now and again drops _ a let j ter with comic results. For that ie son we may forgive the printer who dropped an “n” that resulted in an announcement that "Painted widows make the best war memorials. The unfortunate “n” that links widows with windows has been the source of never ending typographical fuu. ♦ * *

The greatest catastrophe that can occur to printed matter is for a whole line to get transposed. Sometimes the result is rubbish. More often tha not, bv some happy freak of fate, the transposition displays an irony that amounts almost to a lawsuit. For•example it was once announced in a newspaper in England that "The engagement of Miss Blank to Mr. Blanker is announced. A, verdict of suicide durins temporary insanity has been returned.” Far more serious was an unfortunate mix-up of police court news and local news. It was stated that “The Rev. Z., after his address upon temperance at the City Hall, was fount lying drunk and incapable in the High Street.” It is this .kind of thing that makes Mr. Printer offer up earnest invocations to the god of his trade, is a mysterious personage known Etaoin Shrdlu, whose identity, no printer has ever been able to explain. Faith lit her candle in the hopeless Of sullen dusks that closed on bitter She'guarded it from swirling winds of doubt . ..., „ That blew the candles of the faithless out. „ , i Its tiny gleam across the souls dark night . , ... Kept those despairing cheerful with And when the greater souls of leaders They lit their torches at her candle s flame! —Arthur Wallace Peach.