Round the World
| Date | 01 November 1965 |
| Published date | 01 November 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6503801109 |
| Subject Matter | Round the World |
parks superintendent and others. To a man they were helpful, to a
man they were loyal, not to individual councillors but to the collective
will of the council. There was, therefore, no point in trying to win the
viewsof ali official. He might have views as a person but as an official
he thought as the council thought.
Gradually Dick realized, with astonishment, how many of the
viewshe had formed reflected personal experience, temperament and
inclination, so that most of his thinking was subjective rather than
objective.
The"
declaration of interest" which the law demanded
from councillors whose financial interests became involved in council
business was enlightening and salutary. Councillors, prohibited
from speaking on a matter, such as a planning decision, because of
"interest", talked vigorously and passionately about it outside the
council chamber. They were sincerely convinced of the rightness of
their views, too.
It
was a fascinating illustration of the old proverb
" the wish is father to the
thought".
At the end of his three years of
office,
Councillor Tator was not Dick Tator even to himself. He had
been overwhelmed by and absorbed into the committee system.
e
·,
...
lte::::'~
t~;:=~,
~
allorer
the world.
'V}i
PHOTOGRAPHED
AT
WORK
Burglars, breaking into astorehouse one night, were
not
aware that they had
interrupted an electric eye beam burglar alarm system, causing a hidden camera
to take photographs for
about
four minutes, followed by a ringing alarm. The
photographs clearly showed two men, one carrying acrowbar and a sledge
hammer and the other awalkie-talkie radio set. The F.B.I. Bulletin states that
police officers identified the men from the photographs, arrested them and
charged them with breaking and entering and possessing burglary tools. One
of
the burglars who protested, was silenced when shown the photographs in ques-
tion. He had previously boasted
that
he was too smart to be caught.
INVESTIGATING ELEPHANTS
We learn from a letter in Outpost, the magazine of the British South Africa
Police, of investigations being made into the migratory habits of elephants.
They are marked with numbers on their ears and backsides, and have plastic
tags inserted into their ears after they have been made unconscious by a drugged
dart
shot from a crossbow. The crossbow is made by a man in Natal and beauti-
fully constructed and accurate up to 120 yds. Samples of blood and saliva are
also taken, as well as other tests being done.
It
takes a team of eight men about
half
an
hour
to collect all the
data
needed and the elephant is then given an
antidote. Within a few minutes it is on its feet again-i-sometimes the elephant
just
ambles off, but at othertimes it is pretty mad and everyone has to take cover.
TmRTY·ONE
YEARS
LIFE
An inmate
of
aState Prison in one
of
the Southern States of America was
released recently, after serving 31 years of a life sentence for murder.
It
is reported
in the F.B.I. Bulletin
that
normally aprisoner under a life sentence would be
eligible for parole in seven to 15 years. In this case, however, the murderer had
threatened to kill every member of the
jury
which convicted him, on being released
from prison. Therefore, he had been detained until all the members
of
the
jury
had
died.
It
was only then
that
he could be released, under the terms
of
his
sentence-31
years later.
November 1965 529
To continue reading
Request your trial