RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 143, 14 March 1938, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events

(By

KICKSHAWS.)

Schuschnigg’s problem, we understand, is not so much for a free Austria as to free Austria. ♦ ♦ * The Government, we note, considers the wharf delays a grave problem. Shall we say, funeral tactics about meets the case. * We note that Hungary’s reconstructed Cabinet includes Imredy, and we suggest France makes a similar job of her Cabinet. * Mention of the fact that the King’s Bodyguard in Scotland practise with their bows and arrows at ranges considerably longer than normal, takes us back to those far-off days when the only weapon firing a projectile was the good old six-foot bow. Curiously enough, Britain got her bows from Scandinavia. The man who invented the bow is still an unnamed hero. It was the bow that wou the Battle of Hastings for William the Conqueror, who put down a barrage behind the English force, much after the manner of an artillery barrage to-day. It is, furthermore, a curious fact that, out of the thousands of bows that must have been made before gunpowder came to the fore, only a few have come down to us to-day. Indeed, two of these were recovered from a vessel wrecked in the Thames during the reign of Henry VIII. The range of a bow depended partly upon the arrow, and largely upon the pull. A good bow had a range of about 300 yards, and a good bowman could spilt a hazel twig at a range of about 100 feet.

Despite the fact that the savage was accepted as the better marksman with the bow and arrow, it is a fact that the white man proved the better in open competition. Since then our American cousins have elaborated the bow and arrow. Sights have been fitted, and all manner of efforts made to produce a metal bow with the greatest pull and tubular metal arrows. Nevertheless, the record shot still stands to a wooden bow of osage-orange. Some ten years ago Howard Hill, using a fivefoot bow, with a pull of 1721 b., sent a 22-inch birch arrow just under 392 yards. Huntihg wild game with bow and arrow is coming back into favour. The stopping power of an arrow is far greater than is usually imagined. Saxton Pope has proved that it is still possible to live by the bow. Indeed, this hunter and a friend killed lions with the bow and arrow. They showed, however, that the average arrow was not sufficient to stop a lion. Every wild creature, from fish to grizzly bear, lias been shot with the bow and arrow. In fact, for shooting fish tlie bow and arrow is said to be superior to the rifle, which only has a range of about a foot through water, compared with four feet for an arrow.

It has been left to the schoolboy to perpetuate the other weapons used by our ancestors, apart from the bow and arrow. There are dart clubs and toxophilite societies, but so far as is known no sling clubs or catapult societies. Yet in skilled bauds the sling is a formidable weapon, as Goliath must have appreciated. A sling made from two bootlaces and a strip of leather is capable of killing a bird the size of a pigeon at a range of 60 feet. The catapult not only provided greater accuracy, but remarkable hitting power. Using buckshot as a missile, it is .possible to kill rabbits and sparrows, not to mention fancy shooting at hats thrown in the air. Another weapon concerning which it is probable few people know anything is the squaler. This was a length of pliable cane about 18in. long on which was cast a leaden weight of about six ounces. This weapon is thrown and is formidable enough against rats. It is still popular among poachers in the out-of-the-way parts of Britain owing to its silence and extreme deadliness at short ranges.

The Olympic Games were originally resurrected to promote friendship and understanding among the nations. Whether Japan will be permitted to hold the Games and conduct a war at. the same time, one can but wonder if the Olympic Games of the past have done anything toward uniting the nations. When the Games were last held in Germany there was a powerful movement ' to boycott them owing to Hitler's antiSemitic policy, which was then at its height. During the Games Germany was polite to everyone, including the Jews, but the politeness did not last. One can recall the Doranqo controversy of 190 S that nearly caused a rupture between England. America and Italy For years, Association football authorities in England refused to send a team to. the Olympic Games for fear of incidents. The ice hockey proceedings were reduced to a farce on one occasion, when the game ended in a brawl between the Canadian team sent by Canada and the team of Canadians hired by England to represent Ijlngland.

Strictly speaking, the Olympiad is not an event, but an interval of time; a period of four years between eacii celebration of the Olympic Games. In fact, the old Olympic Games were actually used as a method of reckoning time. The old Games, however, ended in A.D. 394. They hud run for more than 1000 years. We have to-day taken sport out of the calendar, but. nevertheless, we do on occasion refer to tlie year when Australia won the Tests or lost them. The modern Olympic Games did not begin until 1896. The first one was held at Athens. The second was held at Paris four years later, and the third at St. Louis, U.S.A., the fourth in England. The sixth was to have been held in Berlin in 1916. but the world was busy with other games at that time. Indeed, it was not-until 1928 that a German team took part in the Games after the end of the Great War. At one time lawn tennis and Rugby football were included, but subsequently they were dropped. Women started taking part in 1928. Since then there Jias been a notable series of liewomen, attending the Games, some of them, in fact, having to shave every day. » » *

“I have hi my possession a copper coin dated 1813, in a good state of preservation,” says “R.F.8." “Ou the face is a sailing ship and the words ‘Trade and navigation.’ and the obverse shows ‘Half-penny token’ and ‘Pure copper preferable to paper.' From your apparently inexhaustible supply of knowledge you may be able to tell me through your column whether it is worth anything, as it was passed to me for a half-penny. I’m anxious to know whether I will lose my money.”

[The lion, secretary of the New Zealand Numismatic Society advises that this is probably a token issued as currency in Canada during a shortage there of coins of the realm. The token closely resembles a half-penny token issued in Nova Seotia in 1820, the value of which is 25 to 50 cents in NewYork.]