GLEAMS AND GLINTINGS

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 25, 21 February 1920, Page 24

GLEAMS AND GLINTINGS

(By "RADIO.")

ffhe pen is mightier than the gun; So if in earnest or in fun We write you something good or true, No gun can do as much for you. ACCORDING to a contemporary •*■*• authority, the wireless transmission of food is to be resorted to as soon as production is reinvented. In a compressed form surplus accumulations will be stored in underground |cities, as) a precaution against aircraft operations, and the population will remain below to guard the supplies, coming out occasionally for a breather, whenever the League of Nations permits. • » • Of course, traffic must folloAv the yeopld, and therefore will mostly be subterranean. How this may affect ti.e beadi of the community is not yet ascertainable, but politicians assert that ii. diplomacy is to be underground nothing will ever be done underhand, unless any member of the League should Avriggle out of hand. In the United States, however, boards Avill be provided above, so that everything and everybody may be above board, and for that reason subAvays will cease to exist there, and even that invincible navy of theirs, camouflaged by Stars and Stripes, will stay on top. Under no circumstances will elevation be abandoned there, in spite of Mexico, Prohibition, and the protestations ot Darkest Africa. Europeans will then be known as the underdogs. • * • Old man John had a prosperous business, long and valuable experience, and a large family. One of his elder sons, a pert young boaster named Sam, had a row with the old fellow, so they parted company, and as Sam was one of the kind that never forgive or forget, the breach appeared final. John got into trouble with a ruthless competitor, Avho would stick at no means, fair or foul, to ruin him. All his young family did their little best to help him and his partners through the mix-up, but Sam kept aloof, until he began to awaken to the fact that if the old man went under he, Sam, would have his own pocket assailed in his turn by the same competitor. Then, and only then, he decided, at the last moment, to let by-gones be by-gones, for the time being, and to lend the old man a hand. * * * With youthful fluster and fume, he plunged into the fray, but with none of the splendid organisation with which the old fellow had equipped himself. * * .* When the cunning competitor was beaten to a frozzle by John and his partners, Sam proceeded to blow and trumpet forth throughout the business world the reiterated assertion, "I didnt'," and made up his mind that, as he had secured a pile out of the transaction, he would unmercifully cut out old John, and supplant him. Sam's troubles are now coming thick and heavy, and serve him right. • • • Ipse fecit is good Latin. Ipse fake it is not. The ancient Romans were aware of this truth, and never pretended conquest unless lit was actually achieved by them. When, however luxury and impotence supervened, it was a Caligulla who was weak enough to fake it, and his collection of shells as souvenirs meant fame. * * * We are fast bidding to become a nation of colonisers. Hitherto we have rejoiced in the truism that the footstep of the New Zealander may be found anywhere and everywhere, in the froaen wastes, the desert sands, the hubs of commerce, on the decks of ocean, and possibly in Paradise. But when we organise expedi-

tions to Fiji and Samoa we are anticipating the outflow of pioneer bands to the sunny islands of the broad Pacific. There are the homes of sirens whom even M.P.'s may find it difficult to abandon. Their treasures lie concealed in the intact recesses of rock and river, just as they do in our own country, but, as ever, distance lends enchantment to the view. But Avhat would happen if our priceless legislators-were induced by some magic spell to postpone their return to us indefinitely ? What if the hunting, of the rhinoceros (beetle) became a too absorbing pastime for them? One most serious consequence would be that they would be missed by the Prince of Wales. Another would be that by fresh and budding male and female hankerers after the carpet gardens of the Wellington capital, they never Avould be missed.

A distinguished bowler says:— Boavls, according to Strutt, Avas a game played in the Middle Ages by the ancients. It is indulged in very largely nowadays by adolescent moderns. There are various kinds of bowls, of Avhich those most frequently used are the biassed bowl and the floAving bowl. The half boAvl of the time of EdAvard IV. was so strong that it was bowled out by Act of Parliament, for the sufficient reason that those who resorted to it were "utterly undone and impoverished of their goods." Thus were they knocked off their pins. Henry VIII., noted for his partiality for divorce, and judicial separation by cutting off the head and front ot offenders, disliked not.only Boleyn, but also bowling, and prohibited boAvls altogether "for gain, lucre, or living," but Drake was the man for boAvling, either before a stiff gale or up against the Armada, which he utterly squelched by completing a game of boAvls.

Jacks are also of various kinds; some are white, others are knaves, and some are jackasses, jacks of all trades, boot and kitchen jacks, trees, fish, or bunting, and every good boAvler admits, but he loves only two jacks among the lot, the Union Jack and the jack that just stays nestling against his bowl in friendly proximity- . *

That Black List has astonished the natives of Berlin. They throw up their hands in horror at this last edition of dead, wounded, and missing, and bitterly deplore their inability to camouflage, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Tirpitz, Hollweg, et hoc genus omne. Perhaps their easiest way out of the dilemma Avould be to take them to Scapa Flow and scuttle the lot. Another method of evasion might be for those gentlemen in black to advertise formally thai in future they Avill trade under the names of Hindborough, Ludthorpe, Tarpotts, Holloway, etc., which ought to be sufficient forthAvith to sink all doubts in oblivion. But the French declare "nous verrons," and Lloyd-George says "We'll see." Little Willy himself asserts that he alone is worth 180 of the blighters. He has a clean collar ready for his debut as a holy martyr in Blighty.