RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 182, 30 April 1936, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events , (By Kickshaws.) Efforts are being made in America to increase the use of silver. Possibly it is time that the clouds were relined. Owing to New Zealand’s ban on Australian citrus fruit many areas have become unproductive. Our nicest answer, it would seem, would be a lemon. # • * We note that the Supreme Court is being painted a nice cream, because, after all if would be unthinkable that the Courts of Justice required whitewashing. ♦ ♦ * “Would Kickshaws kindly advise A. S. Paterson that we are pleased to see ‘Gardner’ has returned full, as usual, of brilliant ideas—to wit, the suggested fish-head trail?” says ‘Flotsam.” “Moreover, on Friday he was an interested spectator of friendly football. We were most anxious about him. When last seen he was fleeing for his life, with a huge dog in hot pursuit, the occasion being the breakdown of Gardner’s dog-catching device; owing, no doubt, to the brute strength of the said huge dog. Also we should like to know: Is Lucy defunct or just moulting?” [Lucy, we understand unconfirmedly, is suffering from egoistical statistics.] * * ♦ So much attention is focused upon France’s Devil’s Island that it mgy have come as a surprise to readers when they read that America has one of her own. Indeed, if we had read that the prisoner who tried to escape from Alcatraz prison had actually done so the age of miracles would not have passed. This health resort consists of some 12 acres of rocky island in San Francisco Bay. The prison has been fitted out with such staggering scientific devices to keep prisoners from escaping that it is inconceivable that such a thing could happen. The island is separated from the shore by a bare mile and a half of water, but the currents are so treacherous that swimming would be out of the question for all but the strongest swimmers. The chief difficulty would be to escape as far as the water. For one thing, the island for the most part is surrounded by high cliffs difficult to negotiate at. the best of times. The ingenuity of prison experts has made them all the more difficult. A prisoner who, by some miracle, negotiated the artificial deterrents in the prison itself would almost certainly meet his end before he got down to the sea.

The cells in America’s Devil’s Island prison are all made of tool-proof steel. The window guards are made of the same material. . All cell doors are locked by remote control. In the dining room gas spray devices are capable of quelling trouble. When prisoners march from one building to another two men are required to open the doors through which they pass. These two men are separated by a steel door containing a window of bullet-proof glass. Before the key can turn in the lock one man has to move a lever and the other to push a button. They can see one another and talk by means of loudspeakers. A prisoner could not reach both men, and it would be a physical impossibility for anyone to force his way out. The key alone is not capable of opening the door. Visitors who enter the prison are searched for arms by a concealed electrical detector. Prisoners are also searched daily in the same manner. A prisoner who by some miracle made good his escape from the -prison itself is confronted with the fact that four towers command the entire island. Moreover, a wall 20 feet high surrounds the prison. All approaches to the shore are guarded by fences and barbed wire entanglements. Al Capone, one might add, is now a guest in this prison.

It is understandable, as a visitor' states, that in every town in Germany all the streets are being renamed in Hitlereeqne fashion. It has never been easy to find suitable names for streets. For lack of anything more suitable past, and in some cases present, statesmen have proved a happy source of inspiration. Although we have never had a Hitler in Wellington, we, too, have public men whom we considered worthy of being converted into streets. Have we not our Grey Street, our Bowen Street, and our Hobson Street? Berlin itself has always been proof that the Germans are very lavish with the street honours they extend to their great statesmen. One is at times led to believe that the supply must have seriously fallen short of the demand. Otherwise it is difficult to understand why there Should have been 30 Bismarck streets in the one city and no less than 20 Wilhelmstrasses. Over emphasis, more often than not, has quite the opposite effect to that which was intended.

Mrs. Pendergast, of Pendercourt. Benambra, Victoria, we are told, has knitted 2000 pairs of socks in 20 years. As this works out at a pair of socks every three days or so there is little doubt that Mrs. Pendergast of Pendercourt has never stopped knitting socks for 20 years Mrs. Pendergast is entitled to be complimented on the feat of providing so frequently such a prodigious array of feet with socks. But there are other world toilers who also should not be neglected. Only a couple of years ago in the annual report of x the Smith Family it was mentioned that Mrs. Hope Smith, of Wellington city, had made over 1000 garments for distribution in a period of one year. It is not known if this average will be kept up for 20 years. If it is, Mrs. Pendergast has a worthy competitor Perhaps we ought to mention honourably the output of a woman who lived in Sbepperton, England. This woman’s record does not put up so sensational an average, but it is worthy of record that she made one shirt a day for no less than 1500 days. Sister Susie, who sewed so actively in the war, so they say who saw her sew so. is exceedingly shirty to think that .she has been eclipsed. The homely records, some of which were mentioned in the paragraph above this one. are not entirely confined to women. There is, for example, that well-known figure of the Rhine. Simon Baum, who has made it a life’s work to row on that river. He has now amassed a prodigious total of miles to his credit “Father Rhine," as he is known locally, has rowed no less than 23,000 miles on his river since his fiftieth birthday. Perhaps there is little publie mefit in rowing. Few will deny, however, that a Best Man is devoid of public merit. It is, therefore, with great pleasure that we draw attention to the fact that there are men so noble and unselfish that they have acted as Best Man for at least a score of happy marriages. Mr. Allen Webber, of Bournemouth, indeed, claimed a world record for 22 “Best-manships,” but it is understood there are New Zealanders with even better Gguree.