GENERAL NEWS

Waikato Times, Volume 93, Issue 14538, 9 December 1920, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS

The dangers of aviation are exaggerated in Hie public mind, says the Bulletin of the Department of Overseas Trade, owing lo the prominence given to accidents. Recently a dinner was given in London to the survivors of Ihe first 100 British pilots. Notwithstanding (he fact that these men began Iheir Hying ;i l the time when aeroplane construction was still largely experimental and that many of them were engaged in the war, 73 out of the 100 were found to be alive.

The movement started by the New York c.lohc lo sell New Zealand lamb •n America was mentioned by Mr ,M. A. Filiott at the Lunch (Hub at Palmerston North recently. Mr Elliott was in New York when the first shipment of New Zealand lamb arrived. It had received a tremendous boom in the newspapers, which were full of praise for Hie New Zealand product, and at Hie same lime bad denounced the meat profiteers. In every case the farmers and the meat packers bad been astounded at Hie quality of the lamb, being struck by the I well-rounded finish and similarity of . ihe carcases. He Lad seen a good deal of New Zealand lamb in the American c.nd Canadian centres, where it was al- j ways very highly spoken of. Ho ex- j pressed the opinion that we need never fear Canada or Hie United States as j competitors in the mutton and lamb trade, as the climate and natural conditions and the prevalence of sheep pesls prevented Hie successful raising of the animals lo any large extent. Sir A. Conan Doyle seems lo be in some danger of having “his eye wiped” , by Thomas Edison. The great inventor challenges exponents of the hitherto accepted theories of spirit comnumica- j lion by predicting that successful coin- j munication with the spirit world can j never be established ‘'through any childish contraptions, which appear so silly to a scientist." He has backed 1 his words by inventing a mechanical instrument, so supersensitivc and re-, sponsive to spirit impulses as to register i them and transmit them lo human beings. If such communication is ever accomplished, he asserts, it will not be ; by occult, mystifying, mysterious, weird ! means, such as are employed by the so-called mediums, hut by scientific methods. “If those who have left the j form of life we have on earth cannot' use or affect the apparatus I am going to give them, then the chance of there being a hereafter of Hie kind wc think j about and imagine disappears. On Hie j other hand, il will cause a tremendous sensation if flic apparatus is success- I fill.” Of Hie nature and working of the instrument Mr Edison lias so far said nothing, Ihongh expectation that i! will he found lo derive ils powers i from electricity is justified by his re-j mark that il will he most readily used I by those who possess expert knowledge of Ihe power and versatility of electric waves. All Hie wonders of wireless telegraphy and telephony have evidently, not yet been revealed lo us.