RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 256, 26 July 1937, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

Well, anyway, Schipa has got Sydney folk on the hop. * $ * Nobody, it seems, is responsible for the threepenny rise in bacon. Maybe the pigs got wind of what was going on outside. A pupil, when asked to criticise his teacher said, "She is as unbending as a gun barrel”; with, we take it, a rotten report at the end of the term. ♦ * ♦ “Hobby” writes: “I have recently built a model Elizabethan galleon, known as the ‘Elizabeth Jonas.’ Could you give, through your most interesting column, the history of this ship? .Also, could you put me into touch with aNsource from which I could obtain particulars of dragons or other heraldry which could be painted on it, as 1 wish it as complete as possible in every detail?” [A shipping expert says: The Elizabeth Jonas was a galleon designed by Matthew Baker, a shipbuilder of Elizabethan days. She was rebuilt in 1597-98 and her measurements were as follows: Burden, 684 tons; tuns and tunnage, 855; length of keel, 100 ft.; rake forward, 36ft.; rake aft, 6ft.; breadth, 38ft.; depth in bold, 18ft. The original draft of her lines and other details—the earliest plans of a British ship known to exist—were discovered some years ago by Mr. G. S. Laird Clowes, chief o< ! the ship model section of the Science Museum, South Kensington, London. He had a model built from the plans, and this is on exhibition in the museum, from which photographs of it may be purchased. A member of the staff of “The Dominion” lias a complete set of the photographs and also a copy of the plans from which the model was constructed. The decoration of the Elizabeth Jonas —like that of other Tudor ships—consisted of simple mouldings and panels of bright, contrasting colours. The only “dragon” on the ship was the figurehead on the beakhead. The ship had four masts and mounted 42 main guns.]

The traffic inspector who asked a Maori to produce his driving licence, only to discover that the wahine had boiied it, shirt and all, may have smiled. Yet this is by no means the sum total of man’s forgetfulness, or shall we say woman’s. Before now wool bates have revealed, when opened in England, such varied items as a wooden leg, a clutch of eggs, a set of false teeth, and a saddle. Believe it or not, but before now a man has forgotten bis skeleton. Not, of course, that it was the one that nature gave him at birth. The acquired skeleton was left in the train. In London, in fact, someone actually mislaid a fossilised man. In Paris no fewer than 350 sets of false teeth are mislaid by their owners. The boiling of a motor licence fades into insignificance compared with the forgetfulness that caused a New York company to lose a dock, ah executioner in France his guillotine, and a woman churchgoer a pair of corsets. In the last case it has always been somewhat of a mystery how the individual concerned contrived to divest herself of this foundation garment without attracting attention. It is understood the feat took place during a particularly soporific sermon.

Concerning the habit of forgetfulness, there is an amusing story told of J. Pierpont Morgan that shows that one may have too good a memory. The famous financier wanted to return hurriedly from his country seat in the Adirondacks. He remembered that some years before he had wanted to make the same hurried trip, but the train had not stopped. This time he sent a telegram to the president of the railway asking him to see' that the 10.24 stopped at the local station. When Morgan arrived at the wayside station, he said to tlie stationmaster, a bluff, independent individual, “You got your orders to flag the train?” “No,” said the stationmaster. “I did not.” “You mean to say you’re not going to flag this train?” Morgan asked. "Nope.” said the stationmaster. Morgan went into the station office and emerged with a red flag. As the train arrived Morgan duly stopped it. The stationmaster strolled past. “Y'ou’ll hear about this,” said Morgan. “Don’t get excited, don’t get excited,” replied the stationmaster, “the 10.24 alius stops.”

Motor business is booming. We have 18,000 private cars running around, and all manner of records are being broken. That is all very well. It must bo pointed out that New Zealand is only a certain, definite size. There are actually slightly less than 20.000 miles of main highways. In a very short time there will be 300,000 motor cars in New Zealand. If the owners of those cars decided to hit the main highway together there would be only 70 yards between the cars. The day may yet come when we shall be constrained to ..issue special certificates for cars, differentiating between main road cars and by-way cars. This would give the traffic authorities a life job. It would make motor owners appreciate the fact that whereas their cars were getting more and more numerous, the roads were not increasing in proportion. Exactly where tlie race between car kings and the road makers is going to end has yet to be decided. One cannot turn out roads on a repetition basis like motor cars. It may be that the population of New Zealand will be so busy building road space for the cars it is going to buy that it will not have time to use the cars. This would be one solution.

Another problem of car and road is that, in New Zealand, a second-hand car worth perhaps £2O can traverse in a few months some £30.000.000 worth of road. Even if it does not do much damage to the road it is costing motorists a round £2,000,000 a year to keep our roads fit for their motor cars to run on them. At the moment the motorist has the privilege of supplying practically all this money, and a few odds and ends of interest on money borrowed from him and re-loaned to him. One may, indeed, sit back and begin to wonder where the New Zealand motorist obtains all his money. He has already spent £20,000.000 on motor ears to run along the roads in New Zealand. He contributes £2,000.000 a year to keep the roads fit to run on. He and others have contributed about £30,000.000 to make the roads and another £180,000,000 to make the railways, and another few millions to bolster up the railways, and another few millions to make harbours, and probably another few millions to make aerodromes. If posterity does nothing else, it is going to get there.

[The answer to Saturday’s teaser is 16 days.]