RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 208, 30 May 1936, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

A visitor to America says that there are more marriages in Reno than divorces. Reno seems to have solved itself. The experts have got busy enough on Joey’s stomach, but nobody seems to have had a look at his heart to see if it was broken. » » » We note that Mussolini says he will observe treaties of friendship, but what about that one of “perpetual friendship” he contracted in 1928 with his friend, Selassie?

“L.DP.” writes: “About four or five Saturdays ago, there appeared in ‘The Dominion’ a book review of the life of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns. The book was written bj' a German author, and I neglected to make a note of his name. Would you do me the honour of publishing the name of the author in .vour daily column? You printed in your column one day last year a very choice schoolboy howler, but someone tore it out of the paper before I could get it for myself. I think that the date of the paper was the Saturday after ‘Guy Fawkes Day.’ and the howler was near the bottom of the page: ‘One day Sir Walter Raleigh was walking in Coventry, and saw a lady who was riding on a horse. He handed her bis cloak to put around her, etc.’ I would be very much obliged if you would repeat this howler in full.” *

Here is the “howler” asked for by “L.D.P.”: “Sir Walter Raleigh was walking one day through the streets of Coventry. He was surprised to see a naked lady riding a horse. He was about to turn away, when he recognised the rider as none other than Queen Elizabeth. Quickly throwing off his richly-embroidered cloak, he placed it reverently around her, saying, as he did so, ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ which meant, ‘thy need is greater than mine.’ Thereupon the Queen thanked Sir Walter, saying: ‘Dietl et mon droit,' which means: ‘My God and you’re right.’ ”

It was interesting to read in the motoring page yesterday that, thanks to a special steel, surfaces could be made so smooth and hard that we were on the verge of motor-cars that would never wear out. It would appear to be pure luck that our standards of smoothness and that necessary for long wear overlap. The real truth is that there is nothing smooth. In the final examination, the surface of a mirror very closely resembles a ploughed field. The ridges, however, are so small, that light is reflected from them evenly. In the case of a butterfly’s wing, the surface is not so smooth, and light, when reflected from it, is broken up into pretty colours. When one presses standards further still, it can be shown that the surface of an object is not only rougher than a ploughed field, but it is never still. There are ripples moving on the smoothest surface, just as there are on a liquid. Nothing can be done to improve matters, because we have got down to the very stuff of which matter is made. It is just pure luck that, from an engineering point of view, the comparative smoothness of rough things gives satisfactory service in bearings and cylinders.

Claims that the toll of road accidents is worse than war are by no means to be taken as mere exaggeration. One has only to make one or two comparisons to realise the truth of the contention. Even in the case of the Great War, the two are comparable. The death roll from motor accidents in Britain is roughly 20 persons a day or 7000 a year in round figures. In 12 years of peace after the Great War 1,400,000 persons were killed or injured in road accidents in that country. This number represents halt the British casualties in the war. The fact that the mechanised massacre of British people in the Great War managed in four years to account for more people than 12 years of motoring in Britain does not mean that the casualties on the road have ended, like the war to end war. The road casualties continue always. . In the Battle of Waterloo, the victors suffered 10,000 casualties. This number of casualties occurs in any great city such as Loudon in three months. Moreover, the total lives lost in Britain from motor accidents during the last quarter of a century roughly equals Britain’s toll in the Great War.

When one starts to make comparisons with the toll taken in past wars and with the toll of the rond to-day, it becomes evident that If we ignore the Great War, when killing was reduced to an art, the motor is by far the more deadly. The South African War. tor example, lasted a little more than two and a half years. During that period 78C0 officers and men died from wounds and sickness each ye<ir. Just under 12,000 men were wounded. In the year 1930 in Britain 7305 people were killed on the roads, and 177,595 were injured. In that one year the total road casualties were roughly nine times the annual casualties in the South African War. Another aspect of the toll_ of the road is that the cost of dealing with the accidents has mounted in Britain to just under £500,000 a year. The wards, moreover, have tended to become so congested from road accidents that there is often no room for other cases. It would appear as if it will soon be necessary to erect special hospitals for road accidents, as well as special roads on which to have the accidents.

Although we have introduced elements of sudden death and injury that were unheard of even 100 years ago, it is a curious fact that the percentage of deaths attributable to such factors lias not risen as much as might bi' imagined. The figures stand at the moment at just over three per cent, as against just under three per cent, in tlie Medieval Age. Naturally, comparisons cannot be made with the accuracy that is usual to-day. Nevertheless, it docs show that every age has its dangers, but no age is tuueb worse than another. We are more lawful these days. If the road is the chief culprit to-day, the chances of a knock on the head were greater a few hundred years ago. One has only to visit an old castle in Britain and observe the methods employed to dump unwanted personalities to realise that life in more distant times was cheaper than it is to-day. It was once easier not to have to account for an individual than it is now. wlien we nil sign on dotted lines. We have eliminated one danger only to introduce others. Meanwhile, war continues to take toll in much the same manner century after century. The total deaths attributable to war for the last 2000 years or so has been estimated at 7COO million, nearly four times the present population of the world.