MARGINAL NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 25311, 14 June 1935, Page 8

MARGINAL NOTES

Major-General Huddleston, who recently took command of the Baluchistan district, rose from the ranks. As a young man he failed three times in one essential subject for Sandhurst, and so was advised to get a commission through the ranks. He therefore enlisted in the Coldstream Guards, where his promotion was rapid. _ After two years he received a commission in the Dorsetshire Regiment. One comment was that his case did not prove that a field-marshal’s baton reposed in every private’s knapsack, but this brilliant soldier will not fall far short of it before he is done.

The progressive demoralization of English was referred to by Lord Hewat, Lord Chief Justice, at, Sussex Assizes recently. When a Witness used the word “practically,” Lord Hewat said: “Was there not a time when practically’ meant ‘in actual practice’? Now it means ‘not quite.’ Our language seems to be undergoing a progressive demoralization until finally a term comes to mean the exact opposite of which it was intended to mean. Later, when a man named Weller gave evidence, Lord Hewart asked: 1 Are you in any way related to Mr Samuel Weller?” ■ , . “No, my lord,” came the immediate reply. “I don’t spell my name with a ‘V.’ ” Lord Hewat smilingly commented: “That, I think, effectively establishes your alibi.” The following erratum accompanies a pamphlet published by the Communist League of America: In making up this pamphlet a serious error was made in the sequence of the pages. To read the text as it was written it is necessary to observe the following order: pages 3-36 are correct as they stand; from page 36 go to page 42; read first on this page the section which is upside down, read the rest of the page; read pages 43-45, go back to page 41; read page 41; from page 41 go back to page 37; read from page 37-40, the pamphlet closes with the words on page 40. Turning the world upside down, like charity, begins at home. Napoleon’s letters to Marie Louise have revealed that he loved her, but some critics have said that if he loved her he would not have introduced politics and military affairs into his writings to her. Evidence for and against produced this instance by Marlborough to his Sarah, shortly after Blenheim: The Elector of Bavaria has sent his wife and children back to Munich, and tnls morning by a trumpet has writ to me, and in it a letter to the Electress open. It has made my heart ache, being very sensible how cruel it is to be separated from what one loves. Dizzy’s cri de coeur is also in character. I have given this morning the Constableship of the Tower to General Sir Chas. Yorke, G.C.B. I keep the Isle of Man still open: open till you have quite broken my heart.

He wrote this in 1875 to Lady Bradford. One can well understand that, as his biographer affirms, she was often taken aback by his septuagenarian ardour.

The Biblical Pyramidists, who believe that the measurements of the Great Pyramid forecast the end of the world, fix the date of the Final Tribulation as September, 15-16, 1936. In spite of the fact that this would come soon after the next British Election, the most confirmed scaremonger need not take the prophecy too seriously. That, at least, is the opinion of Mr William Kingsland, whose book on the theories about the Great Pyramid appeared recently. He discards all the familiar explanations. He does not belieye that Cheops built the pyramid for his tomb, or for the use of his astrologers. Mr Kingsland thinks, however, that the secret is known to the Hierarchy of Initiates, who have never lost the “Wisdom of the Egyptians.” As these are not disposed to make their secret public, the mystery remains.