RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 153, 25 March 1938, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events

(By

KICKSHAWS.)

British policy in Europe, it is said, is like the gingerbread without the gilt. Maybe polish trouble is the cause. * • ♦

Some countries, says Goebbels, change their leaders like their underwear. Other countries, of course, make n trial of washing dirty linen in public.

.Special courts for traffic offences are not practicable, because there would not be enough work to keep a magistrate busy. This is a phase of motoring of which we bear nothing.

The North Canterbury farmers who have been discussing the enormous damage (lone by insects have touched on a subject that needs publicity. It has been said that if man were ever ousted from this world it. will not be througli war, pestilence, or -natural cataclysm, but by insects. According to the Institute of Micro-biology, insects have multiplied fourfold in recent years. Another authority gloomily predicts that man must inevitably be beaten, owing to the adaptability and extreme productivity of insects. The United States Department of Agriculture says that in North America alone there are 50,000 different kinds of insects known to man. Some 7000 of them are consistently destructive to man. About one insect in every seven is, therefore, doing us no good. On an average these insects commit about £2,000,000.000 worth of damage in the world. The amount of corn destroyed annually would make a pyramid nearly six times the size of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, with sides 100 yards long.

In Britain it has been estimated that insects have been increasing at the rate of 44,000,000 a year. They rob farmers in Britain of £7,000,000 a year or 10 per cent, of their crops. In this respect insects show a remarkable consistency. It lias been shown that insects destroy one-tenth of the world’s crops. Farmers in New Zealand who want to discover how much of their produce goes to feed insects have only to calculate the year's total production to get a rough estimate. Insects. rob Canada of about £25,000,000 a year, America £400,000,000 and India £150,000,000. So far as the British Empire is concerned, the elimination of all harmful insects would mean that we could supply food for a further 45,000,000 people. This means that in the British Empire, insects eat every year as much as, or more than, the whole population of Britain.

It would be unkind to some insects if no notice was taken of the good they do. Even flies have their uses. The wings of files mixed with rag-fibres produce a high-quality paper often used as notepaper. India first knew little laccifer laeea ns a rampaging parasite that despoiled forests. This insect is to-day treated with marked respect as the raw manufacturer of shellac. This resin is used for making y gramophone records, insulating purposes, stiffening straw hats, and in a thousand other ways. Many years ago it was believed \t hat earwigs cured certain diseases. Usually this insect is regarded as a i>est. It has been proved that the earwig serves a useful purpose by eating houseflies. In much the same way the wasp of Britain does good. We do not have similar wasps in New Zealand. The British wasp has a taste for flies. One wasp’s nest, in fact, will dispose of 25,000 flies a day. Maybe we will be forced to import wasps, despite their disadvantages.

The recently-reported Bill to abolish irregular forms of marriage in Scotland indicates that considerable Iti.vi’y was admitted as regards how one got married. Although Scottish folk can no longer get married in one of several ways, gipsies still get married by jumping the broomstick, not that this method is regarded with favour. The French still show a remarkable broadmindedness in the matter of marriage. In defence of the French system of arranged marriages, it has been shown that statistics prove that most of these marriages are highly successful. They build their house in the valley, and, so they say, let the mad English reach rhe stars, only to crash later. It is all a matter of a point of view. The French system has been developed and elaborated further by the Chukcliees. of Siberia. A woman Chukchee adopts a malt baby and marries him. taking a com panion of her own age until her husband grows up. The system is said io work well.

Possibly the Ethiopians of the days of Haile Selassie provided the largest choice of marriage ceremonies. Those who preferred could have a church wedding. Once married by taking the Holy Communion and a priest tying together the arms of the bride and bridegroom, the pair was tied for life. Divorce was unthinkable, and even after the death of one, the other had to remain unmarried for seven years.- Civil marriages made at that time in the name of the Emperor were more flexible. In addition. trial marriages were recognised, limited to two years. Time marriage, based on a specified time, was also ;>ermissible. Among some tribes in India the marriage ceremony consists almost entirely of eating. The wedding festivities last several days. On the first day a buffalo is slaughtered. The guests drink until they are intoxicated. On the fourth day the bridegroom’s brother performs the marriage ceremony. It consists of telling the bride that if she behaves, her children will be as strong as tigers : if she is wicked, her children will be as snakes and monkeys. Aftei that they kill another buffalo. * » ♦ “Will you please supply me with the following figures'?” asks "H.M.” “(11 Number of purebred Romney flock sheep in New Zealand: (2) number of Romney-Lincoln crossbreds: <3> total of all crossbred sheep." [The Department of Agriculture lias kindly supplied the following information :— (1) The numbers of Romney flock sheep (not entered in Flock Book) as at. April 30, 1937, were:— Kams 239,212 Wethers 250.003 Breeding ewes 2.221.971, Dry ewes 80.222 Lambs 1,007.710 » Total ..' 3.799,129: 12.14% of total sheet*. (2) .Information in regard to the number of Lincoln-Romney crossbreds is not collected. (3) Total number of all crossbred sheep:— Wethers 1.7,14.280 Breeding ewes 14.103.101 Dry ewes 7>42,'D8 Lambs 3.080.674 Total 21,840,803: 69.77% of total sheep.]