BREEZES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 23 July 1935, Page 4

BREEZES

Too Much Rope. “Give a man enough rope and lie’ll hang himself.” " '■ “I gave mine plenty, and he’s skipped. ’ ’ * * * * No Chance. A C.iinese Avals’ charged with having in liis possession, and also conducting, games of chance. “Now, Ah Sin,” said the magistrate, “what have you to say in answer to the charge against you?” “Dat me no play games of chance,” said the little man. “Cards arc all marked and dice are loaded. Me win every time. No chance at all.”

Antiques. If all the brass statuettes from India that adorn a traveller’s mantelshelf were suddenly imbued with life, how many (asks the “Melbourne Age”) wouid hang their heads in shame? Sold by dusky vendors in the apparently guileless streets of charming Bombay, they arc brought to Australia by tourists as genuine specimens of native handiwork and antiquity. That is a tribute to the salesmanship of the coloured race. The statuettes are more than 50 per cent Australian, not in good looks certainly, but in content. For some time past shipments of zinc have been taken from Australia to be employed in the manufacture of a copper and zinc alloy which is used in the manufacture of these brass representations of Indian idols and native figures. This month an exceptionally large consignment will leave for Colombo by a well-known passenger ship, and repeat orders for some time to come have already been placed with a Melbourne firm. The natives have copper abundant from local mines at their disposal, but Australian zinc is what they need most to produce the best antique now that business is looking up, and the mailboat passenger is prepared to spend rupees rather than ride all day in a rickshaAV. This trusting person gets, his OAvn back, industrially speaking, in a wav that would cause even the muchmaligned Scot to tear his tartan in dismay. * * * #

Like to ‘ ‘ Stay In. ” “Staying in” is no hardship to children who attend a primary school at Oxford, England. The school already lias a cinema, a “soft” drinks bar, and a miniature meteorological station. And an ambitious wireless installation is the latest addition to its attractions. Parents have contributed part of the cost of wiring every room. The school syllabus includes regular wireless lessons, and, in addition, the children enjoy musical accompaniment to handicraft and other lessons. When it rains, instead of going into the playground, they remain in. the classrooms and listen to the music. “Wo are trying to use every modern device for educating children,” the headmaster (Mr R. C. Cole) told a “Daily Mail” reporter. “We have proved how valuable the cinema can bo in teaching, and we are proving that radio is equally valuable.” Oxford will be the scene in August of one of the largest conferences of teachers ever held. Four thousand, representing every country in the world, aro attending. Delegates are even coming from Japan. Oxford itself cannot accommodate such an influx of visitors, and the delegates will be housed in the suriounding districts. * * * *

A Spoil Sport. The burglars of London are deeply insulted by the methods adopted by the Ilolborn jeweller, Mr A. C. Alexander, to outwit them. They have an uncomfortable feeling that if his example be followed on a really large scale, thenprofession will become extinct. To 01dinary alarms, locks and iron bars, they have no objection —these are the natural obstacles in the path of success. But when a man deals mysteriously with electricity and defends his shop by unorthodox mechanical devices which defy detection, it is going too far. Nobody c-an pass within four feet or Mr Alexander’s establishment m Buchanan’s Buildings, Ilolborn, without flooding it in a blaze of light from a .score of hidden coloured electric lamps. The principle, when applied to so mundane a thing as a burglar alarm, is simple, but wonderfully effective. It is based upon an electrically charged wire laid about the centre to be protected. It can bo buried in a prison wall 16 feet deep, if necessary. But directly a human being approaches, the minute electrical radiations from his body upset tho frequency of tlie small charge the wire, and all sorts of unexpected happenings, disastrous to that person (if he bo of nefarious intent) ensue. A circuit causes syrens to sound and lamps to light, and gives rise to extreme public curiosity. In such circumstances, no burglar, however, efficient, could hope to conduct his business properly, and that is why Mr Alexander and his fellow inventor, Mr R. A. Lovibond, are now in such bad odour with tho underworld. True, they have laid the foundations of a fortune, but they liave also threatened an ancient British institution with irreparable ruin.