WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 284, 25 August 1921, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Lord Jellicoe says that what we need is to develop a proper sea-sense. —The chief obstacle at present is the difficulty of making some people see sense.

Official statements yesterday and today are that it is impossible to prevent prisoners from getting out of gaol and impossible to prevent Public Servant® from, getting in.

"Going forward like an avalanche,” is tho happy phrase applied by its organiser to the new political party.—Downhill from the very commencement, wo presume.

It was characteristic of these hard times that a business firm which regretted its inability to be represented at a farewell to a popular bank manager sent an appreciative letter containing the phrase "We cannot express our indebtedness."

At an Orphans’ Club dinner once a Catholic Priest said to a Rabbi sitting next to him:— "Have a ham sandwich, Rabbi?” "Sure," replied the Rabbi, without hesitation; "sure —at your vedding breakfast, Fader 1"

Caliout, in Southern India, where the Moplahs are rioting, was the first port of call by the first European navigator to India. It was there that Vasco da Gama put in in 1498, and introduced Christianity and the blessings of the Inquisition to heathen India. A few years afterwards the King of Portugal, with the sanction of tlie Pope, assumed the title of "Lord of the Conquest, Navi, gation, and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India,” which Portugal clung to till it chased its king out. The Moplahs are fanatical Mohammedans, who emigrated from Arabia to Calicut eleven hundred years ago, and a strong garrison has always been kept to overawe them. It was tho fact that the first India cotton clothes brought into Europe came from Calicut that was the origin of the word “calico.”

On the northern gum-fields, in the days before all storekeepers were honest, Maori diggers were sometimes swindled in disposing of their gum. Oile Henare, who had suffered in this way, was presented by a European friend with 'a ready reckoner, and shown how to use it. Next time Henare went to the store to st-11 a parcel of gum, the storekeeper weighed it arid promptly stated the price—something less than it should have been. Henare was ready with his reckoner. "No fear!” he said, so many pounds, so much. The storekeeper took the book, glanced at it, and returned it with a pitying smile, and: "Thought so, last year’s!" Poor Henare’s jaw dropped. "Oh !’’ he said, took what was offered, aud departed crestfallen.

Marie Tempest, writing on the business she has the first right to write about, rather pokes fun at the "technique of acting. She says: “Teachers spring up. stage managers become autocratic, and the young actor is hedged about with rules and regulationstill he becomes a machine for the exploiting of difficulties rather than a living sentient human being trying to express himself and the author in the pleasantest and easiest way to himself. Eventually ‘he knows hi» business,’ to speak in the jargon of the stage, and unless he quickly liides fact he becomes that dreadful 'v.'ild beast —the old ‘pro.’ A room must be entered in a certain manner, and a speecli given, in a certain way, a gesture of such and such a kind at such and such a ■place everything hard and mechanical, becaiise after years of ceeded in doing certain difficult thing., and he insists on doing them in the difficult way, just because they were eo hard to acquire. And what is the re suit? Flatness, weariness, joylessness How searchingly true all this is _ on y the persistent playgoer knows-to his cost.

• Jack: "Great fellow this Ratana, isn’t Jill: "Wonderful —it just shews what faith can do." , , , • Jack: "Hear of his latest miracle? Jill: “No, what was it r ' Jack: “Turned his horse into a paddock! All done by kindness.

I met Mrs. Parkham and Herbert returning from the new party's meeting last evening. Herbert, I may explain, is Mrs. Parkham's only eon, and one our most promising young umvemty stiw ctente and is now taking a course in economics and tho chemistry of 1 with a view to entering advanced political circles. Mrs. Parkham tells me the new party has definitely rejected "Beans for Breakfast” as an item in ib platform. It seems the decism is. iha ■ the platform is to be composed as far as possible of well-seasoned planks that have been tried before by other parties, but not carried into effect. „ , vain" said Mrs. Parkham, that 1 ex plained there was nothing to choose be- & the Beans and the HaUteens.’

An eccentric job-seeker in the London "Times” a while ago was tho victim of “ TT CAME TO ME AS IN A VISION A that I could comfort an affectionate ladv and gentleman whom tho war has left with a gap in their home I am a clean-living, health) Englishman, aged 31, and can do secretarial duties, speak French, drive motor-car. and am a good amateur photographer. , It was suggested that if ho went to sleep again he might dream of. something practical. A little work, for instance.

And how is this for a "shocker —one of those stories which are so dramatic and so thrilling that at last there is absolutely nobody left. Hero is the way the story, as sent to the Editor, ran: "Looking the very likeness of a wounded queen, Louise arose from whence she had been sitting. Her face was deathly pale, as white as snow. With a. look that will never be forgotten, she turned her eyes fully upon her father, and said in a queenly voice that sounded as of the grave: ’Father, I cannot marry Ml. Wharton; I just can’t.’ She reeled, tel into a heap in the chair whence she had ’arisen, and was dead. At that moment Clarence rushed into the room, and seein" the dead form of his. beloved he shot eves of fire at the quivering form of the'beloved’s father and ■j . ‘Murderer you have killed her, and before he could be toKsiVto daughter’s body, while a quick pulsation of th» heart took possession of the distracted mo her, and sh , remained sitting, dead in her chau. Maddened with the sight before him Clarence rushed out of the room, and when morning broke his crushed body was found at the foot of the stairs.

OUR OWN. We have careful thought for ,the stranger And smites for the sometime guest, But for "our own” The bitter tone, Though we love our own the best. Ah! lip with, the curve impatient: Ahl brow with that look of scorn, ’Twere a cruel fate Were tho night too late To undo the work of morn.