RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 159, 2 April 1937, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

( By Kickshaws.)

It seems that nobody knows now April Fool’s Day started. We suspect it came just before April 2 began.

The crew of the flying clipper, we note, has been invited to be tlie guests of the Government at a reception. Now that Mr. Savage has gone, Mr. Fraser will have to face the Musick.

The tuatara, it is stated, has solved how to live slowly for a very long tjvw. The reason, we understand, is that when the tuatara wants to get to the other side it doesn’t have to cross the street.

“Your column is an ever-constant source of information to us. and your knowledge seems profound,” says "A Reader.” “Where you obtain it all is a mystery. Your notes regarding Easter are very enlightening and my mind is carried back to the year 1910. If my memory serves me right, Easter in that year was celebrated on Marcli 20. Certainly I believe that there was a great deal of controversy afterwards, and it was generally thought that a mistake had been made and that Easter should have been celebrated a month later. Perhaps you can correct my memory.”

[lf anyone celebrated Easter on March 20 in 1910 they certainly made a mistake. The correct date was Marcli 27 for Easter Sunday. "The Dominion.” according to custom, did not publish on Good Friday, March 251.

The lion that recently ate its dinner, sacks and all, and had to have an operation to have the sacks removed is by no means the first inmate of a zoo to find itself on the operating table. A few years ago a pet bear at the Gunnery School, Portsmouth, developed toothache and duly found itself ou a special operating table sent down from the London Zoo. After being chlori" formed the troublesome teeth were extracted. When measured they were found to be over three inches long. Broken legs are by no means uncommon in zoos. Treatment has been given ami cures effected in a variety of legs as far apart as those of a small bird to those of an elephant. In the last case, a special splint had to be designed to keep the leg bones in position while Jumbo hobbled around, so to speak, on crutches. Even snakes have operations performed upon them. In one case a boa constrictor was given a glass eye with eminent success, the only trouble being that when the snake shed its skin, which it did several times a year, it also shed the glass eye.

Mr. George Skeet, who has just died in a small English village, has been referred to as “Britain’s most wonderful father,” in that he has left behind a son of five years and another aged 69 years. It is this sort of thing Hint makes Zara Agha turn in his grave. Zara was not content with a more two matrimonial ventures, having taken unto himself a modest 11 wives, the last being a round century his junior. The result is that when he (lied he had a family of 36 that ranged in age from 60 years to rising 120 years or so. Even so, Zara cannot claim any record. Lee Tsing-Yun. who passed away, somewhat prematurely, last year at the tender age of 250 years, married 14 wives and left behind a family strung out between 20 years and, so some say, 200 years. His last wife incidentally, was his junior by 90 years. “Hassan the Prophet.” who fought against Lord Roberts at Kandahar, claimed 30 wives and a family whose ages arc in keeping with his matromoninl adventures. Jake Shell, nearly as old as Uncle Sam himself, departed this life in Kentucky, U.S.A., leaving behind among 200 descendants a son aged seven years and one aged 90 years.

Those who wish to set new records for family age limits should study the case of Zapara Kiut. It cannot be entirely pleasant to be doomed to watch one’s family dying one by one of old age. This Caucasian soldier, it must be admitted, claims to have been drunk for the last 130 years, and his sorrows perhaps are not as poignant as they might be. He married first about 1817, when he was a youngster of 33 years. His wife was 10 years old. She bore him 24 children, the last arriving when he was 66 years old. For 46 years he has been a widower watching his 75 grandchildren die of old age. In addition to his legitimate children Zapara Kiut subsequently made up deficiencies In the ever-deereasing ranks by illegitimate increments by various Abkhasian damsels. His 34th and last child was born in 1884. when Zapara was a mere 100 years old. It is probable that this old fellow ean Claim the greatest age variation of any family in the world.

It simply had to happen that after a rough passage the yacht Ngataki arrived safelv at Auckland with a Buffet and a Beere aboard. It Is presumably on the same, principle that Donald Duck, of North Dakota, U.S.A., was christened by A. Henn, the local pastor. Over in Australia we note that three or four years ago Mr. Drinkmilk was giving evidence concerning a dairy business, much to the suspicion of the judge. It is by no means uncommon for drinkers to become associated, because not long ago Drinkwater and Stout officiated at one of those delightful weddings at which the bride looked charming, assisted by a bridesmaid named Beer. What strange coincidence brings these folk together. It cannot always be arranged. There was no arrangement when nt a recent Diocesan Synod in Wellington Bishop, Priest and Parsons met together to discuss matters. It was no more than coincidence that many years ago n well-known Wellington bank contained England, Scotland, and Ireland as well as Wales. It was, moreover, no laughing matter when in Yorkshire, Mr. Lyon married Miss Lamb.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all where names are concerned is the unfortunate man who has the same name r. some celebrity. Moses Hitler, of Warsaw, feels he has been treated most unkindly. Innkeepers often refuse to take him as a lodger. His son is the laughing stock of his school. Hitler’s elder son has been jilted by the girl he was to marry; she was unable to face the prospect of becoming Mrs. Hitler. It came as a surprise to residents of Nova Scotia when they read in their local newspaper that Police Constable Stanley Baldwin had been fined £5 for sleeping at his post. If it had been smoking they could have understood. When Mr. Malcolm Campbell arrived at New York last year he had an exciting 24 hours trying to avoid getting into the newspapers as a racing motorist- Actually he was a Glasgow fruit merchant who rarely touched forty miles an hour. More curious still, there is In Italy a whole township in the province of Trieste where all the inhabitants have the same name and the same Christian names, Felice or Felicita Russgnach. The postman must have a trying time.