RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 46, 18 November 1936, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.) The Hon. Alexander Shaw declares that British shipping must not be allowed to drift. Especially on a lee shore. v V Women, it is contended, are keener go-getters than men. Well, yes. they are after a fashion. # « * We note that a scientist in America is determined to prove once and for all that man is not descended from the monkeys. This, we understand, will finallv vindicate the monkeys. *■ * * * If it costs about £2OO to fly home from, England for the shearing season in New Zealand, the custom will not become popular among itinerant farmers of the Empire. One can do the trip bv steamship for one-tilth the cost. High as this cost seems to be, it works out, after all. at only about fid. a mile. On that score the aeroplane can do the journey cheaper than the average motor-car. It is. moreover, cheaper to travel by air in a private machine than it is to walk from England. Walking is a most expensive method of covering long distances. It is not so much the walking as the fuel reQuired that is costly. Any would-be walker from England to New Zealand would certainly have to allow two years for the trip. A modest allowance for food and housing tor the period would be over £l6O. Other incidentals would bring the total to well over the cost of an aeroplane journey. A further complication of walking is the uncertainty of the itinerary. The chances are that one would enfl up in inner-Mongolia or in a tiger. Running costs of private aeroplanes, it has been stated, work out at little more than that of a car. This is probably correct up to a point. It has been stated, for example, that a Moth costs about one penny a mile to run. There are, however, other expenses in the case of aeroplanes that the car either does not have or only in a less degree. Incidentals run away with a lot of money, especially on a long .flight. Experts have produced summaries for the cost of a year's flying involving 16,000 miles. Petrol and oil will run away with about £7O. Garaging will account for at least £45. Maintenance will cost at least £3O. Incidentals are a difficult item, but they have been put at £25. Insurance is high compared with cars, costing perhaps £75. This gives a total for 16,000 miles of £245. The summary has not been worked out for long flights, but for a series of short flights. Costs for long flights depend to a large extent upon the route, the countries traversed and any special sums that have to be set aside to meet contingencies, such as desert flying. » » ♦ “London has spread out and the little villages that surround it have been swallowed up,” complains a New Zealander, who has just returned from his second trip with au interval of 23 years. It is the age-old complaint. One can imagine the man who erected the first crude landing stage on the river where is now London, complaining bitterly about the rows of huts that appeared within his own life-time. There was no peace left in the place. There were people everywhere. As long ago as A.D. 61, Tacitus almost complains that London was "crowded with traders.” All this had come about in a brief 25 years. At that time London was full of little hollows and little rivers. For 1500 years the dwellers in London contrived to level out the hollows by dumping in them all their rubbish. What complaints there must have been about the changes going on. One can imagine “Anti-dump” writing to his editor in Tudor days complaining bitterly about the covering up of the beauty spots. Then came the street builders and covered up London’s rivers, until to-day only the Thames remains above ground. » * • The fate of London's rivers w T as to become drains. Visitors who delighted In the 11 little rivulets that sped merrily into the Thames, between Brentford and the mouth of the Lea, no doubt complained as bitterly on their disappearance as do modern visitors concerning the growth of London. Then the old inns started to disappear. Visitors who favoured "Tobit’s Dog Inn,” or the "Telescope and Spectacles,” found to their horror that they no longer were there at all. One had to put up with modern horrors of the times with gas and no drainage. By that time visitors discovered that London really was getting out of hand. The tiny village of Kensington was almost London. The little villages within a few miles of London were all becoming little more than names. A visitor who came back after 25 years would deplore exactly what is being deplored on a larger scale to-day. The farms he knew within a mile or two of London were farms no longer. Today, just beyond the edge of Hampstead toward Cricklewood, stands all that remains of the last farm within five miles of Charing Cross. "Cowhouse Farm,” a farmstead since the 14th century, is now largely playing fields. The tiled barns went a year or so ago, and modern road-making demolished the carriage gates and drive. « « • It is not only visitors who have lamented the changes that are always apparent in London, Not even a Queen of England has been able to stay the progress. Queen Elizabeth was bo concerned at the way Loudon was growing that she passed an Act that no more buildings were to be built. Possibly, London paused for a brief while in recognition of the edict of a Queen of England. But it was only a pause. The hammer was stayed in mld-alr, the carpenter merely sharpened his tools. The bricklayer had a rest A queen could not call a halt to London. It may be that the time will not be far distant when Ixmdon will be synonymous with England. We shall have people complaining that England is all London, and one cannot see tlie woods tor the houses. There is a coalescing going on tn amt around txmdon. There are houses almost from Margate to Southampton. The South Coast Is lined with little seaside cottages, -easide villages have stifling up and grown into towns, and even cities. Business men have been consolidating the inland areas with week-end shacks that may contain anything up to two dozen rooms. All will soon be London. “Could you tell me if the pyjama girl's murder case was done in Albury or Albany in Australia?” asks “A Reader ” [Albury.] 4 * v Mr. Clark Came after dark. But Clark was able To find his gable. —E.H.F.