CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 283, 27 October 1934, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer.”)

“It takes on optimist to be a Democrat, and a humorist to stay one. Will Rogers, the famous American humorist.

“The sooner business is back in the hands of business men, the sooner will business begin to function. Senator James J. Davis, U.S. Republican.

The barber had cut him, nicked him and gashed him. „ “Give me a of water, please, gasped the victim. . . ~ “You aren’t going to faint, I hope, said the barber in alarm. “No,” replied the victim; I just want to see if my mouth will hold water.”

The fatal nature of curiosity sometimes takes strange turns. In the Imperial War Museum m London lias recently been placed a piece of shrapnel shell which fell in Piccadilly on July 7 1917 when Londoners were, strangely enough, more inclined to watch an actual raid than they were the recent exercises. As a result of this curiosity, there were on that day nearly seventy casualties from Britain s own falling shrapnel. *****

Interesting facts have recently been noted concerning the movements of nsn and animals. A little numbered disc was attached to a salmon in a Scottish river. A fortnight later it was caught by an angler in a stream in rs orthei n Ireland—at the other side of Britain. A sea trout marked in the River Humber near Hull, was found near Calaissix hundred miles or so away. Plaice marked at JVlorecambe were taken from the sea as far south as Torquay. Sea gulls, too, have been marked for the purpose of ascertaining their movements. One gull marked at Flamborough on the east coast of Yorkshire was found eight months later near Dunoon. Scientists frequently mark rats. One liberated at Gravesend was picked up seven weeks afterwards at Berwick-on-Tweed and another travelled as far west as Gloucester in under a month.

Bourke, a Darling town five hundred odd miles from Sydney, has been several times in the news since Mafeking, and Turner of the Centenary fliers dropped into the scorching town with oil trouble (comments a writer in the Auckland Star). Thousands of people feeling dry have dropped into Bourke before, but rarely from the skies. Even the Darling goes dry at Bourke, but there is an artesian supply in the vicinity and seven important licensed premises (with others not so important). Everything in Bourke or going to Bourke is dry; even the camels that pad their way in take a week’s supply and hit out across the plains, which are as dry as the camels and often burning. Bourke is celebrated in past history for its laconic message on receipt of the news that Mafeking had been relieved. Feilding, for instance, wired that it w?s calm, Melbourne that it was celebrating the occasion, Sydney that it rejoiced, Wellington that it was glad, Ooodannatta that it w-as exhibiting all the local bunting—and so forth from every town where there w-as a telegraph. Bourke, where Turner came down with oil trouble, sent the immortal message round the earth: “Bourke drunk.” As one who has known Bourke in summer time, one has never blamed Bourke for the message or the habit, whenever there hat been anything to drink in that scorching corner of a torrid territory.

Attention was drawn to a new form of transport, recently, with the news that the pipe-line 620 miles long from the Iraq oilfields through British mandated territory to the port of Haifa had been opened. Alore than £15,000,000 has been invested in the Iraq fields and the pipelines connected therewith since the granting of the concession in 1924. It is an indusv try that has revolutionised the lives of many of the inhabitants of the country; more than 6000 Iraquis have been employed on the pipeline construction. Up to October Mast year £12,000,000 had been expended on exploration, development, and construction w'orks, more than half of that sum being for the pipe-line from the fields to the Alediterranean. It was a comparatively small task to get the oil on the spot; to transport it over 1200 miles of desert and wild country was a task of considerable magnitude. Not only did the subject of labour require much prudent administration ; as the line progressed and gangs became spread out the physical ■well-being and accommodation of the workers had to be thought of. Aledical men were located at various points and it is a high tribute to their care that there was a complete absence of epidemic disease among the thousands employed. Through this pipe-line system there will flow 4,000,000 tons of oil a year. The industry has changed the fortunes of Iraq, and has created a new port of first-rate importance commercially and strategically.

“Wigs by Clarkson” is a phrase that has been famous for many years of theatre programmes wherever British stage productions have been presented. William Clarkson, who died in London a few days ago, not only built up a business making him the leading provider of costumes and wigs for the London and provincial theatres, but was also an unequalled expert at providing disguises for those who had a legitimate reason for desiring them. He had a stock of dresses and wigs so large that, at short notice he could equip a touring company for almost any play, or a big party of people for a fancy dress ball. It was even said that he had often used his grease-paint and skill to obliterate black eyes for those wdio had had misfortune overnight which they did not care to display in the glare of the day! On occasions, criminals, he admitted, had deceived him into disguising them to escape the clutches of the law. A notorious case was that of Charles Peace, the. murderer, who got Clarkson in all innocence to fit him with moustache and * For nearly forty years he made all Sarah Bernhardt’s wigs, and . le f theatrical celebrities from William Terris onwards were his clients. He was also led unwittingly perhaps otherwise—into aiding famous hoaxes including that when H. Ue Vere Cole posed suecessfullv at Cambridge University as the Sultan So Clarkson had about 900 mecep of costuming and manv other theatrical relics. His was truly one of the most peculiar professions.