HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17528, 4 May 1925, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING. A GOLF YARN. The fact that Lord Strathclyde has taken keenly to golf since resigning the office of Txird President of the Court of Session reminds a correspondent of an excellent story which he tells against himself. It seems that not long ago he was chatting with a caddie, and recalled having played a certain professional when last on those links, adding. ‘‘ He was a grand player.” “Ay,” said the caddie, “but ye could beat him noo.” “ Do you really think so?” said Lord Strathclyde, gratified at the seeming compliment to his progress. “ Ay,” drawled the lad, “ he’s dcid.” MONEYLENDERS’ SECRET DEFENCE FUND. Moneylenders arc showing greater uneasiness now that the text oi Lord Carson’s Bill restricting their activities has been issued (says the London “Daily Chronicle.”) Their secret defence fund is mounting up. for. the lenders mean to fight the Bill whenever and wherever it is possible. Apart from the fact that Lord Carson’s Bill limits interest to 15 per cent, moneylenders regard with the greatest alarm the proposal to make illegal their seductive circulars and advertisements, and also the employment of agents and canvassers. Judge Cluer, in his comments in a case at the Shoreditch County Court, spoke oi the “absolute fools” in London who were reached by newspaper advertisements. NO MORE KITCHEN CRASHES. Tt is one of the tragedies of invention that unbreakable glass was once discovered and lost again! Nevertheless, although glass may still be brittle and breakable, it will be welcome news to the housewife that unbreakable porcelain has been produced at last. The woman who trips over a hassock or rug, and smashes the best tea-service, will still have the task of retrieving the scattered “pots,’’ but they .will be whole and not in a thousand fragments. Washing-up will now be shorn of one of its main terrors, and the teapot, the handle or spout of which flics off in one's hand, wiii no longer be an unsolvable problem of the kitchen. It is announced that a firm of porcelain manufacturers in Copenhagen have succeeded in producing “crocks” which arc almost unbreakable. A FISH OF MYSTERY. We arc so accustomed to think of fish breathing by means of gills that it is difficult to imagine a species which have lungs and can breathe air like the higher land animals. These are the Dipnoi (meaning doubicbreathers). At one time numerous, they are now almost extinct. There are three species of them. These are found in different parts of the world —one group in Queensland, another in Africa, and the third in South America. They inhabit the tropical rivers, which, though full in tho wet season, are parched up when the heat comes. During the dry season they bury themselves in the mud of the river bed and start to breathe air, which they aro able to do by means of a swimbladder, similar in structure to our own lungs, though naturally not so highly developed. Their internal structure is certainly illuminating. As well as in tlieir lung or swim-bladder, they show resemblances to amphibians ami land vertebrates in the skull, heart, and blood-vessels. In spite of these resemblances, however, it is not certain that they are really a “missing link” between fish and amphibians. It is thought that the latter have been evolved through a different line,_ even the lungs of land vertebrates being of supposedlv different origin to the lung of the Dipnoi. PARTIES IN POLITICS. Sir Alfred Mond’s opinion that, so far from the three-party system being likelv to give place again to the twoparty system, it will be extended to a four-party alignment of Conservative, Liberal, Labour and Communist partisans. is probably an instance of the wish being father to the thought. A staunch and prominent Liberal, he has seen his party reduced almost to extinction as a unit in the House of Commons, after an experience of almost, equal ignominy as hewers of wood and drawers of water for Labotir in the previous Parliament. Yerv naturally, any further political partition, with an added relative strength for the smallest of the resulting sections, would be welcome to his party. But it is more than a little doubtful whether Sir Alfred Mond’s forecast has any likelihood of fulfilment. Despite the emergence of three parties in Britain and elsewhere, the two-party system is rooted so deeply there as to admit of no easy eradication. It suits the British temperament. LONDON'S LEANING DOME. No one knew until recently that London has its leaning tower. Now it is believed by experts that the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral was built ctooked, and that the foundations on one side settled more than on the othei before the dome was completed. The crookedness, it is alleged, was compensated for in the course of the dome's ejection, but it has always been out of the straight: in other words, it is a leaning dome! It is not a visible defect, like that of the leaning tower cf Pisa, the most famous in the world. This tower, or campanile, overhangs ils p-r se by upwards of thirteen feet, and 1’; long it was supposed to have been , iposely built in this way. This is j Vistake, however, for it is owing to it same cause alleged in the case of t dome of St Paul's. Not everyone tiers that at Caerphilly, in Giamorg: iire, there is a tower which leans idee .p l'eet in eighty. Even the Pisa tuwf.- leans only six iec L in the same hei 7 J STM AS DAY ADVANCED. I -i the best of tiie stories which ; aiv rSO? plentifully bestrewn over tho | pagG* Admiral .Sir Reginald Bacon's j book ’ reminiscences relates to an j inipa.7 -r, officer on a distant station I wlio -need the date of Christmas Daj week. Not only so, held service and the customary . teas ho substituted date. Tiie reasv ,r. J-he rearrangement was dulv enterea in ~ul*en vessel's log-book. j ; : ' vas '.'oung pigs which had . been >aui the ship’s company for - Iheir L hr. dinner were feeling 1 the tropica- and losing flesh. Ac- > cordingly \ ( ~.. resolved that, the » sooner they. , fulfilled their ultimate , destiny the better. Tn other word-, r a native ot the Emerald I s l© might f >"•' 11 tl»- anirmils 1 v-pr<> L’l <'i in Older to ba, e Llieir - Ti'o*- • y* tlie same officer „tio t ,vo t .ns » plot ground consecrated 3 l« the bm.Dl Of Otto of his men, rH , c d j bfis c\*r bishop for the oc.irs?. -