RANDOM NOTES.

Western Star, 8 May 1925, Page 2

RANDOM NOTES.

ThApassing away of Riverton’s oldest resident, Mr Wyatt, at‘the age of 101 \ years, calls for some comment on the duration of life, Some , years ago a woman died at Waimatuku aged 99, and the district furnishes many examples of longevity. It. was Prof. Metchnikdff who said it is impossible to accept the view that the high mortality between the ages of seventy and seventy-five indicate a . natural limit to human life. The fact that many men from seventy to seventy-five years old are well preserved, both phs'sic'ftlly and intellectually, makes it impossible to regard that age as the natural limit of human life. Philosophers such as Plato, poets such as Goethe and Victor Hugo, artists such as Michael Angelo, Titian, and Franz Hals, produced some of their most important works when they had passed what some regard as the limit of, life. Morever, deaths of people at that age are really due to senile debility, i Centenarians are really not rare. In [France, for instance, early 150 centenarians die every year, and extreme) longevity is not limited to th©- white races. It has been noticed, however, that most centenarians have been people who were -poor or in humble circumstances, and whose life has .beenextremely simple. Hence, no one can live long after the . three score years I and ten 'who is not prepared to pay ; the price. ©'■ © 0 X A . number of young Australians aiA at present on a tour of Britain. When they entered Scotland, after crossing the Sack at Gretna Green, famous for runaway marriages, . they were met by a piper’s band and a party of Glasgow business men. Thfe Scottish pipers having finished,, the Australian band played Scottish airs, and, says the ’ cable, a mob of cattle in an adjourning field stomp'eded. Presumably the cattle relished tlte Scottish pipers, but would ha’ none of the Australians’ music. Which recalls a story. A kiltie-dressed ( man was playing the pipes at a Scottish evening, when a voice from the back said,” Sit down you blighter.” The Chairman called order, and requested the one who spoke to stand up. No immediate response, but eventually a huge Scotsman rose and said, Mr Chairman, I dinna ken the mon who caV the piper a blighter but I would like to ken the blighter wha ca’d ’ini a piper.” ©0 , :

A suggestion that a tax should be imposed on bobbed and shingled hair is the latest to como from England. Where such a tax in operation in New Zeahind Dunedin, saj's a local paper* would supply a.rich:harvest to the Government, as inquiries hav© dieted the information that over 30 women and girls have their hair bobbed and shingled each day. There' is then to he taken into account all those of the fair sex who have‘had their hair shorn. The tax on motor-cars, it is remarked, would fade into insignificance; if a ’“bobbed and shingled ” tax were placed on the Statute Book. The Fobbed hair fashion reminds one of the story of the fox without a tail. y Probably these with little hair started the fashion so as to induce the ladies with glorious liair to come into line. Don Quixote’s devotion was to Dulcinea del Toboso, of whom lie says— Ask you for whom, my tears do flow? ’Tis for, Dulcinea del Toboso.

Her glory was her flowing hair of gold as it is or- should be of every woman. Nothing is more beautiful. But fashions are fashions, and, like many other things, they have their day and cease to be. . © © ft It was always understood in Otago that to be a Mac. was to have si passport into any port. ,Ther© is a story told that many years ago the Glutha County 'Council wanted a surfaceman, and invited applications. Joe Foy was . a chinaman, but lie undcrstootl surfacing. His name, he knew, would f go against him. A friend suggested that lie should call himself Macpherson and make application. He did so and got the job. Now comes a story told by the 'Nortldander. A visitor to our winterless clime told the following amusing tale the other evening:“After, leaving Auckland in my car I ran into several Fords, so on the road at Waipu I called a halt and proceeded to .fix up one of my mud-guards .which- had been rather badly bent, 1 when a Waipuite came along. Now everybody' knows that Waipu is a Scotch settlement where the majority of families commence their name with Mac, hence the misunderstand ing. “ Are you by any chance a mechanic?” I asked of my Scotch friend. He looked at me in surprise and said, ‘‘No, I’m a Mackay,” . ' . . © '© ; A :

A cablegram says that the German Nationalists desired to celebrate Field Marshal Hindenburg’s election by restoring liis wooden 120 feet effigy erected in Berlin in war'time,' wherein patriots paid for the privilege of driving nails. Diligent investigations re. vealed that the statue was sold, to an architect after the war for a shilling’s worth of papei-■ marks. A wood merchant subsequently purchased it, and cut- it into firewood. The good that this’-fire-eating president will do the world will be worth just, about as.much It is a. saying—you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. And you cannot turn a German field marshal into a pacifist and a humantarian. As he dragooned soldiers,, so he-will.try ta dragoon the nation. —Doxa.