NOTES BY THE WAY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3400, 30 July 1932, Page 5

NOTES BY THE WAY

(By Rambler.) Many a woman past her prime primes herself upon her past. An unusual incident is reported from Sydney where a divorced woman who was resisting a reduction of her alimony, kissed her solicitor when he brought her case to a Successful issue. As no divorce cases are heard in Te Kuiti the incident may not be of great local interest.

A Scotsman who is the father of twins has had a photograph taken of only one of them.

A Scotch woman was dying in Dunfermline. She expressed the wish that her body be earned back to Ecclefechan, where she hailed from, because she felt that she could “not lie quiet in a grave in Dunfermline.” Of course her husband could do nothing but acquiesce, and assured her “nae matter what the cost will be, if ye canna lie quiet in your grave in Dunfermline, we will take ye back to Ecclefechan, but I think we will try ye first in Dunfermline.”

All the newspapers to-day are featuring “Empire Interests.” They mostly go to America.

A commercial traveller made a statement last week that Nelson was feeling the slump less than any town in the Dominion. Nelson people have taken active steps to deny the impeachment. It may be because there will be a rush to “Sleepy Hollow” reminiscent of the old gold digging days. Perhaps it’s not respectable to be prosperous these days.

There is a suggestion to erect a new cool storage system in Auckland at a cost of £70,000. We have had the system for nothing this winter in Te Kuiti.

The representatives of the Dominion at the l Ottawa Conference have agreed on a policy for Empire meat, dairy produce and fruit, and this is hailed as a splendid achievement. The trouble is that John Bull, the most interested party in the matter, has not given his point of view on the subject. With something like five hundred million pounds of British capital invested in the Argentine meat trade, another huge sum in the dairy industry of Denmark and Russia owing Britain several millions for services rendered, John is inclined to be rather loth to commit himself, more especially as most of the Dominions want protection for their secondary industries.

Reports state that some of the European countries want their Royal rulers back again. They are tired of being Republics, and want a head with birth distinction. The Monarchist Party in Germany is now working quite openly, and want that charming royal individual, the ex-Crown Prince, back. I have no great personal knowledge of German psychology, but taking an outsicte view of the position, I think Hindenburg, Bruening and Papen, both from an intellectual and moral point of view, are better able to control Germany’s destiny. In ex-King Alfonso of Spain now, we have something to admire. He has more kingly instincts than the whole of the Hohenzollerns, and Spain might be better for his return. Republicanism has not been a success in Europe—nor in the United States.

There is a new leisured class springing up in Australia in the men who prefer the dole to work. After all there is something to be learned from Soviet Russia, where work is a religion—and never ending.

A strange indirect effect of the recent earthquake on a pen of poultry is vouched for by a New Plymouth resident, says an exchange. The shake smashed in his house a bottle each of wine, Worcester sauce, ammoniated quinine, ale and varnish polish, a packet of curry, a packet of cornflour, and four jars of jams and jellies, which all mixed. They were collected, and the man of the house, thinking the mixture would, with addition of pollard, make a good mash, fed the hens next morning. Inside half an hour the hens were all a-cackle and during next day several laid doubleyoked eggs, while others laid two eggs before nightfall. The weak part of the story is that no steps were apparently taken to investigate the probability that the hysterical state of the hens after the shakes had quite as much to do with the outburst of cackling as the Worcester sauce or the ammoniated quinine or the furniture polish. If, in fact, the earthquake was the main, or even a necessary factor, the hopes of poultry farmers must again be dashed. In any case the exact proportions of ingredients may well be of paramount importance. A well-known authority voices the opinion that if the Ottawa Conference is not a success, there will be a break-up of the Empire. It looks as if Mr. de Valera might win out after all. “Indications are brighter than they have been for some time,” states the managing director of the Dominions Breweries. I have heard that the competition in home brew is falling off, but I prefer to see the prices of butter to rise before beer, and wool before whisky.