TOPICS OF THE DAY.

One of the features of

I The American industrial life Box which greatly interested System. the members of Mr lloselty's Commission, themselves all labour delegates, %vaa the extensive usa muck by employers <»f the brains of their employees and the encouragement afforded to the workers to moke suggestions for the improvement of the methods of manufacture. In our recent reference to the career of Mr Westinghouse, we quoted a statement by the head of one of the departments of iiis great manufactory, that no man ■was any good to him who, after being a. eeri tain time at hiis job, could not suggest some improvement in the way of doing it. But I at the Westinghouse Works good- ideas are probably well rewarded, as is the case in other American factories. The English labour delegates found to their surprise that at a large nickel -works useful suggestions I from employees were rewarded b*y gifts of shares in the company, £1000 worth being, it i 3 said, often given to some ingenious workman. At the cash register works at Dayton there is a "suggestion box" for emI ployeee, into which one year no less than 4000 suggestions were dropped, of which 2600 were being adopted by the company. Substantial prizes ere paid for the best ideas. "It is tihda system which accounts for the aircunxstanw that the senior director, whose authority ranks next*to the actual owners of the works, is a young man who nine years ago was an office boy employed in waging windows at the factory. Several heads of departanemte were v, few years ago working ttt the bench." A large Chicago store pays any employee a dollar for any suggestion wliich can in any way improve the business, and the system, if not in general use throughout the States, is in use in many centres, American employers assuring the deleI gaJtes that 'the most useful improvements in their businesses oaane from their own mechanits and workshop hands." The delegates caused some astonishment by replying that in Eng-land a workman making a suggestion "would be reprimanded for presumption, and probably dismissed," unlese a foreman spared him this fate by appropriating the idea and using it for his own advancement. It is to be hoped that this is an exaggerated statement of the ease. The delegates are not without bias, and their assertion that "the English workmen are all righfc, and their employers all wrong, and reaponaible for anything wrong in England's industrial conditions," does not afford much hope of an impartial report on American labour conditions. It is interesting to note that the "suggestion box*' idea is to be put into practice in Australia. It was lately brought Tinder the notice of Mr Bent, Victorian Minister of Railways, a "new broom," with many ideas and terrific energy in carrying them out. He adopted the system with joy, and has offered several substantial money prizes for the best ideas lodged in the box during the year. The remarkable success of Short Storks. "Sherlock Holmes" has been responsible for several features of present-day English, fiction. He gave renewed life to the detective as the hero of romance, and the crap, short stories in wliich he was the central figure appealed strongly to a generation whiuh yawned over Gaboriau, and wondered why that author had ever thrilled the blood of his readers. Imitators of "Sherlock Holmes" profited by the popular appetite for , detective adventures, and on every side one met siha<io\vs of the great original. But he did more than set a pattern for tlia writers of magazine fiction j he set an example of a style of fiction which has been widely followed": To-day one can read in probably half a dozen magazines "series" of short stories, each series having one individual as the centre of each story. Every one of Sir A. Conan Doyle's exciting detective stories was different from the others, but the incomparable Sherlock Holmes dominated the whole of tten. He was the string on which the beads were threaded. So it was with Mr Morrison's "Martin Hewitt, Investigator," Mr Hornung's "Amateur Cracksman," Mr Cutcliffe Hyue'e "Captain Kettle," Mr Kipling's "Stalky," and Mr Andrew hsmg's "The Disentonglers." There are numerous others, but these are the best known exump.es of a form of fiction that must make ftrww demands upon the inventive powers of the writer, and the intelligence of the reader than the ordinary kind of story. Each tale is complete in itself, so there, is no call upon his memory, except such as is required by the recurrence of one ruling figure, though this very recurrence obviates any great strain upon the memory, and at the same time aTouses an interest in tbe hero's further adventures, which is the d'asire of the author and editor alike. "It is, in fact," remarks a London paper, "the path of least resistance for tlie reader, and serves as a metaphorical hammock in which he can swmg and amuse himself with the smellest possible demand upon his faculties. It ie characteristic of the age." After all, so long as swinging in a hammock ia not accepted as tihe sole object of existence, no great harm can come from occasional indulgence in that amusement. * Much has been heard of the Salvage the submarine boat in regaird by to its applicability to naval Submarine, warfare. An article in the latest "Contemporary Review," by Dr. Carlo Iberti, deals with the use of the submarine, not for destruction, but for the recovery of treasure from the deep. Dr. Iberti describes the inventions of an Italian named Pino, who, it is eaid, ifl lifceCy to become almost as famous as hit countryman Marconi. It is claimed for Signor Pino's little submarine that it can accomplish with great ease every kind of operation for the salvage or recovery of ships or object* at tbe bottom of the eea. It has been tested to a depth of over 164 yards, mnd the inventor, who has descended in it to the sea bottom ftt least 140 times, bos eucceasfuUy worked at a depth of about 140 yard* There is room in th» wbmwia*

for two persons, who can work in it on tbe sea bed for twelve hours continuously without needing to return to the surface for aar. The boat "walks on the sea bed, moving freely on am ingenious single wheel, propelled by an electric-driveo screw," or if desired it will stop and "remain perfectly immovable at any depth in perfect equilibrium, and for any length of time. "Windows of a special crystal are fitted into the boat, by means of which "every object lying in the sea is clearly and distinctly seen from it, at any depth.' . Even more remarkable, however, is the instrument called a hydroscope, wliich Signor Pino has invented to aid in recovering sunken treasures. By its use a person standing in an ordinary small boat on the surface of the sea will, we are told, be able—(l) To see clearly ond distinctly any object in the water down to the bed of the tsea, and practically 't any depth ; (2) to take clear photographs of whatever he jxsreeives there ; and thus (3} to recover therefrom with ease and at very small expense anything he likes, however large and h'.ravy it may be, and .it whatever depth it may lii\ Dr. Iberti belk-ves that by l.he aid of the Pino submarine boat and the hydvoscope a vast amount vf treasure will ere long be brought to the surface. To emphasise the importance of the invention he recall, amongst other instances, the wreck of the transatlantic steamer Bourgoviie. which caused lo<h of 24.000,000 fr<u:cx, and contained 16,000,000 francs in zinc; the steani.T sunk off the coast of Holland, with gold to the value of 27,000,000 francs ; the warship Black Prince, wrecked during tho Crimean War in the Bay cf Balaclava, with 40,006,000 francs ; and' "the vessel dashed to pieces in the &.raits of Magellan, with ingots to the value of 625,000,000 francs. Ih view of the enormous fortune to be won from the sea, it will be dnt-eresting to learn what measure of success attends the future experiments with these inventions which Dr. Iberti so confidently heralds.