RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 163, 7 April 1934, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.) Permanent waves are said to be be coming popular among ships' officers. If only their virtues would spread to Father Neptune! • • * A leading socialist declares that th? English Crown and socialism are not incompatible. One cannot help feeling though that the result would be an in ferior sort of half crown. According to the General Manage! of the Railways the public is beginning to understand the railways better. It is. of course, just possible that the railways are beginning to understand the public better. “History” writes: “Will you please advise us, per your column. ‘Random Notes,’ the family name of the present Royal family. We have heard that it is Windsor; from another source we arc told that they had a German mini l ? which they changed during the war to Windsor, but we have not been told that name. Our only book oi reference gives the House of Hanover from George I to Victoria and Edward VII as House of Kent and George V as House of Windsor. We particularly want to know about the alleged German name. Also we would like to know the exact relationshin George I bears to James 1." [The other name was Guelph. The family name was changed to Windsor in 1917. James I was the great-grand-father of George I.J • • • The three young seamen who are setting out from England for Austnilia in a 22-ton sailing vessel, comp : te with radio an<F auxiliary engines, should have little difficulty in arriving at their destination. Far too mu 'li fuss is made these days of mammoth liners about the performances of small sailing craft. It may come as a surprise to some people to know that Columbus discovered America in a cranky craft no larger than the Wellington harbour ferry boat, Cobar — 100 tons. The two vessels that accompanied him, moreover, were only 50 tons. Columbus was unable to benefit from the scientific improvements that have since then been made in hull design and the like. Hi.s own vessel, the Santa Maria, was. in design, a cask sawn in half and raised at both ends. It was cluttered up with a castle-like erection fore and aft; it was furnished with charts whose only outstanding point was their complete inaccuracy; it boasted a compass that would be the despair of a child to-day. Lastly, the Santa Maria carried a crew who were convinced that they were going to fall off the edge of the world. • • • No wonder if Columbus, Drake. Cook, and the like, sailed the oceans in unsea worthy cockle shells of 100 tons or so, that in the light of modern knowledge It is possible to make comparatively safe trips round the world in tiny craft little larger than toys. Any properly-designed yacht of 20 tons or more, equipped with modern improvements, a good crew, auxiliary engines and radio, should be able to go almost anywhere with impunity. After all, it is a fact that the Atlantic Ocean has actually been rowed on one, if not more occasions. The world, one might also add, has been circumnavigated in a canoe; -the Pacific has been crossed in a skiff 18 feet long: sailing dinghys not more than 22 feet long have made the trip from England to the Antipodes, or vice versa, on more occasions than can be mentioned in these brief notes. It will be seen, therefore, that the weakest link of small boat deep-water work is not the boat, but the crew. Some men seem able to take a boat where others cannot. Some men hare an instinctive knack of sailing round the world in tiny craft.

If it be correct that women’s craze for snake skin is endangering the supply of snakes all that can be said is that snakes are not the only forms of life that have gone under at the whim of fashion. At one time indeed it looked as if the Bird of Paradise was fated to become extinct owing to the craze for ospreys to decorate evening gowns and hats. This bird, as we know, was saved by legislation. The ostrich on the other hand was saved by the institution of ostrich farms. Curiously enough what doomed the ostrich was not the ostrich feathei craze but its cessation. South African ostrich fanners suddenly found tuai they possessed vast numbers of worthless birds which were costing them a lot of money to keep and giving th en no t return. The only thing they could do was to slaughter their birds. To day it is not only snakes that are n danger of extermination but croccr diles are sharing the danger. Th creature which has to be shot in the eve for commercial purposes, at little peril to the hunter, must be at least 50 years old before it is £ provide a pair of for 4 fashion ably dressed woman. Moreover, it • only the belly leather that is The result is a dearth of old crocodiles and an over-supply of young ones. • * *

The whim of women’s fashions casts its influence on other spheres of hfe han the animal world. The change from long hair to short may baveimade the fortunes of barbers but it ruin in places as far apart as Chinnnd Brittanv, whence came the haw n’t SI artificial hair of the world, indeed the Eton crop cast a gloom oim Jbt of Northern France whence came the major supplies of hu • hair In much the same way that tn Nottingham. The tight skirts, J doTtlmhobble hit the Freimh silk industry and in ifmn'llPrlk No°sSer did the bobble belions. Hinn <;hort skirts come unfasbionab . - textile came into vogue. Jrnd pretrade geneially. » t])C onc ViOUS ';I of one was all that vvas 1 then ];^f tre 1 drawn'into the maelstrom of changing fashions. * #

“A, vou arc supposed to know evexyVS “J.A..” “could you please ii,e date of the trotting match •U Christchurch between the New Zealand horse Ribbonwood and the Austr: - land no • _ [The Racing Edio r U < Xtbat this contest took place ,n Anvil 11. 1003. for a match sweep of £5OO -i side. The club added a further £lO The winner had to win thr<* , ...A five. nibbonwood won the first three in, thus finishing the contest.]