RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 247, 16 July 1935, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

(By Kickshaws.')

* According to one expert women, should run their homes by yule of thumb. Many husbands will notice no difference.

The leader of tlie Croix de Feu is reported to have swallowed his words. They must be half baked by now.

Mussolini, we understand, is content not to start a war against Abyssinia if he can get it without one

The individual who lost tlie return half of his ticket home at Trentham recently, and had it returned in time to catch tlie train, probably thanked his lucky stars. But stars have had to be thanked for even more curious luck than that. For example a member of the Syweil Aero Club took a friend for a flight over the place where be lives. The friend looked out, the wind caught his glasses and blew them away. Eighteen months later the glasses turned up, undamaged, in his own garden. There must be some guardian angel whose special duty it is to watch over lost property. In no other way can some of the coincidences be accounted for. The guardian angel played a curious trick on a salmon packer of Vancouver. For a joke be put his name and address on a slip inside a tin of salmon. The tin was subsequently bought and the note found by a woman in Toronto whom the salmon packer had married bigamously three years before. She had been wanting his address ever since. Yet if one wanted a coincidence to happen, it most probably wouldn’t.

Readers may perhaps care to give instances of curious coincidences whereby lost things have been found. There must bo numerous instances in New Zealand. Indeed it is said that a missing wooden leg belonging to one New Zealander eventually turned up in a wool bale in London. Here is a curiosity that will take some beating. A man, a Dr. Dick of Diamond Creek, was once out riding. He left his riding switch behind at a smithy where he was having his horse shod. Thirtyfive years after he came back. Remembering his lost switch he asked if by any chance anyone had picked it up. The owner of the smithy, now a garage, took him behind and invited him to pluck a grape off a flourishing vine. The man commented on the lusciousness of the fruit. “Well,” said the owner of the garage, “you have to thank your switch for that—my father realised that it was a vine cutting and planted it—that grape vine is your switch.” The owner of the switch was content to leave his switch where it grew. In another case a Mrs. Jane McLellan lost 50 dollars in. Ottawa. She inserted an advertisement reporting her loss. Next morning two different finders sent her back 50 dollars each.

Well here’s luck to the lad who has set out to seek bis fortune in Torres Straits in a bath tub. After all, there is very little difference between a bath tub and a coracle. When Julius Caesar arrived in England bath tubs, or something very similar, habitually put to sea in the search for fish. Those ancient coracles were as sound as a bath tub and quite as cranky. Yet they have survived the centuries, and to this day may be seen unchanged, braving ,the rivers of Wales. Indeed the coracle is more a basket than a bath tub. If fortunes have been made in basket craft the good old bath tub stands a sporting chance. Indeed, in the history of Australian marine heroism a bath tub once came near to saving the life of a brave woman. Moreover, a far crazier craft than a bath tub carried the castaways of Disappointment Island to the mainland and a food depot. Their craft, made of gnarled and twisted roots, may be seen to this day in a South Island museum. These days of liners, we have got too particular about our methods of transport across the seas.

* ¥ » It is probable that the first man to cross the English Channel did so on a log of wood. The first man to discover New Zealand, whoever he may have been, probably arrived in a canoe that was little better than a log. Even to-day small craft can carry human life right round "the world and a row boat has actually been rowed across the North Atlantic. If wi? had had to wait for luxury liners to get us there, the world would be a thousand years behind. The ebb and flow of population that laid the foundations of subsequent civilisations got to their destinations in craft just as cranky as a bath tub. Indeed, if bath tubs had been invented at that period no doubt they would have been hailed with acclamation. The Pacific might have beeu populated by means of bath tubs instead of dug out tree trunks. India might have been discovered by sea in a bath tub instead qf by some frail craft from the Mediterranean.

Tlie Comte de Paris, it is reported, lias issued an appeal for national unity. Presumably someone will find time to listen to his appeal, for his father, but for the unhappy hammerings of fate, would be a King of France. At least his followers say so. Anyway, they take these things seriously in some circles. There was much concern, indeed, because the Due de Guise had only one son. The direct line of the French royal family was in danger of extinction. Fortunately, the Comte de Paris remedied matters by presenting his followers with a son ami heir a couple of years ago. In due course this new baby will be known as Henry A I of France. Henry VI of France will, however, find himself in a curious position. He is destined to own the largest house in France. Yet he will never be allowed to set foot in France. lie will be the head of a royal family which modestly claims five thrones, yet no longer possesses even one. But Franco has several claimants to her non-existent throne. There is. for example, a King Charles Nil of France.

One curious thing about the ex-kings of France, and, for that matter, many other countries, is that they delight to set up their royal courts in England. The last Pretender, the Due d’Orleans, in fact, .resided permanently in England. At one time ho owned both Aqrk House. Twickenham, and AVbod Norton. AVarwickshire. Ex-kings may lose their thrones, but they always spent to keep their eash. There he lived in regal state. Moreover, he made local squires wear knee breeches when they dined with him. The present Due de Guise sought a similar estate a year ago in England, when the French authorities objected to him sitting on the Franco-Belgian frontier. Tlie Due <le Guise, as King John HI. narrowly missed being King of France owing to a quibble on the part of his fathel regarding the design of a flag. Sixty years ago or more, his aticestor, the Count of Clmmhonl. then head <>f the From*. Royal House, was offo'vd H e crown. He refused, however, to rule under the tricolour, and demanded a white flag with golden lilies. The French Parliament turned down the request and can.celled !their_<fgac»..