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Show brisbane THIS WEEK The Souls of Oysters In the Coffin, He Pays Polly Has a Tombstone Suicide Is Folly Mr. Kokichi Mikimoto, able Japanese Jap-anese gentleman, once a peddler oi noodles, is now gigantically rich, thanks to his oyster oys-ter pearl idea. He makes real pearls by forcing the oyster to work at pearl production. Instead In-stead of diving for oysters, hop-ing hop-ing to find one with a pearl in it, he puts little, irritating ir-ritating grains of sand inside the shells of millions Artfa.r BrUb... of oys,ers and each oyster proceeds to deposit the pearly substance on the sand to escape its irritating scratching. These pearls are "real" Although Al-though experts can tell the difference, differ-ence, they annoy Jewelers and have hurt the value of the other accidental pearls, but they make It unnecessary for the unfortunate pearl diver to "go all naked to the hungry shark," as the poet has It. Mr. Mikimoto has been obliged to kill hundreds of millions of oysters, which is serious: his Buddhist religion re-ligion teaches that each has its little separate soul in fact, the soul of his great-grandmother might have resided in one of the oysters. An American who recently died left a fortune of between twenty-five twenty-five and thirty million dollars, chiefly chief-ly in tax-exempt securities on which the owner, while he lived, paid no Income tax. Now that he is dead, inheritance taxes will take about two-thirds of the many millions. The lack of a "dead-or-alive" tax-exempt tax-exempt securities offers opportunity to some able lawyer. If the government govern-ment has no constitutional right to take any income from tax-exempt bonds, how can it legally take halt merely because the owner is in his coffin? A green parrot, with red tipped wings, buried in a respectable grave, will have a granite headstone head-stone with "Here lies Polly Cod-dington, Cod-dington, sixty-eight years old," engraved en-graved on It. Exactly how old Polly was, no one knows. Born in Brazil, she was presented to the grandmother grand-mother of Mrs. Joseph E. Hunt, sixty-eight years ago. Parrots, like eagles, elephants and other Intelligent Intel-ligent creatures that eat wisely, often pass one hundred. A higher race thinks up foolish things for itself. Gruesome details which no one seems to have put into a movie or a horror story are published in connection with a recent suicide. The unfortunate victim, convinced that life was not worth while, hanged himself, and then, still conscious, found he was mistaken and made desperate unsuccessful efforts to cut the rope. Those that think of suicide should remember that they must leave the world soon in any case, and might as well remain to see what will happen. While there is life, there is hope. Chiang Kai-Shek, dictator of the Nanking government, warns China, "No nation can ruin us unless we first ruin ourselves," emphasizing the fact that the short road to national na-tional ruin is neglect of preparation for war. Some patriotic American "radio sponsor" might arrange to broadcast that talk in Washington, D. C. We need it here almost as much as China needs i. England fears that quarrels among union men may cause strikes in airplane factories and delay Britain's effort to get ready for her next war. Such strikes would probably prob-ably bring welcome orders for planes to American factories; nevertheless, never-theless, it is only fair to remind British workers, quarreling among themselves, that when foreign bombs begin dropping on their families, fam-ilies, any strike against national safety will seem to have been foolish, fool-ish, in retrospect. And those words, "chiefly women and children," should be remembered. Borrowed money is cheaper, and it ought to be, since the dollar is only worth 59 cents. A cheap house or cheap dollar should bring a cheap rent Even so, it surprises you to learn that Mayor LaGuardia borrowed from J. P. Morgan & Co. thirty million dollars for the city, spread over a five-year period, for one and one-tenth per cent interest Here, Myron C. Taylor, head of "Big Steel," greatest steel company in the world, announces increases in wages, also resumption of full dividend payments on the preferred United States Steel stock, also earnings earn-ings in three months of more than thirteen million dollars, biggest in six years. Thirteen million dollars in three months may not be "big i money," but "it is better than being be-ing hit on the head with a sharp stone." i C King Features Syndicate, Inc. ; WNU Service. |