RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 147, 19 March 1934, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

A village in France is being overwhelmed in an avalanche of mud. How it became involved in party politics has not been stated.

If we are to believe a psychologist if one tells a lie often enough eventually one comes to believe it. If that be true, many a man “detained at the office" will be demanding overtime.

It is reported that an all-in wrestler has won a dancing championship. It is not unlikely that we shall soon be hearing of n dancer who has won an all-in wrestling championship.

“In Thursday’s ‘Dominion,’ ‘M.B.S.’ says that the Rimutaka incline was opened something like 60 or 70 years ago,” writes “C.A.C.” “This must be wrong as my mother, who is 74, says she came over in the coach when she was 16. When the cirivers pulled up to have a ‘crack’ at least 16 vehicles lined up behind each coach while they were talking. In a flash they all passed one another in safety when each driver shook the reins and proceeded on his way.”

Mr. Bernard Shaw’s contention, which he has stated at least five times in two days, tJjat the Parliamentary system might well be eliminated, would appear lo have the endorsement of the House of Commons itself. This institution considers its own deliberations are so unimportant that it does not even provide sufficient accommodation for all the elected M.P.’s to be present at the same time. Actually there are only enough seats for 476 persons, or, roughly, three-quarters of the total number of members. Tn order to secure a seat for the day. members must be in their sent at prayers and stick a card in a frame at the back much as one engages a public tennis court. The convenience of telephonic booking as offered by all picture houses who consider their show worth attending is not offered to members of the House of Commons in their own debating chamber. Moreover, so little importance is attached to the duties of M.P.’s in England that they are not even permitted to sit in seats half as comfortable as those found in a tramcar or in some cases in waiting sheds.

The contrast between municipal methods of government and - parliamentary methods are certainly worth studying by everyone who has to find the money to permit these two types of bodies to govern them. It takes. Parlianient so long to get into its stride the recess is upon members before,anything has been done. The Speech from the Throne which opens proceedings is usually printed as a Gazette long before it is given. After the ceremonies of the opening days Parliament seems quite happy to spend endless weeks discussing an Address-in-Reply to a speech which would serve its purpose if it were printed only and circulated among members as a sort of synopsis of the coming plot. It must be admitted that members do find time during this stage to read a Bill that never passes in order to. assert their right to legislate. These useless jobs, and the passing of a few bills a first time that will by no manner of means see the light of day may well occupy a legislative assembly two months.

It is not surprising to see that efforts to extinguish the flaming gusher of oil in Morocco have been unavailing. Once a gusher bursts into flame it is almost impossible to put it out unless conditions are very fortunate. In the first place, the pressure forcing the oil into the air may be as high as 10001 b. to the square inch. The heal generated by the huge torch of flame under these conditions is so great that it is impossible to get near the base. If explosives fail to smother the flames, sometimes it is possible to tunnel toward the gusher and squeeze the steel casing of the shafting together underground. Even the oil itself unlighted is sufficient enough a problem with which to cope. In one case in Mexico a crater of oil 25 acres in extent was formed, machinery and derricks sank into this huge lake of oil and were lost. Sometimes, indeed, it is cheaper to abandon the well and sink another.beside it after the original one has been blown in if that is found to be possible. Usually once an oil gusher gets out of hand it results inevitably in the loss of millions of gallons of oil. Once it catches on fire it provides a spectacular beacon which may burn for months on end before the pressure eases and it becomes possible to divert the oil by underground tunnels. '

Oil fuel as recovered from oil wells is, after all. no more than the potted power of the sun that has lain dormant for thousands of years. Just as coal has waxed and waned, so the time must come when the underground supplies of oil fuel will become exhausted. Whether that will take fifty years or 500 seems at the moment to be a matter of controversy among experts. Even to-day it is possible to obtain power fuels from plants without Hie necessity of storing them 5000 feet underground for half a million years. Power alcohol is already obtainable in quantities from plants. At the moment hundreds of thousands of gallons from this source go to make chloroform and ether, and for soap-making purposes. Under the guise of “moth..” thousands of gallons of plant alcohol are used for beating curling tongs. With suitable engines it is possible to convert this easily-prepared supply of fuel info power. The importance of an easily obtainable supply of “homebrew” fuel is not yet a major problem.

■ “Sueismologist” writes in a letter too technical to be given in full“I have to thank.you for your well-mean-ing if misdirected efforts in the interests of sneismology. As our sneismeter went north and not west. Professor Bump’s explanation is rather beside the point, or pericentric. I should like to draw the learned professors attention to the fact that the forces of attraction emanating from baralelopipeds and bits of fluff are independent and parallel forces and should never be allowed to converge.” [Professor Bump, unfortunately, is away at Auckland studying the habits of, Shaw birds. —“Kickshaws.”]

The following pun seems to indicate that two readers, “C.S.” and "Tom Hood,” have a mutual friend of the family who now and then spends an evening at their houses; When supper was being served the gentleman in question decided to partake of some verv inviting-looking scones, saying: “I must bog to be excused. Eating soda scones so late makes me so disconsolate.”

The answer to Saturday’s little puzzle'is: “Bee,” “Eye,” and “Tea."