According to the same correspondent the total number of drunkards in New Zealand is 8000, which sounds a liberal estimate. For the amendment of the 8000 a prohibition order is to be taken out against the whole population. It is not assumed or assumable that the whole population will agree to this lunatic treatment; it will be held sufficient if one-half agree, or at the most three-fifths. The remaining half, or the remaining two-fifths, are then to be put under duress - guarded, watched, spied upon, policed, dragooned, bludgeoned into submission. This done, New Zealand, it is thought, will thenceforth rank as a vestibule of the kingdom of heaven. And there are ministers of religion who, having despaired of Christianity and gone back from Mount Zion to Mount Sinai, cry Amen! It will still remain, however, that two and two make four; and in my humble opinion there are other truths, fundamental and axiomatic, that may be expected to assert themselves. For one thing Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret. "You may drive out Nature with a fork, and yet she will come back."
• A correspondent asks me to note the terms of a San Francisco cablegram stating that "Rodgers, the famous airman, who flew across the American continent," had attempted a supplementary flight, but "fell into a ploughed field and sustained concussion of the brain"; the cablegram adding: "Rodgers was flying despite the clergy's protest against Sabbath-breaking." "Cause and effect?", asks my correspondent. The press agent intended that suggestion, I fancy. New York papers report the arrest of a lady "airman" for flying on a Sunday. She was pursued by the police in motor cars, and failed to escape because obliged to come to earth for petrol. In America any other mode of locomotion on Sunday is lawful, but you may not fly.
It perhaps has something to do with this distinction that Satan is the Prince of the Power of the Air. For my own part I could wish that flying were prohibited altogether.
Here let me quote a recent interviewer of Mr Edison: Mr Edison is sceptical as to the future of aviation. "I have not much confidence," he said, "in the future of aeroplanes. The records of your airmen remind me of the feats of acrobats. The air problem has not been solved, and it is not near to being solved in my opinion. Everything must be begun again on a different basis and with different views." In particular with a view to coming down in safety if the engine sticks. It is only a poor parody of flight that has been achieved at present.
• The people of Middlemarch are apparently much divided on the question of the use of the county road for a "long paddock." Some months ago the county appointed a ranger, whose duties were to be confined to Middlemarch and its environs, but the experiment has proved anything but a success, and yesterday it was decided to terminate the appointment.
One second ratepayer made claim from the council the sum of 5 on account of two ewes and seven lambs which he complained had been worried by the ranger's dogs. Needless to say, the council declined liability. - ODT, 25.11.1911.
