RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 81, 29 December 1934, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

News of another purge in Germany makes one wonder if the Nazis may be c relied upon to eliminate themselves. * ♦ # It is claimed that the gold standard has robbed France of enormous sums of tourist gold. More interest in fact has produced less interest. * . » * Perry, the tennis player, complains that he cannot keep his mind on the game. Perhaps if he converts a love match into a wedding things will be better. * “Thank You” sends along a list of questions he wants answered. Kickshaws, however, must ask to be excused from sitting down every day to a series of examination questions. It every person who writes to him sent along lists of the length “Thank You” has sent it would take a small army of people to answer them. However, it may interest “Thank You” to know that a female swan is called a “pen” and a male swan a “cob.” Claims that the recent disaster to the Douglas air liner is the first time in the history of aeroplanes that lightning has been the cause of a crash are perhaps a little exaggerated. The fact is that lightning, very rarely causes trouble but it would be stupid to imagine that an aeroplane is immune to lightning, any more than a house is immune. One could quote a fairly long list of lightning disasters in the air. For example thd aeroplane City of San Francisco was struck by lightning some five years ago. The crew and the five passengers were killed. During a thunderstorm over Chicago a year later a monoplane with three people aboard was struck by lightning and crashed on the municipal gas works. AU the passengers aboard were killed. It is not to be imagined that a flash of lightning is deadly on every occasion. There have been many instances of aeroplanes surviving the effects of lightning. For example Kingsford Smith came through a thunderstorm bn his first Tasman flight. Moreover the Imperial Airwaye air liner Horatius was struck over Tonbridge during a bad storm. Only minor damage was done and the 13 were safely landed at Croydon.

As a matter of fact lightning forms a danger factor in the air far more insignificant than are the dangers of' crossing a city street oh foot. Aeroplane travel has become as safe almost as any other form of travel. Some expert has worked out that if one wants to stand a chance of getting killed in an aeroplane it would be necessary to fly at least 50 times round the world before the necessary accident wpuld come along. Lightning must therefore be considered one of the minor dangers of the air. There are other minor dangers that are rarely mentioned, perhaps because they are less spectacular. One air liner, for example, nearly got sucked into a waterspout over the English Channel. The pilot managed to wrench the machine away but tlie aceupants were thrown about in a violent manner. Probably if the truth were known dust storms are far 1 more troublesome to aeroplanes than thunderstorms. Any pilot who has encountered a really full-grown dust storm will tell you that he would go a long way to avoid another.

A record is claimed for the Flynn family of' Sydney, the seventh member of which has just graduated as a doctor. Records of this nature are very difficult to standardise. For example there is a family of charcoal burners in the south of England who were charcoal burners long before the days when Rufus was. killed by that arrow. Indeed it was a member of this family that placed the king on a rough stretch- - er and dragged him in to the nearest town. Just how many members of this family have been charcoal burners is not known but it must run well into the hundreds. In contrast to this long distance record we have seven members of a family called Clarkson, of Burnhppe, Durham, who are all members of the one Alethodist Church choir. Aloreover there is an eighth who is, the organ blower and a ninth who is the organist. One might also add that there has been known to be at least, one family in New Zealand which was capable of producing a complete cricket team, not excluding the scorer. . One might also go into details of the famous Pollock family which has produced a long series of leaders in Britain for the last three or four centuries. ♦♦ . *

At one time it was a tradition that a seat in the House'of Commons should be handed down from father to son. and in many families the tradition was faithfully upheld. To-day the tradition has died out to a certain extent. Nevertheless it is interesting to point out that the Countess of Iveagh holds first place in Parliamentary ancestry. Sue is the descendant of shree Speakers of the House, including the famous Onslow who presided for no less than 30 years. For the last three hundred years or more she can point out that theie has been at least one ancestoral representative in every Parliament. The Countess kept rap the family tradition by entering Parliament herself. One might perhaps point out that the Bridgeman family claims to have bad a Alember in the family for the last 300 years. In the case of the Cecils, another well known family, there were Ceci's in the Long Parliament and ever since then almost without a break there has been a Cecil in Parliament. Other families with a Parliamentary tradition include the Bathursts, the Thynnes. the Howards, and the Redmonds of Ireland.

It may be that modern changes have .tended to disrupt the families of England. Things are not what they were. There is something of /he tradition of family life in the old families that cannot be eradicated however complete Hie changes Hint must come. For one thing the British Empire has been founded by rhe younger sons “f many of the famous English families This has been partly uue to the laws of succession by which ’he first born gers nearly all the money and the last born gets nearly all the mother love. Nevertheless, statistics seem to show that for some curious reason the younger sons are bettei suited for pioneering and the eldest son for holding what' has already beet, acquired. The younger sons, if statistics are any account, are usually cleverer, and more daring, and less stay at-home. In case readers may care to challenge these facte it is perhaps of interest to'point out that included in the list of famous pioneering younger sons tire Julius Caesar. Abraham Lincoln. Napoleot. Shakespeare. Nelson. Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin. George Washington, and ALarshnl Foch. Force of circumstance admittedly playa a part as well