People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 78, 1 April 1931, Page 8

People and Their Doings.

April Fool Jests Far And Near : Why Trolley Bases Have Two Poles : What A Centenarian Has Seen.

A. PRIL F °Q L JESTERS did not spare the newspaper staffs to-day. The news editor of the “ Star ** was rung up at a very early hour by someone who told him a goldfish had drowned itself in the Bowker fountain and wanted to know what was to be done about it. A reporter had a note left for him to ring up a number urgent, and on ringing found that he was on the Salvation Army Rescue Home. Somebody rang up the home of the editor of the “ Times,” and asked him to ring up the editor of the “ Star,” a jest that brought him out of bed a little earlier than usual. The best joke was reported from the telegraph office, where a very young messenger was sent to the engineer with a request to lower the Pacific cable two feet as the tide was coming in. JN FRANCE April Fools are called April Fish (Poisson d’Avril). One explanation of the custom is that the word “ Poisson ” is corrupted through ignorance of the people from “ Passion,” and length of time has almost totally defaced the original intention. This was that the Passion of our Saviour took place About this time of the year, and as the Jews sent Christ backwards and forwards to mock and torment Him, from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the custom took its rise from thence. We now send persons whom we wish to ridicule from one place to another on foolish pretexts. D ou BLE TROLLEY POLES on the new trolley buses are necessary to obtain a circuit for the electricity that passes through the motors. In the tramway system the current enters from the overhead wires and goes out by the rails, which have to be electrically bonded at the joints to provide a continuous contact. With the trolley buses one of the twin overhead wires serves the purpose of the tram rail.. Rubber tyres, of course, provide perfect insulation from any ground currents, or things might be awkward in the case of a trolley bus crossing an ordinary tram track.

QN SUNDAY NEXT, Easter Sunday, a memorial to Rupert Brooke will be unveiled at his burial place on the island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea. On the night when he was buried, April 24, 1915, the men of his company made a great wooden cross for his head, and on the back of the cross was written in Greek: “ Here lies the servant of God, sublieutenant of the English Navy, who died for the deliverance of Constantinople from the Turks.” Brooke's death at the age of twentyseven was one of the tragedies of the war, for he had earned considerable success as a poet. While at Rugby he won the school prize for a poem on “ The Bastille,” and, although he was deeply interested in social questions poetry was his master passion from the first. In December, 1911, his first book of verse appeared, but the next did not appear until after his death. He holds more than a passing interest for the peoples of the Pacific for he spent the greater part of 1913 in the South Sea Islands, and it was here that he wrote the poem that Sir Henry Newbolt hailed as “ profoundly moving—the cry of one haunted by remembrance in the Circean Islands of the Pacific.” .... the poem “ Waikiki ”: And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me, Gleam like a woman’s hair, stretch out and rise; • And new stars burn into the ancient skies, Over the murmurous soft Hawaiian sea. W 9 9 AN ACCOUNT of Rupert Brooke’s burial, written by a friend, Sub-Lieutenant W. C. Denis-Browne, appears in “ Memorials of Old Rugbians who Fell in the Great War,” He writes: "We found a most lovely place for his grave, about a mile up the valley from the sea, an olive grove above a watercourse, dry now, but torrential in the winter. Two mountains flank it on either side, and Mount Khokilas is at its head. We chose a place in the most lovely grove I have ever seen, or imagined, a little glade of about a dozen trees, carpeted with mauve-flowering sage. Over his head droops an olive tree, and round it is a little space clear of all undergrowth . . . “ He was borne by petty officers of his own company, and so slowly did they go

that it was not till eleven that they reached the grave. We buried him by cloudy moonlight. He wore his uniform, and upon his coffin were his helmet, belt and pistol . . . And so we laid him to rest in that lovely valley, his head towards those mountain, that he would have loved to know and his feet towards the sea. He once said that he would like to be buried in a Greek island. He could not find a lovelier one than Skyros and no quieter resting place.” 9 9 9 AfR. JAMES A. CRAWFORD, of Naseby, who celebrates his hundred and first birthday to-day was the oldest visitor to the Dunedin Exhibition. Mr Crawford has lived under four English Sovereigns, William IV., Queen Victoria, Edwarcl VII., and King George, and has seen the transformation of conditions of living under an era of inventions. He has seen the development of steam applied to rail and water transport, and in industry, the bicycle, the petrol engine, electric light, motor cars, the typewriter, the dynamo, the aeroplane, the submarine, the gramophone and the radio. 3? SIXTY YEARS AGO. (From the “Star” of April 1. 1871). Is it a Joke? —An English paper received by the last mail states 44 that Mr Ottywell, tfte Canterbury agent, is going to make the first shipment of rails to Canterbury in the course of a few days.” Exactly the same style of paragraph has appeared in the same paper three different times during the last year. In consequence of great and general pressure brought to bear on the Government, the Registrar-General of Land has been directed to issue licenses to land brokers. Mr Moorhouse will accordingly visit the chief towns of the colony at the earliest opportunity. Gaol returns.—The number of prisoners in Her Majesty’s Gaols undergoing sentence during the month of March is as follows: Christchurch Gaol: Males, hard labour, 21; imprisonment, 1; females, hard labour, 16: imprisonment, 1; total in gaol, 39. Lyttelton Gaol: Males, for trial, 5; hard labour, 73; imprisonment, 2; under sentence of death (1 commuted), 2; debtors, 7; total, 89. Females, imprisonment. 1: total in gaol, 90. Total in both gaols, 129.