RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 235, 3 July 1939, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current

Events

(Bit Kickshaws).

The German authorities, it is stated, do not like Chamberlain’s latest note. It wasn’t a bank note this time. - $ * *

A speaker says that Government expenditure has 'been astronomical. Maybe that happens when one hitches one’s reserve wagon to a star. ♦ * *

If it be true that there are a lot less sheep in New Zealand, all that can be done is to see that they are better fleeced than ever.

Hospital boards, it seems, are getting tired of forgiving debts which, in some cases, amount to £lO,OOO a month. Yet they are not so forgiving as doctors, dentists and tailors who forgive patrons in some cases for over a year before getting hot and bothered. Indeed, the art of selling is nothing compared with the art of getting paid. One may well wonder why it is customary not to pay the tailor whereas garages get paid, after a customary fortnight if .they are lucky. One does not go around telling friends one owes money to the garage, yet it is “done” to owe money to a tailor. The result can only be to make clothes more costly, or whatever be the commodity sold. Just how many hundreds of thousands of pounds are temporarily forgiven by doctors has never been computed. If it were added together there should be enough to enable so many folk to say “ninetynine” and “ah” the air used would cause record low barometric readings all over the countryside, thereby producing storms and high winds everywhere. The alternative, it would seem, proves too tempting. » * * Despite the fact that debt forgiveness ’ is no longer to be a custom in our hospitals, the practice must be more worldwide than is usually imagined. In the year 1900, every person born into the civilized world arrived with a debt that amounted to £lB. In 1930, the total had increased to £5OO. Recent rearmament policies have now increased this to £l5OO. Unless forgiveness on a large t scale is practised, we shall just have to go into the garden and eat grass, because things will get too complicated. So far as we folk are concerned in New Zealand, every million we borrow to pay off old debts, or rip up new roads, must have a counter entry in the ledger of £lOOO ofoproduce shipped to the country to whom the debt is owed. The only people, 'therefore, who can forgive us our debts are the farmers. The more they produce the more debt-free we shall be. Unfortunately, the tendency's for debts to increase about five times as fast as population.

Debt forgiveness is not so one-sided that conscience does not prick the "forgivee” at times. The Town Clerk of Bath, England, once received a postal order for £1 from a man who had stolen some wood-paving blocks ma nr years previously and was never found out Another man who defrauded a railway company of fivepence, by travelling without a ticket between Brighouse aud Huddersfield, made restitution with five shillings 40 years Later to cover payment and interest. Moreover, a visitor to a seaside resort in Britain once sent sixpence to a deck-chair attendant to cover deck chairs be bad sat in as a lad, but for which he had never paid. Cue day, maybe, we will see a man who steals his weight from a peuuy-in-the-slot weighing machine sending along his penny iu an unstamped envelope. By the time this miracle occurs, maybe nations will start consciences. - England, America, Russia, Germany, and the rest of them, will start sending conscience money to oue another with interest. At present they seem content with notes. # * <■

We agree with the recent statement that it was a good omen to have all the free ambulances in their garage.at one and the same time. Yet there are other omens concerning which one is at a loss. When a baby smiles in its sleep it is a good oineu because the infant is talking to the angels. Yet it seems father young to start that sort of thing. In Wales, moreover, the first time a baby’s finger nails are cut the first parings should be buried under an ash tree. This insured the child becoming a “top singer,” but babies as a whole seem top-singers without this ritual. There are, moreover, so many conflicting omens about sneezing one wonders whether to indulge in this curious explosion or not. Some say one must say “God bless you” to ward off illhealth, others say that a sneeze is an omen of good fortune because an evil spirit is ejected at every sneeze. Folk with a cold in the bead are therefore particularly lucky. One wonders moreover whether it is good fortune to hang up a horseshoe, and if so, which way should it go? There is much controversy on the subject'. * * *

Talking of omens, there is a rather curious yarn that goes around nautical circles, being resurrected from time to time as if it were brand new. A monkey on board a warship developed habits which forced the captain to tell t’he cook to get rid of the monkey, lhe cook took the captain at his word and threw the monkey overboard. When this was done all felt that something would happen, because it is not a good thing to throw monkeys overboard. The vessel took part lu manoeuvres under war conditions shortly afterwards. She was steaming at full speed in black darkness when she was involved in a 'head-on collision with her sister-slnp. Both vessels were badly damaged, but limped home safeiy. There was, in fact, only one casualty the cook. What happened to him nobody ever discovered. All were emphatic after the event that it was obvious that something would happen. This, therefore, may be considered as a definite warning to travellers not to throw monkeys overboard. ★ *' ♦

“Can you, through your valued column, enlighten me on this one ?” sa J'® “G.C.” “In countries where right-hand driving is law, (e.g. U.S.A, and tie Continent) is what we call the rgathand rule’ (i.e. yielding to traffic on your right) altered to a ‘left-hand rule’ or not?” ■ [The right-hand rule has been in vogue in the United States of America tor many years. Cars in that c ® uulr '' drive on the right-hand side . l “ road. When we imported the riguthand rule to New Zealand, where cars drive ou the left-hand side of the road, the right-hand rule was not changed to a left-hand rule. This and Other discrepancies have caused considerable controversy and argument. Most continental countries also have the righthand rule. In those countries also tratlie drives on the right-hand side of the road. Many of those countries, moreover, have modified the right-hand rule so that main route roads have precedence. Traffic on them does not have to be held up by insignificant byways and blind alleys, as is the ease in New Zealand. There is a large consensus o: opinion among experienced motorist! and legal experts that our right-haib-rule should be overhauled.]