CURRENT TOPICS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 266, 7 October 1933, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS

(By “Wayfarer”). When writing love-letters to your girl, says an exchange, it’s always an act of precaution to begin: “My dear sweetheart and gentlemen of the jury.” ***** The French recently paid a tribute to the inventor of the saxophone. Thi9 leads an American journal to declare that a nation that would do that ought to be willing to pay anything —even its debts!. * * * * # A woman hired a taxi-cab. The door of the cab was hardly closed before the engine started with a jerk, and the cab began to race madly along, narrowly missing lamp-posts, tramcars, policemen, etc. Becoming frightened, the woman remonstrated with the chauffeur: “Please be careful. ' This is the first time I ever rode in a taxi.” “That’s all right, madam. This is the first time I ever drove one.” * * » « « Accounts of birds being killed by golf balls in this country are not infrequently read, but rarely are reports given of birds falling victims to motor cars. At times the low flying species make a mistake and pay the penalty, but even so the occurrence is not frequent. In England it is otherwise and the number of birds killed by contact with motor cars is said to be increasing. On the main country roads where traffic may attain its fastest and safest speed it has been no uncommon sight in recent autumn weeks to see the bodies of young partridges, grouse, thrushes, and pheasants crushed on the road. Most of the pheasants killed are killed by night, usually disturbed by headlights, whereas partridges are killed by day through their habit —in common with most heavy, small-winged birds—of flying low over the hedgerows. * * » • • Startling, if comic, possibilities are opened up by the use in Englandmade necessary by the large increase in the number of car owners—of the new three-letter number plates, and county councillors are reported to b 9 considerably perturbed. The English alphabet is so flexible, it is said, that many words good, bad, and thoroughly rude can be pieced together with but three of its members. Consider, for example, the damaging effect on the public conscience of the spectacle of fleets of motor cars labelled D A MI This dread prospect, we are told, has already been discussed by agitated councillors, who even visualise a mischance whereby a Mayor may be handed C A D or a member of Parliament CUR. Such indignities are not only conceivable, but probable. Socially and professionally, too, there is tragic menace in the scheme. What would Lady Dot-Dash think if her magnificent limousine was to be seen in Mayfair with C A T marked on it fore and aft? And who would ever expect a pretty society girl to tolerate M U G on her smart little two-seater? Doctors would certainly object to doing their rounds in a car lettered R I P or D I E, just as lawyers would definitely protest against LIE and dentists against C R Y. There might be more justice and reason in bestowing B 0 R or J A AV upon the most talkative member of one’s club or in granting the advertising value of C O D to fishmongers or E A T to restaurant proprietors, but no decent-minded' citizen could feel at ease in a vehicle lettered BUG. Dog fanciers—and they are legion in London —might find PUG or just plain P U P quite to their taste, it is true, though it is difficult to think who would approve (in any circumstances) the application of DAB, which signifies in popular conversation, “poor fish.” On the whole, the situation calls for an uncommon display of tact by the traffic authorities who, unhappily, have not hitherto been distinguished for that quality. They will be safe only so . long as they stick to such innocuous combinations as X Y Z or A B C or B R Z, and this, everybody hopes, they will do, despite their predilection for unconscious humour. The commercial note sounds louder than ever in London and stately mansions in the heart of the Metropolis are giving way to palatial business centres. Famous since Regency days as the most exclusive residential quarter in London, Carlton House Terrace has at last fallen a victim to commercial intrusion. Belated protests, cries of sacrilege, and even a bitter Parliamentary debate could not prevent this harsh note of discord sounding amid the ancient peace (says a London correspondent). No. 4, Carlton House Terrace, once the home of Lord Balfour, has given way to the new offices of manufacturers of paint—a building beautiful enough in itself, but not at all in keeping with the neighbouring mansions. Soon, several hundred clerks and other matter-of-fact employees will spend their working lives in a thoroughfare where lived Louis Napoleon, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Mr Gladstone, and others notable in political history. They will have dukes and lords for neighbours, and they can look from their windows on Buckingham Palace, the clubs of Pall Mall, and St. James’s Park. The sentimental among them may perhaps be specially interested in the tragic associations of the locality, for just opposite stands the house from which Lord Kitchener sailed to his untimely, death, and adjacent dwelled Lady Ednam and Mrs A. C. Bossom, who were killed in air crashes. The Commissioners of Crown Lands, in whom the property is vested, have for months been abused and criticised for permitting Carlton House Terrace to be “profaned,” but by the time their decision had been made public it was. too late to reverse it. Even the House of Commons found itself helpless, and was forced to content itself with an orgy of “plain speaking.” Such vandalism, it declared, must never be allowed to happen again, though how, it did not say. The truth is, of course, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to preserve the older residential features of London from the invading march of trade and commerce. Gradually, but inexorably, streets and squares and “gardens” hitherto reserved for private dwellings are being commercialised, for progress cannot be stayed even by tradition. Carlton House Terrace is Crown land, and may be able to withstand the attack for some years, but it is said that most of the present residents, feeling that the fight is lost, will voluntarily depart when their leases expire.