RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 225, 19 June 1936, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

(By Kickshaws.')

The only thing that ever seems to gc settled in Europe is the Davis Cup.

Dr. Spill, we note, has been protec - tively arrested at Dauzig by Storm Troopers. The idea, we take it,-is t-> prevent Dr. Spill coming a complete cropper.

The Hutt Railway Workshops, it is said, have started making radio set.. Their rail-cars have bagged the name of canoes; the radio sets will hav to seek inspiration in the mimes of politicians.

It is interesting to see that a sui ■ of £25,000,000 has been put aside b. the Italians to build roads in Abyssini as a prelude to settling a few peasant ; in that country. One cannot help feeling that for all the settling of a pei • manent nature that will result, tl.? colonisation of Abyssinia is going to ba severe drain upon Italian purse.-. Making roads will probably run awa.. with two or three times the sum mentioned before the job is finished. Mai; ing railways will run away with ten times that sum. It cost £400,000,00 ■ to give Argentine a railway syster Judging by the number of Italians wh emigrated to Eritrea and eisewher. the prospect will have to be mad ■ especially alluring for the total t ■ equal even a small proportion of Ita - ian "colonists” who live in other com - trios, such as the United States c America and elsewhere. The first jc > before colonisation can take place ito make the couutr” safe for colonist . Abyssinia does not appear to be wit! in sight of this state of affairs yet,. if we are to believe the news. That job will require a large army and a further expenditure of many millions. I’i the meantime Italy has to find mone to keep her own country in arms, mei munitions and a navy. Mussolini ha ■ only started.

One can trust Sydnev to provide th' world with whaling stories differer. from all accented whaling stories. Tn recent yarn about a whale that blocke up the'mouth of a river near Sydne and rocked a ferry boat is in keepin ; with Sydney whaling stories. In fac. Sydney will have to provide a revise Bullen to delight us with real harbou stories of whales. It is not as if Sydney whaling yarns were a new pheno menon. Ever since Sydney resident have had a harbour to boast abou whales have formed a delightful embroidery to their best fishing yarns. A . long ago as 1790, a midshipman am, three sailors of the Sirius were returning to their ship in a row-boat when whale rose under their boat and too them for a trip. Unfortunately th boat was subsequently capsized an three of the occupants were drownei In comparatively recent times Mi Norman Scott, of Cornulla, went for ride on the back of a whale. Not t be outdone another whale tried th same trick with the Manly Ferry. Th ferry boat, however, won and the whai was last seen heading for the open se with a nasty gash in its side. » ♦ ♦

The average reader will be a Httl nonplussed by the news yesterday tha quartz crystals suitable for radio habeen found in the British Empire These crystals are, nevertheless, or. of a number of scientific mysteries ths Nature has presented to us in workir form without any explanation at al We apply this particular gift c Nature whenever we desire to kee the wavelength of a radio station pai ticularly constant In fact, there i no better way of doing so. The pre pertv that makes this possible is ths certain types of quartz crystal can b made to vibrate, under electrical ii. fluence, at one definite frequence Nothing will make the particular cry? tai vibrate at any other frequency e? cept, to a small extent, a change i temperature. By cutting these crys tals to the thickness required and in eluding them in a radio transmittin circuit fitted with a thermostatic con trot the wavelength can be kept cor stant to one or less parts in severa million. The mystery is how th crystal contrives to vibrate physical! at the rate of many million times • second.

Mr. Justice Callan’s contention tha laughter is infectious is a fact so ob vious that the difficulty is to refrai: from laughing when one hears some one else laughing. It is a curious habit this laughing business, because Natui does not seem to have imparted it t'. other, animals. Indeed, the origin o laughter is unknown. Some say it i but a form of crying. Perhaps it 1 a vestigial remnant inherited from th angels, just as the human tail is * vestigial reminder of the lower am mals. Some declare that laughter i a form of convulsion. One has onl.' to watch a man listening to a funn; story to realise the complicated emotion* of laughter. The jnaxillarj muscles tighten, the muscles of th' lip and tongue relax. The eyes be come puckered, and in the case o: very funny stories the ears wobble This is the infectious period. If the teller of the funny srory does no. laugh and spoil the effect the culminn tion of the story so reacts upon _th( listener that he goes into a convulsion his breath comes in gasps and he ar pears to be about to shout, but doe not. His stomach moves up and down and if we did not know that he wa. laughing we would call a doctor.

The curious thing about laughter r that it cau be brought on by so many different stimuli. A funny story is thaccepted method. One laughs, how ever, at the sight of a friend in gro tesque trouble. Indeed, in the war one laughed when the other fellow go* shelled or a machine gun turned or. him. A child laughs when it rttm away from danger into its mother’-.-arms. A man laughs when he hat discomfited his adversary. A woman smiles when she sees her rival wearing the wrong hat. if, indeed, she doe: not laugh outright if the wearer cannot hear her. A baby laughs if yon tickie its toes, but only after a cer tain age. Pathos in the wrong place makes an audience laugh, but it is :■ different laugh from the laugh caused by a funny story. Despite all this, nothing reveals why we laugh. Pos sibly it is a state of mind. Certainly the humour of one nation will not always draw a laugh whe presented to a person of another nation. Moreover, as we grow older we laugh at different things and stop laughing at things that made us roar when we were children. There is nothing so infectious as a laugh—except perhaps a yawn, the very antithesis of laughter.

“Having l»een a very interested reader of your column for some years, and having seen you settle arguments’ for other readers. I wonder if you could help me?” says “C.G.H.W.” “A friend and myself cannot agree whether or not the American film comedian Oliver Hardy (of Laurel and Hardy fame) is dead.” [The answer is in the negative—he is alive.]