RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 41, 12 November 1936, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

Newspaper circulation in Russia, it is claimed, has increased enormously. Russia is the place where one would expect newspapers to be Red.

The present state of the world, says a speaker, is enough to make everyone think. Well, the world has something to its credit that education hasn’t.

Tilden declares that American tenuis professionals will murder Perry. One of those rackets, we take it, of which we hear sb much.

Regarding age records mentioned recently in this column, “R.D.” writes: "Here is a remarkable instance of old age, which might be capable of veriti cation. In 1926 died Nicolas Leibshensky (or a name somewhat like that in spelling), a Russian who was reputed to be of the age of 150 years, He had been (so the newspapers read) a corporal in the Russian Army when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia. His death occurred in Southern Russia. After driving to a store for tobacco, at Tiflis, sitting in a chair and filling his pipe, he quietly passed away. Even if 20 years were knocked off this big figure, it would leave him as one of the oldest, healthy men to the lust, in our time.”

One can hardly blame Perry for signing a contract for professional tennis involving a sum of £25,000 for himself. He was offered a similar sum only a year ago and turned it down .in order that Britain might win the Davis Cup. The truth is that only a very wealthy tennis star can afford to remain an amateur. Probably von Cramm will never turn professional because he has a private income as great as that of any professional. Ellsworth Vines, who turned "pro” some two years ago or more, declares that he has never regretted the step. In the first year he earned £20,000. Since then he has earned £50.000. “I hope to retire in ease at 30 years." be declared. After all, Suzanne Lenglen made £20,000 by the mere fact of turning professional. She received a guarantee of £12,000 and half the gate receipts for her American tour. Merely by playing for an extra night she added £lOOO to the total. What tennis star could turn down a proposition like that? In contrast. Mrs. Mallory, who turned down an offer of £20,000 to turn professional, now works in a shop because she needs the money.

Amateur tennis players who become stars discover that the task is not entirely a tennis problem. The financial problem is often the more formidable. Betty Nuthall, for example, spends £6OO a year on equipment and essential travel. Bunny Austin admitted that it cost him several hundreds a year to play the game. It has been estimated that the average unknown' tennis player who hopes to reach the centre court at Wimbledon must be reconciled to spending anything up to £2OOO before attaining that ambition. At the best an amateur tennis star cannot make more than £l5OO a year from the game. In most cases the total is under £5OO a year. Amateur stars can do this, or could, by writing articles, giving lectures and linking up with sports outfitters. Gradually these opportunities have been whittled down. Amateur stars ’may not, for example, take money for tennis films. The amateur game, not the stars, suffer in the end. Inevitably the tennis stars reach a stage where they have to decide between their personal financial interests and the interests of the game. One cannot blame a tennis star like Ferry for looking to the future. The amateur ranking, on the other hand, loses its topmost player of the ladder.

The construction by the Japanese of an aeroplane capable of flying round the world at the Equator in hops of 8.000 miles makes it possible in theory to do the trip in three hops. This flight is about the only one that has yet to lie accomplished if we except a flight from the east coast of New Zealand to the west coast —via the ocean. Even with an aeroplane capable of flying 8,000 miles without refuelling an equatorial flight is not a simple thing. The best starting point would appear to be some spot in Equatorial Africa. Libreville might be suitable. It would be possible from there to cross Africa ami the Indian Ocean in oue bop. arriving by the grace of God at Java. I’liis would extend the machine to its last drop of petrol and for that reason a puff or so of adverse weather conditions would spell disaster. The only islands on the way are the Maldives. If the machine managed to reach Java non-stop the next leg would lie just as hazardous and the one after even more so. From Java the pilot could make for Baker, or any other suitable island. Thence across an almost empty ocean to Quito :n Ecuador. The rest would be easy, a mere 5,000 miles or so across South America and the Atlantic to the African coast.

Before the Equator is flown in three hops an aeroplane will have to be built with a capacity of well over 8,000 miles. The theoretical distance round the Equator is about 24,000 miles, but the actual distance it would be necessary to fly works out at about 28.000 miles at the minimum. There have been already tentative proposals to make this flight, but so far nothing, fortunately, has come of the projects. Roscoe Turner planned such a flight. He planned to make the flight at 400 miles au hour in the stratosphere. Moliison also had a scheme, but. perhaps wisely, it has never been followed up. The publicity that has so far been given to so-called round-the-world flights has been directed to flights that did not girdle the world at its greatest bulge. The distances are considerably less the nearer one gets to the poles, until at the pole one could walk round the world in three steps. The first rouml-tlie-worbl flight actually took place in 1924. Out of seven official machines belonging to the United States of America tw > limped home haring completed the trip. It was not, however, an equatorial flight. Kingsford Smith came nearest to a genuine round-the-world flight in 1929, but he did the trip in easy stages.

“Could you inform me through your interesting column if anyone survived the wreck of the Titanic and if it is known for certain that she struck an iceberg?” asks “F.W.F.” [The Titanic struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. according to the finding of the cotr t of inquiry. The vessel struck Hie iceberg a glancing blow, strip ping off tier bilge for practic.-ilb the whole length. There were 711 survivors. About 1500 persons were drowned, or lost their lives.)