RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 104, 26 January 1935, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.) A stable basis for trade, as suggested, may be all right provided the stable door is not slammed too often. * * * No doubt it will soon be denied that Mr. Doidge’s return to Dominion politics is a new doidge in Lord Beaverbrook’s Empire Crusade. * * * Architects, it is said, are introducing blush tones into their buildings. The idea, of course, started with those war novels. Mr. Percy Roberts, who has dramatically returned from the dead after an interval of 19 years, is by no means the only individual who has done the same thing. The war is largely responsible for these strange returns. It hurled people into all parts of the world which they would never have seen, and then by some strange prank of fate left them there. Patrick Tallin, a New Zealander, started his life by working on a farm in Otago. The war swept him up and deposited him in France. Shell shock subsequently sent him aimlessly wandering round the world. He astonished everyone by coming back from the dead after an interval of nearly 14 years. In the same manner, a charwoman at Hull mourned her son for 13 long years, lie came back to her at almost the same time that Patrick Tohiil returned to his family in New-Zealand. In the latter case the missing son turned up well and hearty at a place called Miskole, Hungary. In this strange manner does war scatter families and peace reunite them. We shall never know how many soldiers mourned as dead are living new lives elsewhere. This habit of returning from the dead must not be thought a phenomenon of the war of 1914. A strange entry made in the parish registry at St. Mary Magdalen’s Church, Bermondsey, is a reminder that as long ago as 1605, husbands had a knack of disappearing. One can only read between the lines of the entry and weave into them what story one cares to conjure up. Here, though, is the entry: “The forme of a solemn vowe made betwixt a man and his wife, having been long absent, through which occasion the woman being married to an another man, took her again as followeth: ‘Elizabeth my beloved wife, I am right sorie that I have so long absented myself from thee, whereby thou shouldst be occasioned to take another man to thy husband. Therefore, Ido now vow and promise in the sight of God and this companie, to take thee again as mine owne; and will not onlie forgive thee, but also dwell with thee, and do all other duties unto thee as I promised at our marriage.’” Just what lay behind that entry which has ccme down to us through the centuries will never be known. One feels, however, “right sorie” for the other man, who seems to have been left out in the cold. * * * Probably more books have been written on the subject of strange and unexpected returns than about any other subject. Fact, however, can provide as curious examples as fiction. Riding in a tramcar at the age of 15 years a lad saw a little girl crying because she had lost her fare. He gave her a penny. To his dismay he found it was his lucky penny. On his wedding day the lad. now grown to manhood, gave his wife a medal for luck. In return she gave him a penny she had treasured since her childhood days. She told her husband that a boy had given it to her a long time ago, but that the conductor had refused to take it, paying her fare instead. You can fill in the rest of the details. In another case two old soldiers decided to pay one another a visir after an interval of 16 years. One set out from the village of Grenwalde and the other from Rosenfeld, seme miles apart. Neither knew that the other know that they both knew of the other's address nor that they both were paying one another a visit at the same time. The whole thing was to be a surprise, so thought both of them. It was. They set off on their respective motorcycles, rounded a bend in the road, collided, and were both thrown into one another’s arms in the ditch. $ ♦ ♦ Perhaps one of the strangest returns that resulted from the war was staged in a modest home in Birmingham, England, a year or so ago. Mrs. JamesLloyd had mourned her husband for dead since 1917. She lived with her sister in Birmingham. While taking tea one afternoon in 1931 her husband suddenly walked in. Mrs. Lloyd was so surprised she wondered if her tea was all that it should be. Her husband greeted her as though he had never been away. “Hello Millie,” he said, “Is my tea ready?” “Where have you been?” asked Mrs. Lloyd. It was a silly question. Indeed it may have been responsible for the subsequent reaction. “In America,” replied Mr Lloyd. “I’ve got a business there.” Mr. Lloyd drank his tea, then rose, put on his hat, placed a bundle of notes to the value of £250 on the table, and walked out as unconcernedly as he had entered. Just what Mrs. Lloyd had to say to lier sister when she returned from shopping is not recorded. "Where have you been?” it is a question that all wives ask—but there are moments such as this when curiosity should be crushed. » » * A postcard addressed to a Mr. Gallop, posted 20 years ago, has just been delivered to him by the postal officials in England. In this case no harm was done by the delay. Mr. Gallop has continued through life without the delay having made the slightest difference. This is not so in every case that letters are delayed. A widow in Russia received last May a letter posted to her 17 years ago. It contained a proposal of marriage from a man she loved at the time. The man who wrote the letter is now happily married to someone else and has eleven children. Did that delay make any difference? What strange pathway would have opened out if it had been delivered the next day instead ot 17 years later—who can tell? In another case a postcard dated 1965 was received by a lady in Paris 25 years later. The postcard contained an appointment in the Latin Quarter with a medical student the next evening. They never met. Shall we blame or praise the postal service? Another card posted at the same time addressed to a firm of wine merchant* ordered a barrel of wine worth at the time 33 francs. When the wine merchants got the letter 25 years later, the wine was worth 330 francs—who was to make up the loss'? So the multitude goes— Like the flower and the weed That wither away To lot others succeed; So the multitude comes— Even those we behold— To repeat every tale That hath often been told. 'SWUliam