Sydney: It is a popular belief here that the average Australian is very shrewd and not easily ''taken in''.
However, this belief, which extends to Australians of both sexes, is not supported by several interesting recent happenings. A man in Brisbane advertised that in return for a modest fee he would communicate a secret of great value to married ladies. To those who responded to the advertisement - and they were astonishingly many - he replied that it was very desirable for a married lady to preserve her good looks and that this could be achieved by the liberal assimilation of Epsom salts. He was prosecuted for having obtained money by trickery, and was fined, after an analyst, called for the prosecution, had solemnly assured the court that Epsom salts did not give ladies a fine complexion.
A street hawker in Sydney was charged with vagrancy. The police explained that the young man was selling ''scented nuts'' which were warranted to retain their choice aroma for a long time, if not for ever. He kept a bottle of cheap scent in one pocket, and had only to put a drop of scent on to the nut to give it the qualities that made it allegedly a thing rich and rare.
The magistrate seemed intensely interested in the young fellow and ordered him to a week's hard work in gaol. Then there are Panama hats sold here - hats made of paper in Japan. The imitation is said to be a very good one, quite good enough to allow large numbers of the Japanese paper Panamas being sold freely to folks deceived by themselves or sellers into the belief that they were getting something very choice at an absurd price.
• In an unnamed grave in the cemetery at Moree (New South Wales), rests the body of Charles Dickens's youngest son - Edward Dickens, once a pastoralist near Wilcannia, next a member of the New South Wales Parliament, and finally an inspector under the conditional purchase system (remarks the Sydney Daily Telegraph). The grave is unmarked, because all attempts made to locate its position have been fruitless. It is intended, however, by the Dickens Fellowship of New South Wales to place a tablet in the church to the memory of Edward Dickens, and the proceeds of a concert given last week will be applied to this purpose.
• In these days of moving pictures and crude sensationalism it is not without interest to learn that the ''still'' picture, when competently handled, continues the surest and most popular form of purely educational entertainment.
In the course of a letter to the secretary of the Navy League (Otago branch) the largest and oldest established London firm of lantern slide manufacturers say:- ''The rush of orders for sacred slides for Lent synchronised with an unusual demand for educational slides, and orders came to hand more quickly than we could clear them off until we required 20,000 to fulfil all requirements, and orders were still arriving by every post. It is, of course, very gratifying to us to find that our slides are so much appreciated, and we were glad to be so busy. We are making arrangements to turn out larger quantities when there is a pressure of work.
''The demand (particularly for educational slides) has grown so enormously within the last year or two that it outran for the moment our powers of manufacture. The fact that our output has for the last four years been increasing at the rate of more than 25 percent per annum will, we hope, prove some excuse for any delay.'' - ODT, 4.7.1914.
