RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 201, 24 May 1939, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events (By Kickshaws). The import regulations it is announced, are invalid. Most of the importers, we would point -out, are pretty well invalids too. « * * One can watch, the matmen wrestling and the matmen’s mat and all the rest of the paraphernalia, but has anyone ever seen the fellow who finds names for the holds that make the matmen famed. * * » The League, it is stated, will have nothing to do with Danzig because it is too explosive. He who pays the piper in Danzig, we understand these days of colds in the head, can do their own Danzig to the tune they elicit. * * * “The other evening we were at a card party, and after the game, the subject of fog arose. One person said that several years ago in Woodville a fog persisted for several webks, and it so depressed the population that they held a meeting for the entire township to go out on the surrounding hills where it was fine and sunny. Is this correct?” asks “Weatherman.” “Could you also tell me where I can have a wind vane made, similar to the aerodrome type which registers the gusts of wind, only of a smaller type?” [So far as can be ascertained there is no truth in the fog story, but perhaps jealous Palmerstonians who know Woodville by repute will care to make a statement. Woodvilleians, of course, would be biased, or wouldn’t they? As regards the wind vane the instrument used at the aerodrome is a very complex type and very expensive and nothing cheap can be made of a comparable nature. A bicycle generator fitted' to a propeller makes a simple type with an alternating voltmeter calibrated to read wind speeds direct. An anemometer of this type would cost about £lO depending on the voltmeter used.]

The recent cycle record of 210 miles in just over 10 hours gives us an average speed of 21 miles an hour. This compares favourably with the highest spurt an unpaced cyclist can produce, which works out at about 32 miles au hour, or eight miles an hour less than a racehorse. Take man off his bicycle and he can run a couple of hundred yards at the rate that he can cycle 210 miles. Give him a pair .of roller skates and he will cover a mile at 25 miles au hour. If he had worn ice; skates, the top speed would have been for the same distance just over 27 miles an hour.. Put him ou a toboggan on the Cresta Run, and he will cover six furlongs at the rate of 60 miles an hour. A pair Of skis will enable a skilled exponent to attain a comparable speed for short rims or for longer distances at an average of 40 miles an hour. Place man in vater and you see him at his worst. Four miles an hour is his best for 100 yards, compared with 30 miles an hour for the same distance on foot-

Unaided by mechanical power, the fastest man has travelled is 110 miles an hour. This speed is attained only for a very short instant, just before man rises into the air on a speciallyprepared ski-jump. After rising into the air, during the actual jump man covers 100 yards in three seconds, which is the record for the 100 yards, working out at about 66 miles au hour. This, then, is the fastest that man has travelled unaided by mechanical power, if we exclude the ice yacht. This, however, is a form of power derived from the wind. One ice yacht belonging to the Hudson Ice Yachting Club is stated to have covered a mile in thirty seconds, or 120 miles au hour. This may be accepted as the highest speed man has attained unaided by an engine. Even wbeu be falls from au aeroplane, the limiting speed is 119 miles an hour. Just what is going to be the maximum speed attained with engines has yet to be proved. Experts declare that the speed of sound will, probably be the limit for speed in air. This works out at 750 miles au hour. it*

The surprise on the part of a magistrate that a man who wanted to go to prison was not mentally afflicted in anyway, might have been understandable a few decades ago. Jails are so comfy these days we may yet be confronted with the problem of keeping people out of prison. Looking the prisoner sternly in the face, we may yet read the magistrate pronounced sentence, “You are sentenced to three years’ hard work our of prison.” Indeed, it is hard work, too. The sentenced man will find nobody to provide his food for him. He will have to fill up forms galore, and wait about for no special purpose. He will find himself regulated and regimented to ir degree that would cause riots in prison. If he decides to do no work lie will get no food. Harried from one official form to another, ordered to pay security tax, income tax, and in danger of being run over every time be crosses a road, the wretched man will count the days until, once again he is safe and secure behind lock and key.

Those who pay a visit to .the Abbey of Mont St. Michel, in the rocky Bay of St, Avaranches, Normandy, may observe two striking candlesticks. If a visitor asks he will be told their history. They were made by a man who went to prison especially to complete them. The abbey was once a prison. A man in solitary confinement began to carve the two candlesticks. He was released before he had completed tjie second. Determined to complete his task, the man committed a burglary deliberately iu order to go back to prison. He was duly sentenced to a further term of imprisonment. It was during this sentence that he completed the second candlestick. There is even an instance of a man who deliberately planned to be sent back to Devil’s Island. Maurice Georges Gutmann committed several swindles, and finally ended up in French Guiana as a prisoner. He was imprisoned with the incorrigibles. He studied butterflies, and eventually instituted an export trade in them which earned him £4OO a year. Indeed, he was actually sent on long leave to visit importers. During the leave he carried out further swindles in order to make sure that he might get back to his butterflies. “Please let me go back by the first boat,” he pleaded with the magistrates.

“I am the possessor of a very muchcherished school prize (presented to me in 1883), in the form of a book which is handsomely bound in red calf,” says “C.” “Here follows a copy of the title page. “The author’s (Kippis’s) letter to his Sovereign is dated London, June 13, 17SS. I have been informed the book is valuable.” [The Librarian, Alexander Turnbull Library, Mr. C. R. H. Taylor, has kindly advised as follows “-“Regarding kippis’s ‘Narrative of the Voyages and Life of Captain James Cook, 1883,’ though it is quite an estimable book, it has little value. I think 5/- to 10/- is the most that can be expected for It. The first edition, published in 1788, IS worth between £2 and £5. but it has been reprinted a number of times since, and the more recent ones have no great value. The fine binding will help to sell it, but will not affect the value.’!