Show I QUEER WALKING STICK War Secretary Carries One of Cordite King Edward is the possessor of ot a wonderful collection of walking sticks among which the most remarkable and perhaps the most valuable is the approach extant to the horn hornof hornof hornof of the unicorn which appears in the royal arms It I is cut from the te single horn of a white rhinoceros a species now extinct from which the heraldic unicorn is supposed to have originated and is unique as regards Its is length which is Inches It I was given more than forty Corty years ago by a Kaffir chief to Louis Luis Solomon Solomon a South African pioneer r and enclosed in a case of or native bamboo was presented to tl the king when he opened the South Sout African exhibition In 1907 A cane having very ery dif different di ferent erent associations was offered by auction in London some years ago Its Is interest consisted in the circumstance that it had been wielded by crazed Lieutenant Pate when he assaulted Queen Victoria striking her with wih it i and breaking her bonnet on June 27 2 1850 Pate was sentenced ed to be Hogged flogged but at the queens desire desie deslie this punish punishment pur punishment sh ment was wa commuted and he was transported to Tasmania instead for seven years ears penal servitude He made madea a fortune after his release and how hou the stick should have haxe come into the market is not known but it I appears to have been een either withdrawn before the sale or to have been ben bought in at It The most astonishing stick of or recent times Is one with wih which Mr Ir Haldane secretary of war considerably the the house of commons The occasion was a a discussion concerning cordite and Mr Haldane Haldan answering some ar are arguments arguments against the security of or the ex ox explosive plosive claimed that it I was when wn properly manufactured so absolutely safe sare that he had had a walking w stick made of it I which h he had been in the habit of or bringing to the house and amid leaving in the cloakroom There Th r was he explained nothing in its Is appearance to cause apprehension but it It needed to be closely clo ly watched He meant that tha the cordite cordie not the stick needed watching but with wih the knowledge thus given to the house are un unlikely unlikely likely to meddle with wih the walking stick sUck of ot the war var secretary Another extraordinary walking stick was also associated with a w member o othe of oC the house of or commons who was build building building ing for himself a mansion in a remote country countr district Several times dur during durIng durIng ing his visits of Inspection he chanced to notice at the railway raHway station staton a sub substantial substantial walking stick addressed to the contractor who 10 was erecting his new newhouse newhouse newhouse house and meeting the contractors contractor clerk one day da tie ne asked him why hi his employer should send his stick sUck back backwards backwards backwards wards and anti forwards by b rail ri separate from himself By B way answer the clerk was carrying the stick st k at the time touched a spring in It unscrewed a ca cap which then revealed itself and then poured out from the hollow Interior quite quie in gold The stick was th the clerk explained used to bring down th the weekly wages of Q the builders men m n there being no bank at hand where th time the coin could be conveniently obtained The stick only cost a trifle for carriage and amid a d the money had b d never neer gone astray atra i iI L I |