RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 261, 2 August 1939, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events (By Kickshaws). The emu at the Auckland Zoo, it is reported, is sitting on 10 eggs. We would warn the bird that paternal re frigeration has its limits. ♦ * » It is suggested that there must be many potential weight-lifting amateurs at present -undiscovered in New Zealand The Budget should find them out. * * * It is suggested that Wellington should have a plan prepared showing the tipping areas. A sort of no-parking sign for Scots visitors. * The news that a convict at Parkburst, Isle of Wight, Great Britain, has succeeded in forging some very meritorious pound notes makes one take oft one’s hat, because if a convict can do that in prison he should be some forger out of prison. As a matter of fact, forging notes seems to be a popular handicraft in prison. Some 10 years ago a convict at Parkhurst, named Ernest Everett, produced some astoundingly realistic flash notes. Some 600 of these notes were released, and not a single one went wrong. Everett made a litle camera in his work cell with which he took a photograph of a real £1 note. He made three colour plates for the front of the note, one for the back, and one for the watermark. He acquired some good quality paper, which he dressed with shellac, ammonia and barium sulphate. He made a press from lead, and a roller for the colours. With this equipment he succeeded in fooling experts on notes, who eventually admitted that they were unable to explain how such realistic forgeries could have been made, except at great cost. » « * The fact is that there are forgers and forgers. All the money in the world will never make a bad forger into a good one. A good one, on the other hand, can make all the money he likes without any money in the world. William Reynolds, also known as Jim the Penman, proved some years ago that one could produce successfully Bank of England notes without any intricate or delicate mechanical contrivances. At his address the police found only three bottles of coloured inks and. a drawing pen, as well as 100 half-completed notes. He was an artist at heart, and could produce watermarks by hand that defied detection. He traced out his spurious notes in pencil and. inked over the tracing. The watermarks were simulated with grease. Admittedly, experts at the Bank of England spotted his handiwork, but nobody else did. By the time his notes reached the Bank of England thev had served his purpose so far as he was concerned. Usually these hand forgeries fall down in the numbering of the notes. Jim the Forger, however, was as good as a machine at writing numbers.

r News that, an electrician is setting forth for New Zealand in a converted lifeboat leaves us unmoved. People seem to be setting off for everywhere in the most unusual craft. A lifeboat, indeed, seems palatial, especially a® this lifeboat will be equipped with sails. It looks as if.the day of the ocean liner is numbered. Folk will just jump into the bath tub and sail off goodness knows where. Karl Hjelmstrom started the bath-tub habit when he set forth for New Guinea in a bath tub. Indeed, he set forth with the captain’s bath tub from the ship C. B. Pedersen, and displayed an economy others have never dared to copy. When the captain wanted his bath, some brave stalwart of the sea had to say, “Please, sir. the appren- I tice, Karl Hjelmstrom, has just sailed off in her for New Guinea.” One wonders if a bath tub becomes a she when it is used as a ship. Bath tubs are otherwise its or lies. It just, seems overdoing things to use a lifeboat for a trip to New Zealand from England. Is the old seadog blood burning low? Are the hearts of oak that roamed the restless seas made of sapwood? Give me the tea bray or the wastepaper basket: let’s set sail for the isles of 'the blessed with a pencil as a mast. * » *

Indeed, these days one wonders: how these lone seadogs have the nerve even to use sail. One can imagine them sitting idle at the tiller while the winds of God blow their craft along. Nothing to' l do all day, and all night in which to sleep with the tiller lashed' to the topping lift, aud the sails sheeted toithe ,well, whatever one sheets a sail to m a—flowing sea and all that. He-men just don’t sail these days, they row. Captain Andrews thumped his mug m beer. “I’ll beat you,” he cried between his one remaining tooth, ‘‘in any kind oi craft. For two pins I’ll race you across the Atlantic in an open boat.” Gad, sir, the saloon at. Newport hummed with excitement. So Captain W. A. Andraws and Josiah Lawlor prepared their boats, and got ready their pta®, Subsequently they were rescued off the Irish coast in a stonm. Lawlor subsequently righted bis boat and landed near Land’s End, having rowed acixtss the Atlantic. He had created no record. Two Norwegians had rowed across m 1897, taking 55 days to cover 3006 miles. Next, please.

“You give the maximum speed of the ball at table-tennis as 10 m.p.h.,” says “Ping.” “I have played table-tepnis and tennis, and a good drive by fl rs /' class playerSxW’ould be approximately the same speed, in my estimation. 1 have no definite figures to support this, but the figure of 10 m.p.h. for tabletennis in comparison with Johnston s forehand drive of 120 m.p.h. is absurd. Could you say how the test was carried out? A fast drive or a smash in tabletennis, compared with the speed of a Rugbv ball, and a bowl iu cricket, could" not be less than 90 m.p.h. Please quote further, as I feel sure a mistake has been made. One has only to see a backhand flick by Barna, world’s champion for a period of years at tabletennis, to realize that the figures are ridiculous.’’ [The method by which the speed ot the. ping-pong ball was measured was not given, or any other details except that it was the “averaged speed.” Maybe 10 m.p.h. is a low speed, but usually the speed of a ball in any game is adjusted to the reaction period of the average individual. Otherwise the player would lose interest if sure o missing the ball every time. The reaction period varies from one second to a quarter of a second. If the ball travels 10 feet before being bit the time taken to do so at 10 miles an hour would be two-thirds of a second, roughly. This would make the game possible to persons of average reaction period. Actually the fact that the ball is taken on the bounce gives the reaction period a further respite, but most of the fasthard shots are so placed that this re spite is nullified owing to the awkward position. If the ping-pong ball travelled at 20 miles an hour only 1-3 of a second would be available, and at the suggested 90 miles an hour only one l-130th of a second. At that speed the ball would be missed every time, even by a good player. Moreover, the blow that bit the ball would have to be at least 2001 b. to accelerate it to 90 m.p.h. Would not a ping-pong ball be crushed by such a blow’?]