THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22257, 9 May 1934, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By Watfareb. Man has ever, had it in his nature to aspire, to soar, to reach for higher things. This vagary has received sufficient comment from Ovid to Keats, from More to Billy Sunday. Its spiritual manifestations are numberless, its material consist of queerly-shaped contraptions in which, against common sense and the laws of gravity which we learned about in the schoolroom, Man hurls himself through the air at frantic speeds and with admirable optimism. Our present interest in aviation is of recent origin. It is> but 31 years ago that Orville Wright persuaded a collection of boxes, attached each to each with ends of wire and his great faith, to raise him above the earth and retain him there for 58 seconds. But his success was more original than his conception. In the porch of St: Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, is a tablet commemorating an earlier flight: Lot this small monument record the name Of Cadman, and to future times proclaim How, by attempt, to fly from this high spire Across Sabrlna's stream, he did acquire His fatal end. 'Twas not for want of skill Nor courage to perform the task he fell. Tv'o, no; a faulty thread, a screw not tight. Hurried his .soul to take Its flight, And bid the body here beneath, good-night. Sabrina, or as we prefer to call her, the Severn, may have been, surprised, but to-day not a •wrinkle would trouble her smooth brow if two thousand Cadmans, mounted on .Avro broomsticks, o'errode her; ■■;.' '"£.

But we digress. Our thesis is that, coincident with' Man's constant preoccupation with aspiring - to higher planes, is an antithetical ambition. In the news recently was an account of the minor disaster attending a youth who attempted to parachute from a twostoreyed building. The United States papers most recently; to hand recall that the new commander of the dirigible Macon made his first descent from his father's hayloft at the age of seven, artfully regulating the progress of his plummeting with an umbrella.

So Man, who frequently flies to fame, may also fall to it. From the London press:—

A man fell 40ft, landed on his feet uninjured and calmly demanded a cigarette from his scared workmates at Shepherd's Bush, W., yesterday. He is Mr Peter Martin, aged 34, of the Mall, Notting Hill-gate, and he was working at an amusement park near the White City. " I haven't' a bruise on me—but I have got a bit of a headache," he said to a Baily Mail reporter. . . . Two years ago Mr Martin slipped off a ladder 3ft from the ground, spraining-his ankle. "Now, that was a pasty fall,' he said reminiscently.

"Well, here's happy landings," says one hawk-faced aviator, to another in the aero club house. It is a toast the workmen of Shepherd's Bush might appropriate when next they are preparing to climb the joy-wheel scaffolding.

But as in music, wherein a Menuhin may outshine the mature virtuoso; or in dancing, when a 15-year-old Touinanova may outpoint the loveliest movements of a famous ballerina, so in the gentle art of—shall we call it? —de-levi-tation, the youngster may outfall the practised British workman. This from a New .York source: —

Tn Brooklyn, chubby Raymond Bjornlande, aged three and a-half years, cried, " Here I come, Mama," and dropped like a stone from a third floor window on to the concrete pavement. Cried little Raymond, absolutely unscathed by his leap: "Wait till Baddy hears how I can jump! " Sequel to the above anecdotes: Ardent suitor: " Jessamine, darling, won't you believe me when I say I've fallen for you?" Jessamine (a calculating wench): " How far? "

Some people seem to be ablo to stand any amount of knocking "in the Bchool of experience, while others surrender their clayey mortal vestments the first time they tread on a stray piece of soap in their bath-tub, or fall off a projection no higher than a banuna skin. Take the case of Hank. Again our informant is the American press:— In Eldora, lowa, Hank Schafer, aged 83, slipped on the ice and sustained a fractured hip. Many years ago Hank Schafer had the misfortune to be buried alive in a coal mine, but was uncovered in the nick of time. On another occasion he lost an arm and an eye, as the result of being inadvertently blown into the air by a cannon. He made a good recovery. Later he was buried | for a considerable time under two tons of clay, but extricated not badly injured. His next misadventure occurred when he was thrown from a horse and dragged through a barbed-wire fence, suffering minor hurts. In a fall from a 30ft cliff he sustained little damage. When, however, he was catapulted from a bobsled travelling at a high rate of speed, he was temporarily incapacitated by a fractured skull. In his eightieth year he went down with double pneumonia, but made an excellent recovery. At 81 he experienced a paralytic stroke. In the following year he was unlucky enough to be run over by a horse and wagon, and, shortly after, an automobile knocked him down, the wheels passing over him. During his lifetime Hank Schafer has twice been struck by lightning. Our Arty Boys, who are forever chiding Life for withholding from them the sour crab-apples of Experience, may find a moral in the sensational career of Mr Schafer. When the day of reckoning comes, it may be better to have been struck by lightning than to be merely moonstruck.' Our ingenuous advertisers: — Douglas Social Credit Movement. . . . Mr will lecture and with the aid of charts . . . explain the A plus B theorem. Rt. Hon. JVC Coates says Social Credit is nonsense. Come and hear for yourself who talks nonsense. Bomb throwing and flags were prohibited on the day celebrating the birth of a New Austria. Some people have such whimsical ways of expressing delight. Woodfull hopes that as a result of the Test matches neither England nor Australia will be disappointed. And may the best two sides win. Constant intoxication, day after day, and even generation after generation, has no harmful effect on the health, length of life or fertility of such creatures as mice, rats, or fowls. What a price we pay for being human! " Sout Haustralia's New Governor." It will take him a little time to get used to the accent in the colonics. Declares a housing inspector who is the first male elected to the Balljnger Women's Institute: "There are lots of things that only a can can handle—M.C. at a dance for instance." We must confess, however, we're surprised they permit such exotic dances. f