WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 278, 18 August 1921, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM (By. T.D.H.) Canada has bought the German lifier Tlrpitz, and is rechristening it the Empress of China—Dresden China, I suppose. A jaundiced American recently suggested that most of the price cutting nowadays was being dono with safety razors. “Tho secret of health,” writes a doctor, "ie tho eating of onions.” But the trouble is to keep it a secret. Ono member of tho Australian cricket team in England ie an undertaker by profession. Maybe he looks after the Ashes.

When a woman meets tho postman with a smile and doesn’t get a letter, she thinks 'he is extremely unappreciative 1

Good nows is to hand from San Francisco for tho stalwarts who are fighting for recognition of the equality of the sexes. On a recent summer evening Carl F. Kroenke, of San Francisco, arrived homo from work, to find dirty dishes in the sink. As sometimes happens in such circumstances, he scolded his wife, the outcome being that the quarrel developed, and was carried to the Divorce Court of Judge Flood. Hero the wife (who was also a wage-earner in the employ of a film company) took tho offensive by arguing that dish-wash-ing was as much Carl’s affair as hers. Th© Judge thought so too, and she won a decree handsomely.

Thirteen hospital boards have informed the Health Department that they do not now think it necessary to import probationers from overseas, says the "Journal of Health." —Presumably all requirements are being met through the Jaw courts under the Court of Appeal decision.

Many jokes have been made on the subject of appropriate music for lantern lectures and picture shows, but the story of the naval chaplain and the A.B. will take some beating. The chaplain, who was very keen on musz’c as a softening influence on the lads in blue under his care, had arranged for an A.B. who possessed a gramophone to supply appropriate music for one of his lantern lectures. Everything went off happily until a picture of Adam and Eve in toe Garden of Eden was shown. The sailor was nonplussed and hurriedly ran through his list of records. "Go on, go mi,” pleaded the chaplain in a stage whisper. "Do play something.” The puzzled A.B. was suddenly struck with a happy inspiration and a moment later the musical machine buret into the first bar of “There’s Only One Girl in the World For Me."

Starting a column like this is an uphill job, and it is pleasant to have a little friendly backing. I walked down to the office yesterday with Major Fitzurse, and he was most encouraging. He thought I should most certainly persevere, as he did not see that it was humanly possible for the column to become any worse than it was. He thought, also, that the undertaking spoke volumes for my courage in these days when it is so difficult to carry firearms in self-defence without attracting the notice of the police, and so difficult for a married man to leave the country.

What the column needs, Major Fitzurse feels, ia more serious interest, something to keep the younger generation up to the same high standard set by their elders. Our moral fibre is deteriorating rapidly, the Major thinks. /There is a lack of persistence and application everywhere, what with shorter hours and six o’clock closing. . Tho secret of life is to realise that persistence and application will overcome all obstacles. A most remarkable example of this, that has made a lasting impression on his mind, was witnessed by the Major at Nizerabad, in India, twenty years back. It was no less a spectacle than an aged man of sixty carrying an elephant weighing two tons around a small open square. It seems that this man had roared the elephant from birth. It was, of course, an easy matter to lift, and carry the baby elephant. Each morning he had carried it around the block, and as the elephant's weight increased imperceptibly, so did tho man's strength increase. No human being, of course, could go and lift a full-grown elephant at tho first attempt, but by maintaining his habit of lifting it from the time' it was a baby in arms this old man could continue it with ease. The Major eays tho man is now over eighty, and the elephant is nearing its full weight of 0000 pounds. He is having a special photograph taken of the scene at Nizerabad, and intends to present a framed copy to every school in the Dominion as an example for generations to come of what can bo achieved) by the formation of good habits early in life.

Konigsberg in Prussia, where General Ludendorff hag just delivered a militaristic speech, is the same city where the Kaiser eleven years ago claimed to rule by Divine right. In a speech at Konigsberg on August 25, 1910, he said: And hero once moro my grandfather placed by his own i right the Grown of the Kings of Prussia, upon his (own head, once again laying stress upon the fact that it was conferred upon him by the grace of God alone, and not by Parliaments, meetings of tho people, or popular • decisions, and that ho considered himself the chosen instrument of Heaven and as such performed his duties as Regent and ruler. Although tho blaspheming William is now, so to speak, hiding from the police under a bed in a back room in a neighhour’s house, there aro still Germans whe sigh over their lager beer for tho old days of "Me und Gott." Just fifty years ago the erection of a blast furnace in Wellington for the smelting of Taranaki ironsand was completed. The furnace was close to the Mount Cook barracks, on the high ground overlooking the town. The promoters of the bnterprifft wore quite confident that thev were going io supply New Zealand with pig-iron. Last, week a cablegram informed us Air. Massey "witnessed a. demonstration of the smelting of New Zealand ironsand at Darlington." During the half-century many enthusiasts have demonstrated that the Taranaki beaches could bo . converted into ploughs and pocket-knives. v ßut New Zealand has been in no hurry. FLAPPER QUEEN. What little game is this you play. Dusting your nose with powdered chalk. Limning your lips with a colour as gay As the bubbling argot you talk? Strutting along like a mannequin queen. Smirking in mirrors, treading on air, Wlint are fly) fancies that flit through your bean, What’s on your mind besides curly brown hair? Wo who are cider and moro worldly wise Smile nt tout makeup pnd say yon’ra a scream; Yet we’d trade what we known for the light in your eyes, And swap all our gold for your dresza,