RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 33, 2 November 1934, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.) Success is claimed for the new pedestrian crossing scheme in London. That should put motorists on their mettle. We understand that Frank Shield r the American tennis player who ha? just signed a film contract, is a great believer in net returns. ♦ » * The Mexican attorney-general ha»been instructed to- produce charges against everyone plotting to overthrow the Government by force. In Mexico charges of this nature usually result in a series of reports. » * * To-day’s dog story:

“A certain bachelor friend of mine was the proud owner of a dog,” says “Fishy.” “Now, this dog, being of a nice manner, was allowed to sleep in-' doors of nights, particularly when hismaster was out. Its usual restingplace was the hearthrug. One night when the master returned he found ‘doggie’ asleep in his favourite chair. The dog, being an intelligent one. wav peremptorily told not to do so againThe next time master had occasion to pay a visit, he came home to find the dog lying calmly on the hearthrug, but with rather a guilty look in his eye. His master was suspicious, so felt the chair seat, and found it warm. The poor dog took his thrashing without a whimper. Once more master went a-visiting, but came home a little earlier than usual. Instead of entering by the front door, he came round to the back and looked in through the window. His dog had two front paws on the edge of the chair and was blowing the seat to cool it”

The wolf child in India who has died at an orphanage after fruitless efforts to civilise her is no outstanding instance. There have been many wolf children and not all of them in India. To this day, there lives in a village in West Bengal a half-wolf, half-human native child. She was dug up from a wolf’s lair. As a matter of fact, two little girls were found, one aged eight and the other two. It is the elder of these two girls that -has just died. In most cases the children are carried off by female wolves. A male wolf child was discovered in the Agra district sitting beside a wolf at the entrance to its burrow. In this case, the child was, taken to a missionary at Secundra and lived for another 25 years or more. During all those years he could never be taught to stand upright, to speak, or to behave like a human being. His food consisted entirely of raw meat—the dirtier the better.

Wolves are not the only animals that carry away human children and rear them. There are numerous instances of apes having carried off young children, especially girls, and in some cases leopards have been known to do so. A creature that at first was taken for an ape was found in a colony in the Naini Tai district in India. Thinking they had discovered a missing link, the specimen was captured. To the surprise of the hunters it was found to have vaccination marks. Later, it transpired that it was a young girl that had been abandoned in infancy and had been saved by a female ape. There is another authentic story of a negro girl who was carried off by apes during a raid on her village. She was reared by the apes after their own fashion, being fed on nuts and berries. When found, her arms and legs were specially developed for jumping tyid swinging from tree to tree, at which she was astoundingly adept. "Jan,” a boy who was reared by baboons in Cape Colony, actually used to relate his experiences after he was brought back to civilised life. The arch enemies of the baboons, he said, were leopards. His food, like the other baboons’, consisted, mostly of roots, rats, frogs, and insects. It' may be true, as has been claimed that government in New Zealand consists in sitting back and reading the report's of innumerable commissions. Be that as it may; the fact remains that the commissions do report. Strange as it seems this is by no means always the case in England. It may come as a surprise to some people to know that tho Royal. Conv mission for the 1851 Exhibition is still sitting- Admittedly the original members of the commission are now deno. but the commission lives on as a permanent commission. There was indeed an instance in England of a commission sitting to consider commissions. Eventually it issued a report to the effect that commissions were exccUem institutions. As the mAnbers, even m New Zealand, are paid anything up to a thousand pounds, one can well see its virtues. Just before the Labour Government in England resigned, two or three years ago. it was revealed that no fewer than 70 commissions had bee-' set up since they took office, and so far only 17 had reported.

While on the subject of commissions it is stated from a totally unreliablesource that once a commission was set up to decide what was the oldest profession, that of a surgeon, an architect or a politician. The commission, which consisted of one from each profession. sat for many months and debated the problem with due dignity. The surgeon claimed that his profession was the oldest because Eve was made from Adam's rib. A report was about to be tabled to this effect when, after several months’ thought. *the architect woke up and said, “But long before the adveut of Adam order was made out of .chaos. That was architecture.” The politician was put on his mettle. The architect had scarcely finished speaking when, after a pause of a month or two, the politician referring to the matter said he wished to bring conclusive proof that his profession was by far the oldest. “You say,” he said, turning to the architect, “that architecture is the oldest profession because it made order out of chaos. Admittedly—but who created the chaos?” The birds are saying by-by to the bylaws says a reader in thtxfollowuig amusing piece of verse:— Through the- clatter and crash of the masonry fall, From what was once stately though but a Town Hall. Heard from the house tops the sparrow’s pet cry: Why for by by-law my parapets pryHeard from the cage ways the pet parrot’s squeals: Bats must have belfries, with bells that have peals. And what will poor pigeon do now? ■Where shall he go, and how. . —g.Q.ii.