THRILLING MOTOR TRIP

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12507, 24 July 1926, Page 11

THRILLING MOTOR TRIP

Machine Guns as Escort : Snow Passes of Persia GALLOWS FOR BANDITS

LONDON people are all proud of the swarms of pigeons which people the streets of the great city, especially the flocks that wdicol and'perch about St. Paul's Cathedral. Pub onto again they are learning that bliey can have too much of a good thing. Tho number of pigeons has become so great, llmt the birds make the approaches 1o tho building foul and unsightly, ami the litter from the nutshells am! biscuits sold by neighbouring vendors is described lev one writer os'll scandal. A little further cast, at 1 lie Cinildiudl, matters arc viewed so seriously that the City Corporation has been conferring with the Home Otlice as to the best way to reduce tile trouble. Tiro great increase of the pigeon population is a striking tribute to the kindness cf Londoners. Until the coming of motor-cars the pigeons depended mainly on grain dropped from the nosebags of horses, and as the horses

were gradually withdrawn from the streets the people came to the rescue, and more than made good the food deficiency. The result is a host of pigeons such ns London has never previously known. THE ORIGINAL STOCK In fact tho pigeons of St. Paul’s are older, a* an institution. than tho Cathedral itself. They fan be traced hack to 1385, when Robert dc Braybrook, Bishop of London, wrote an indignant protest against-people casting stones and darts and shooting arrows at the pigeons of St. Paul’s. The ancestors of the birds survived the Great Fire and came back to roost on Wren’s new St. Paul’s. They are actually the oldest citizens of London, and mav be said to have established an equivalent to Squatter’s Rights. One can see at St. Paul’s pigeons very much like the original, wild strain [ froin winch all domestic pigeons bare come, but most of the modern bicL-T

are there too; fantails, tumblers, fipt piers, Aniwerps, and blue racing Bom? ers, A SOURCE OF DANGEB Whatever the truth of the rise of this groat free bird population in the heart of the capital, says the writer quoted, certainly the birds are a more venerable tribe than is commonly supposed. If the cleanliness of the great building as well as safety of the birds could be secured. Londoners might s©a in their presence nothing t <s object to. But in the prosperity and unbounded fruitfulness of the pigeons there fs danger anl the authorities are pgi>» plexed. unwilling to disturb their fittie proteges, but almost compelled to do so in defence of the amenities of the great Cathedral.