NOTES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXI, Issue 2781, 28 November 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOTES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

Was Bartholomeu de Cusmao, the priest-aviator of the eighteenth century, to whom the Brazilian Government is to erect a monument, really the first man ever to fly l 1 asK this question, writes the London Diarist of the Evening Standard, since a correspondent informs me that the library of the ancient Premonstratensian Abbey that now forms pair of the castle of Schussenried, m Wuitemberg, there is a painting depicting, among the most famous sentatives of theology, phflosophy and iurisprudence, Father Caspai Mom, who, as the chronicle of Schussenried records, made sundry successful flying 0 experiments at the abbey as far baek as 1610, therefore exactly 100 years before Cusmao’s sensational flight at Lisbon. Caspar Mohr must have been an exceptionally gifted man to whom no mechanical problem appeared too difficult to tackle. m the words of the castle chronicler, “ Herr Pater Caspar Mohr was painter, sculptor, carpenter, locksmith and turner." He built the organ m the abbey church, and was also ible for a wonderful clock tne hkc of which had never been seen ketoie. His attempts to solve the ° perpetual motion would, m the opinion of the chronicler, have most piobably been crowned with success had not death called a halt to his untiring activities. (t , “ Once,” the chronicler goes on, he devised wings for himself made of goose feathers, and made divers experiments therewith m flying until he was able to rise from the giound above the height of a man. He wao likewise ready and willing to attempt a flight from the upper doimitono, throe floors above the ground, into the garden, but this was forbidden him under holy obedience. Which was probably well for Father Caspai.

British supremacy in speed is strikingly illustrated by the fact that we hold the world’s speed record foi aeroplanes, cars, motor cycles, motoi boats and railway trains. The relative speeds achieved by the record breaks are interesting. They are. Areoplanes, Flight-Lieutenant Stamforth (408.8 miles an hour); cars, Sir Malcolm Campbell (246.09 m.p.hu); motor-cycles, 3. S. Wright (150 7 m.p.h>; motor boats, Kaye Don (110 m.p.h.); railways, G.W.R. . ( 7y -* d '• m.p.h.). In each case the records are all British both as to man and materials.

Ninety years ago, on Ist October, the Great Western Railway in England made what was probably its worst bargain. A contractor offered to build the station at Swindon and to maintain it perpetually provided he was given a lease of the refreshment room at a peppercorn rent for nine-nine years, that the company built no other refreshment room between London and Bristol, and that it stopped every train at Swindon foi ten minutes. Foolishly the company agreed, and the contractor had not been ruiming the refreshment room for, many years before there_ were numerous complaints about t e cbst of the food and drink there. One man complained to the chairman that he had spent Vs 6d on a few sandwiches and a bottle of ale. Some modification of the condition regarding bther refreshment rooms on the line was conceded as the years went oh, but stopping the train for ten minifies while the hungry passengers were served became at last such a nuisance that in 1891, says the Manchester Guardian, the company was glad to pay £250,000 to annul the agreement.

* You do well to preserve the mem- ■ ory, so worthy of being cherished, of one of the greatest of your am folk.” In these words the Rev. W. S: Crockett, Tweedsmuir, commended * the spirit of the people Silkirk m erecting the memorial to J. B. Selkirk,” the poet laureate of the Royal Burgh, and of. Flodden tradition, which was Unveiled at the end of September last. The memorial has been placed at the Victoria Hall near to the Flodden Memorial. It stands in a recess at the corner, and takes the form of a large bronze panel on a pillar of red sandstone in keeping with the architecture of the hall and the surroundings. On the upper portion of the panel are two female figures, representing the sorrowing sisters m Selkirk after Flodden, 'while underneath are the followings two lines from that poem:— Then I turn to sister Jean, And my airms aboot her twine. On the lower part of the panel is the profile of the poet, and this inscription:—" J. B. Selkirk' (James Brown, 1832—1904), poet and man of letters, author of ‘Selkirk After Flodden,’ erected by admirers of his work, 1931”.