RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 74, 20 December 1933, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Gwent

Events

(By Kickshaws.)

Roosevelt may be determind to eliminate the gangsters, but lievill have a job to do it as efficient! as the gangsters.

The number of bandits the Japanese are finding to fight in China lakes one wonder if China realised wht a lot of bandits she was until Japamaved her from them.

According to an Amerian newspaper, a man has been twic divorced by the same wife. The diry habit, if cultivated among America women, would prevent this waste offline.

The fact that the sixth an of the late Charles Dickens, recent’ knocked down by a motor cycle, isi London magistrate somehow seems II wrong. Possibly the second geneation of Dickenses will give us anothr Charles Dickens, because experts sajthat it is the second generation in which inherited characteristics show lemselves most. It will be seen, therfore, that it is yet early to judge the Dickens family. It is a fact though hat some families seem to inherit the iredominating characteristics of the! forbears in a most surprising mannei David Pollock, a saddler in the Strnd in the Georgian days, must have been full of suppressed greatness. [is eldest son became a Chief Justice, is second son became a Baron of the Ixchequer and a baronet; his third sn died a field marshal, a baronet ant a G.C.B. The next generation of Pollcks went just as far if not further. Moreover, the third generation has givn us one of the greatest jurists of therorld, not to mention 9 brilliant Iwyers. a bishop, four authors ami another baronet.

Whether one has to thank tie women who laid down the original stock in famous families, or the men,is a matter that is still occupying thetttention of learned experts. Their Interest, however, is not concerned so meh with human beings as with farmtnimals. Indeed farm eugenics have reached such a pitch that a famous ire or a dam of renown rarely falls topass on her good qualities to her desendants. In the case of the human race or some reason it has been nobody’s buiness to insure that only the best hall be allowed to continue. Nevrthelesa Nature seems to have taken thigs into her own hands in more. tian one family. An obscure village InDevonshire, for example, was the nisery of a family of clever descendant:. Among the more distinguished membe’i of this family have been Samuel Colc.dge the poet, and his two brilliant children Hartley and Sara. Sir John, lie poet’s nephew, became a Judge of fie High Court. Sir John's son (Loi Coleridge) was destined to becoie Lord Justice of England. If man ook his mind off the farm yard and- a plied his knowledge to the human rac something worth while might resit.

The fact that moreporks at Jickland have been seen fascinating smll birds in captivity and drawing thin in a paralysed state to the bars f their cage throws a certain amountof light on a very controversial problm. It has been contended for yas that snakes also have this power. Whether it is the snake that has thejowcr or whether it is fear of snakes tat paralyses man and other animals s not yet settled. One’ eminent n'aturSist has pointed out that four years'study of snakes in Australia has noteonfirmed the belief. In proof of thiihe took pictures of birds feeding peacefully while snakes were on the poit of seizing them. Moreover, rabbitsand birds in some cases are known to bquite unperturbed at the proximity >f snakes. Stoats are also said to fasaate their prey. It; this case the cunus antics on the part of the stoat areealculated to interest the bird in questin so much that it defers flight unti too late. Foxes, one might add, are lid to run round in circles under rotting hens. Dizzy from watching the fo, the hens lose their balance and fd down to the ground an easy prey.

If certain living things aij said to have a curious fascinationdver their intended prey, including man, one might add that in the case f man the power of his eye is said L have all manner of effects. It is sid for example that a man who wits his left eye at a crocodile, staringneanwhile with the other eye, will soipset the saurian’s peace of mind tit it will slink away with its tail Itween its legs. Certainly tales of meiwho have outstared lions are innumeible. The difficulty is to prove that it; the stare and not a full stomach thaimakes the brute change its mind. Tere would appear to be some sort of oundation for all these curious hypnoc effects. It can be shown for examp* that if a hen is held with its beak to he ground and a white chalk line diwn away from the beak the hen will ’main in a paralytic state. Moreover sine horses have a decided objection t crossing white lines. Rabbits may :so be hypnotised in a ma-nner verysimilar to that of a hen. Some poacers in the old days were wont to hyaotise rabbits by staring fixedly at thn and then spitting in their face. Tls so upset the poor old rabbit it seeied incapable of further movement ad could be left by the hedge side whe the gamekeeper appeared.

“Irishman,” Masterton, sys in a letter too long to publish iiact:—“l’m afraid ‘Loch na Moidh’ drws a very hasty conclusion when he elieves the speaker of Gaelic in Seotlad is a Celt and the speaker of Scotsan AngloSaxon. This could only 1 true if it could be shown that the people of Lothian conquered the dthr Lowland counties, or if there wei an overwhelming infiltration of lood from England. But it cannnot be shown .that either of these thin? occurred. I think it may be shown hat in the Lowlands the blood remaird the same but that Scots (as the Eniish spoken in Scotland is called), gradually elbowed out what ’ was frmerly the almost universal tongue.: I might add that Erse (Irish) and Gaelic are convertible terms as anyone taking an interest in this btnch of the Celtic language knows.” '

“Writing in the time of .lines IV of Scotland (d. 1513).” adds Irishman,’’ “John Major the historian;ays: ‘Most of us spoke Irish a short the ago,’ and Hector Bruce, his contempcary, wrote ‘Those who live on the borers of England have forsaken our tonne (Irish) and learned English being diven thereto bv war's and commerce’ i the Lowlands. In Ayrshire and Galloway, Professor MacKinnon noteshat Gaelic was spoken centuries after he time of Wallace, who. it seems, lire Gaelic dress. There are many otbr authorities I could quote to sho 1 that the people of the Lowlands in te time of James I. mainly spoke Gael: (outside the Lothians). and were thtefore presumably of Celtic (Gaelic ail British) origin. Historically, there; no proof of a permanent Anglo-Saxomonquest.”