RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 303, 18 September 1936, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaw?.! Anyway, this new housing scheme has solved how to make two plants grow where only one grew before. •• . * This idea of automatically reviving drivers of motor-cars with a brandy spray is calculated to make pedestrians jealous. What is most wanted at the moment in Australia Is some crook who knows how to pick a dead-lock. McMahon’s disclosures in his trial may, or may not, be true. The fact is, that those whose duty it is to guard the King receive many such warnings, but very few of them are founded 01/fact. Included in the correspondence there has been regularly every day since 1922 a letter containing a scriptural text, usually from the Book of Revelation. These letters usually come from Glasgow. All efforts to discover what was behind these letters has. failed. Another letter comes regularly from Hamburg, containing a one-hun-dred mark note. These letters and those bearing on the personal safety of the King are always handed over to Scotland Yard. One such letter not long ago warned the' King, who was then Prince of Wales, that he was in deadly danger. Three foreigners were plotting his life. Investigation proved that the warning came from a frail lady of seventy, who had seen three foreigners . talking together and had. overheard “Prince of Wales,” a popular name for a public-house. McMahon is by no means the first individual to claim to have sent warnings about the safety of a King of England. Passionate patriots, often a little eccentric, are continually doing so. Almost every week one such letter is received by the authorities. Anonymous letters of a threatening nature also are received regularly Not one of these letters is ever ignored. Investigation, however, has never produced anything of a startling nature. The experts who guard the King have come to regard dire threats of this nature as all in the day’s routine. These letter writers are usually eccentric individuals, and when the origin of the letters is traced the Writers are warned' that the letters must stop. In every case they have obeyed the warning. Nevertheless, there is still one persistent letter-writer who has never been discovered. He, or she, sends regularly a package containing an old newspaper 1 , a piece of string, and a few shreds of coarse tobacco. • ♦ The description and'picture of a plant that looks like a sheep makes one wonder what plants won’t do. The truth is that they seem well able to do almost anything that is usually done in another way. The vegetable sheep, for example, has its counterpart in the vegetable caterpillar. Not that either of these efforts is any use. There are trees, however, that set up as a sort of unofficial unlicensed brew ery. In Paraguay the Guatoan Indians cultivate the Akuri palm for its intoxicating drink. The sap quickly turns into a sort of beer as soon as it is collected. An old Neem tree at Myingan, Burma, has even gone so far as to distill whisky. The Sap tastes exactly like whisky and is nearly as intoxicating. Those on the water wagon are provided for by the rain tree of Peru. This tree supplies some 15 gallons of water daily from the atmosphere whether it has rained for a month or not. Whether one wants a light or to catch a lion, there is a plant somewhere in the world able to do this, or almost anything else. The South African grapple plant will catch a lion and kill the brute. In Madagascar there is reputed to be a plant that eats men. In New Zealand, at any rate, we have a tree that catches and assimilates birds. The latest addition to the aquarium at Blackpool, England, has been a flower that eats fish. A Javanese flower, moreover, lures mice into its interior, drowns them in fluid, and eats them. This goes one better than any man-made mousetrap. There Is a plant in Arabia that possesses all the properties of laughing gas, and at Kew, England, one may see the burning bush in action. This shrub exudes a sort Of petrol. When a match is applied a brilliant scarlet flame runs up the plant without harming it. There are, moreover, many types of luminous shrubs. The natives of Simla declare that at night at certain seasons the mountain slopes are illuminated by a magical herb that glows in the dark. Investigation has given ground to believe that some species of Dictamnus is the source of the illumination.

If the Minister of Education really z does abolish the examination system he will have achieved something that has never been done before anywhere in the world. The 19th or the 20th century is not the culprit as regards the stupid system of examination in vogue. Examinations were being held in China in 1000 8.C., when we were all wearing woad ,in Britain. Even then we no doubt had our examination troubles in that country. Anyway, in China in those far-off days the examination system had attained a sort of excelsis. Those who passed could not lay aside their examination minds, because they had to submit to periodic tests all their lives. This system in China lasted nearly 3000 years, only being abolished af the beginning of this century. Labour enthusiasts may perhaps be interested to know that the system of examination in vogue in New Zealand was originally due to the apprenticeship system in Europe. No one was admitted into his “guild” until he had shown that he could do his job. * * * “I think you are mistaken in saying that Llewelyn found his infant son dead," says “You Know Who” regarding the Gelert legend. “When I was at school, as a very small boy I had to learn by heart a piece of poetry called ‘Bethgelert,’ and in August, 1877, when on a walking tour in North Wales I visited the shrine, which was just opposite the hotel whore we had lunch. The matter never crossed my mind again till I read your notes recently. I cannot remember the earlier verse or verses, but when Llewelyn returned from hunting he was met by Gelert, whose jaws were covered with blood. He found that his infant son had gone from the couch where he had left him. and jumped to the conclusion that Gelert had killed him.” * * * The following extract from the verses sent, by “You Know Who” is the one that confirms his contention:— Aroused by Gelert’s dying yell. Some slumberer wakened nigh, What joy the father’s heart can tell, To hear his infant’s cry.