RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 28, 27 October 1934, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

Whether or not one can cure the da pression by eating more, the idea ii certainly calculated to fill a gap. In urgent cases of illness, announces the “New Zealand Gazette,” the XXX signal may be made by ships at sea. The New Zealand Alliance have the matter in hand. * * Gandhi intends to speed up village industries in India. This introduces another sort of fast into Gandhi’s repertoire. “Will you please tell me the first six (in order) of the Royal Family who are heirs to the British throne?” asks “Sileus Honu.” “I thought this question opportune, in view of + he Duke of Gloucester’s forthcoming visit. io this country. Most of us are very ignorant respecting facts relative to the British constitution.” [The Prince of Wales; Duke of York; Princess Elizabeth; 1 Princess Margaret; Duke of Gloucester; Prince George; Princess Mary.] » » * If it be correct that the recent merger between English and American flying interests will soon make it possible to go round the world in eight days, Jules Verne must be definitely written off as archaic. The shortening of the time to go round the world provides a remarkable yardstick with which to measure the progress of the world. Some 400 years ago Ferdinand Magellan startled everybody by going round the world in the remarkably short time of three years. Surprise at the feat was perhaps partly due to the fact that he had been able to go round the world at all. At that time there was a prevalent belief that the world was flat. If one travelled too far one simply fell off the edge and that was that. A mere 50 years after Magellan’s wonderful record Drake knocked a couple of months off the record. It was not until another 300 years that the world was rudely knocked off the three-year standard by Jules Verne, who vividly sent Phineas Fogg -off on a literary excursion round the globe in 80 days. This seeing to have incited real world girdlers to out-girdle fiction. • » ♦ In order to demonstrate that fiction was not so strange as fact, a New York newspaper woman named Nellie Bly knocked just over a week off Fogg’s record by taking only 72 days 6 hours 11 minutes to go round the world. Her record did not last long. George Train, Charles Fitzmorris, Henry Frederick, Colonel Campbell, Jaeger Schmidt, and Henry Mears, held in succession tne title of world girdler in chief. Aviation naturally put a new weapon in the hands of these world travellers. By using all known means of fast travel Edward Evans and Linton Wells in 1926 lowered the record to 28 days 14 hours 36 minutes. Two years later Mears and Collyer cut another five days off the record. The Graf Zeppelin cut another two days off the record. It was left to Wiley Post to do the round trip in just under nine days. But it Is only fair to point out that while he flew across all the meridians the trip was not made at the world’s widest part. » . * News that two trains, one in France and one in _America, have travelled at 120 miles an hour for a few. miles is surprising in that speeds of this nature have not long ago become standard. The outstanding fact about railway speeds is that for 80 years there has been practically no progress. As far back as 1903 a German-built electric engine demonstrated the fact that It was possible to attain a speed of 130 miles an hour. Admittedly this was, so to speak, a stripped racing model. Nevertheless one might point out that in 1904 the “City of Truro” on a journey from Plymouth to Paddington hauled a normal complement of carriages at 102.3 miles an hour for a short distance. If anything this feat is even more remarkable than the attainments of modern internal combustion locomotives hauling a specially light train. Even 102.3 m.p.h. is not a record. Some years ago a speed of 120 miles an hour was reached over a distance of five miles between Fleming and Jacksonville in America. If railway travel is to hold its j>wn with its modem competitors means will have to be found to increase the speeds. * * * .

It would be unfair to declare that no progress has been made in railway travel during the last SO years or so. There has been progress. This may be realised by the queer system m vogu« when Queen Victoria was wont to travel to Windsor by train in the forties and fifties of last century. Ensconced in the Royal Saloon, comparable with a modern guard’s van for a goods train, the Queen was determined that sue should have a say in the coatrol of the proceedings. The Royal Saloon bore a semaphore on its roof. A porter was seated on a chair at the back of the coal tender with instructions wat 9“ the semaphore. If the Queen thought that the train was going too fast < ove r 20 m.p-h.), for she had a horror of speed, or if she thought it was time to stop for a while, an attendant worked the semaphore. The porter seated with his back to the engine noted its message and the Royal instructions were passed on to the engine driver who acted upon them. It is doubtful if even a King of England would be able to con trol a Royal train to-day at a moments notice.

A reader has kindly dug out the following interesting facts c^ UL ’ er ?!“f Mother Shipton. An abridged portion of the good woman’s prophecy was published in this column yesterday. There appears to be no doubt that Mother Shipton was a reality. She was regarded as a wise woman about the year 1530. She lived near Knaresboro, Yorkshire. In Stuart times there was n --meral belief in her predictions. Perhaps her two most famous predictions were that Cardinal Wolsey would not enter York on his last journev and that London would be destroyed. About 1862 a prophecy in doggerel Verse apneared under her name. Part of this was published as requested yesterday in this column Some 10 years later Charles Hindley confessed to the fraud, lhe doggerel in question appears to be a mixture of actual prophecies by Mother Slnpton and nartlv a mixture from the imagination Charles Hindley. When Mother Shipton died a stone was erected over her grave with the followinK epitaph:

Here lyes she who never ly’d. Whose skill often has been tried. Her prophecies shall still survive And ever keep her name alive.;