NEAR AND FAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 October 1931, Page 2

NEAR AND FAR

Graziers' Opinion of Mr. Lang. At least one grazier in the Walchett district, Sydney, has no bouquet for Mr. Lang. In forwarding his stock returns to a local police constable, he writes: "I am very much afraid that Jack Lang will get very little out of me. I am stoney broke. He and his. colleagues have made a great job of it. I have no stock and I am past work. The Government Savings Bank has the property. I have put on over £1000 worth of improvements, and today I could not sell it for £100 — thanks to Jack Langi" Showers of Glass. A shower of broken glass which fell from the clock tower of the Dunedin Town Hall startled people who happened to be in the western section of the Octagon shortly after 1 o'clock one morning recently. It transpired that one of the gusts of wind which made themselves so objectionable during the morning proved too much for two panes of glass up aloft, the result being that jagged pieces of all sizes come hurtling down in frorit of the main door of the building, sprinkling the entrance steps and flying well out into the street. Fortunately, nobody chanced to be in the way of this truly sharp and sudden shower, but when it was reasonable to suppose that the "all clear" signal could be sounded, several inquiring heads wefe seen protruding from motor cars parked near the steps. Doubtless the unexpected rattle on bonnets and hood had given the motorists something to ponder over.

Nautilus' Welrd Trip. "Our most weird experience," a member of the crew of the Nautilus (Sir Hubert Wilkins' submarine), when interviewed at Newcastle, "was the crunching of the ice, sounding like long peals of thunder. We burrowed under the pack-ice and crept on the ocean-bed, collecting fish fossils and specimens, including the skeletons of animals. I believe it is possible to reach the Pole, but a specially constx-ucted submarine is essential." Won by a Head. When Wiley Post, after having flown round the world with Harold Gatty, arrived at New York, weary and begrimed, he staggered from his aeroplane, embraced his wife, and said: "Have my shirts come back from the laundry?" As a fact, they had just been returned. He had been round the world, and his shirts had been to the wash. The laundry won by a short head.

Travelling Cat. A correspondent in Germany sends the following story, for the accuracy of which he vouches (says a writer in the Greymouth Star) : — "While talking to the sationmaster at a wayside village station, waiting for my train to continue its erratic journey, I saw a cat jump into the luggage van and not reappear. When I called the official's attention to this fact, he replied. 'Yes, yes, she does that every day. She travels two stations farther on, gets out and goes to the pump station, where the engineer gives her a pint of milk. She then returns by the next train. Formerly she used to travel on the locomotive, but having burnt her tail on a steam-pipe, she now prefers to travel with the luggage.

Modern Youth. Mr. St. John Ervine, the dramatic eritic, discussing youth to the City of London vacation course recently, said: "There is no greater humbug than to talk about the nobility and generosity of youth. Youth is mean and cruel and narrow-minded, and it is not until jniddle age that generosity an dkindness begin to show themselves in human beings. The hope of the world at this moment is not in the young, but the middleaged. The most dangerous person in any community is the young man or woman who is resolved to ignore anything that may have happened in the world before his or her birth. And there are many young people about to-day who believe that the world began in 1918. These are times when the whole world is afflicted with a mania for worshipping youth. In my youth there was a heresy that the old knew everything ; in this age there is a heresy that the old know nothing. the only thing which keeps the world going in the continual effort of decent people to keep up the standard of decency." "Big Feller Pigeon." The astonishment expressed by the natives of the interior districts of New Guinea on first seeing an aeroplane was described at Auckland by Mr. L. Waterhouse, a director of the Bulolo Gold Dredging* Company, which operates a fleet of three-en-gined machines on the Bulolo river. For a time the natives were at a loss ' for a word to describe an aeroplane, 1 but finally began to use the word , "balus," meaning pigeon. Those who had picked up a few words of English it the company's workings expanded ;he term into "big feller pigeon."

Tolstoy's Daughter. Miss Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of the Russian novelist, the late Count Leo Tolstoy, has expressed a desire to enter Canada next autumn to pass the rest of her life in the country. Miss Tolstoy says she will leave Japan in June for the United States, where she will make an extensive tour to tell of her experiences in Soviet Russia. "I have accepted an invitation from the Doukhobors in Canada to go there and edit their newspaper, and I hope to spend the rest of my life in Canada," she states. Fish Diet. A resident of Ocean Beach, Southland. saw a thrush enjoying an unusual meal. Hearing a persistent tapping, he investigated and at a little distance saw the thrush busily beating a small object on a rock, and later dining on something extracted from it. The process continued for some time, till the bird, apparently satisfied, flew away. Closer investigation showed that the thrush had been breaking and feasting on the shellfish