RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 290, 2 September 1933, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(Bj

Kickshaws.)

It may be true that there Is a need for further development in the art ot talking, but it is only fair to point out that if silence is golden, no wonder the world is bankrupt. If we are to believe Mrs. Helen Wills-Moody’s statement to the press when she arrived home in San Francisco, Mrs. Helen Wills-Moody is not moody. “' ♦ » * Although those cherry shirts have been dissolved by the Polish Government, their adherents claim that they are not dead. Nevertheless one would justifiably imagine that the Government’s solution must be all dye.

The Auckland philatelist who has had a letter frdin Hell might well complete matters by getting a letter from Paradise. If he decides to do this his task will be easier. While there is only one Hell, although there are several gates to Hell, there are at least five Paradises in this world. As well as the one at the head of Lake Wakatipu, there are others in Ireland, Canada, Australia and Switzerland. Strange to say there does not appear to be a single Heaven below. There is, however, an Easter; in fact there is a High Easter, not to mention a Good Easter—both in England. Devonshire boasts a Honeychurch, Surrey a Christmas Pie, and Norfolk a Tadley-God-Help-Us. It is suggested that philatelists anxious to collect suitable letters franked with unusual names might well ponder the merits of these places.

If it is possible to receive letters from Hell and Paradise, as discussed in the previous paragraph, it is only fair to add that one can also get a letter from Nowhere. Unfortunately Nowhere, ia Somerset, does not boast a Post Office. This little oversight need not daunt intrepid philatelists and others, for there are plenty of other places in England with names worthy of notice. There are two Swiheheads in England, not to mention a Swine, and a Swineside. Essex is notorious for its Mucking, and a delightftil old world village called Sewers End. The only other equivalent to- this last-named village is found in Cambridgeshire,' where (people toe some reason are not averse to living in Foulmire. One does not need to go beyond England to collect foreign names. There is a Strata Florida and a Calvo in the British Isles. Frlock-helm takes one to Germany in imagination, and Bethesda to Palestine.

It.may be true that business men are not addicted to talking, but we should be thankful for the small mercies. The fact is that good talkers as a rule are people who do-not talk much. When King Edward said of a famous afterdinner speaker that he had many good stories and many, bad ones, but that he told the bad ones so incomparably well that they were better than the good ones, he set a standard for talk that is very rarely attained. If after-dinner speakers and politicians would only realise that long-windedness was a sign of bad talking, not good, perhaps we should have more opportunity to hear more bad stories incomparably well. A good talker may be witty, but it is a mellow wit—often elusive and rarely obvious. The more a speaker demands something from his audience, the more chance is there that his words will be listened to.

If business men are bad at talking* they are certainly equally bad at letter writing (or are their stenographers the culprits). Why do business letters always talk about favours?' “Your favour to hand” is the popular way or telling you that they have got your order. Quite often they add unnecessary details about your letter, such as that it was of even date. Just what an even date is has never been explained. More inane than this is to be told that the business man has read your letter and noted the contents. If he read the letter, it is to be expected that the contents are noted. Mr. Pitman is doubtless responsible for much of this inanity in business letters. He has perpetuated them for all time, by turning them into shorthand contractions. On the other hand “in re” “and oblige, . “inst” and “ult” and their km may be solecisms in a calf-bound edition de luxe “casket of English prose. But if they really do help the business man to make himself understood, one must grin and bear their inanities. ‘ Concerning inherited characteristics “R.H.8.” writes in reply to the query of “C.C.S.”: —“Some years ago the present High Commissioner,. Sir Thomas Wilford, quoted to me off-hand a passage from the famous' Lombroso. 1 have never verified it, but this jz what it was:—A group of German scientists investigated the characteristics of over one million persons in endeavouring p reach some conclusion on the question of hereditary tendencies. As the result of their observations they declared that they found that in 79 per cent, of cases a son would be found to have inherited the characteristics and tendencies or his mother, and in 61 per cent, of casws a daughter would have inherited those of her father. This, of course referred not to facial resemblances, but to temperamental characteristics and the like. The odds are approximately 4 to 1 that if you go to a man’s mother you will find there the same tendencies, etc., as he possesses, and to go further back the odds are 3 to 2 that in her father you will find them again. V * ’ “Of course,” continues “R.H.8.. “there are always the 21 Per «mt. and the 39 per cent, where you will hnd tne opposite to be the case or where no similarity can be traced. I beliete that authorities who endeavour to trace tendencies of insanity for instance -could bear out these facts. This has nothing to do with genetics for information on which please apply to His Grace the Lord Bishop of Birmingham. But luo , believe this newly developing science of genetics—i.e. the transmutation of the “genes”—throws a lot of light on the query raised by “C.C.S.” as to likenesses in outward appearances. It “C.C.S.” wishes to be put in touch wit q me I could give him a copy of an interesting, though scientific, address by, the Bishop of Birmingham on genetics. “Could you tell me whether the fact that in some of the scenes of the picture, ‘The Sign of the Cross, high- , heeled shoes were worn, is a mistake or oversight in production, asks “C.M.F.,” Mastertcn. Although sandals were the usual footwear in ancient Rome, members of the patrician class used to wear calcel or black leather shoes. So far as can be discovered'these shoes had low heels. Queen Elizabeth is supposed to have . originated the idea of high-heeled shoe® in order to give her small stature an added dignity. There is reason to believe, however, that in ancient Egypt Mgh-hcded shoeg were not unknown.