NEWS NOTES.

TREASURE TROVE. Mr Frank Flint, a farmer, of Denmark, | lowa, while enlarging a well on his farm, dug up an iron casket containing gold dollars worth, £9ooo. GENEROUS EMPLOYERS The thirty-two widows whose husbands were killed in the explosion at Wattstown Colliery, Rhondda, in July, 1905, have received from the owners £7000 in excess of ; the sums payable under the Compensation Act. THE :DEGRADED COMMONS. The new House of Commons is characterised by remarkable levity. It jokes easily and laughs readily. Dignified reticence is passing away with the grand style in debate. Slang is the fashion of the day. — British Weekly. SOCIALIST HOPES. We are only at the beginning of the development of the political Labor movement in Great Britain. That it will ultimately become an openly avowed Socialist movement I entertain no manner of doubt.-^J. Keir Hardie, M.P., in Niuateenth Century. A' GORGEOUS BATH TUB. The £300,000 mansion being built by Mrs Clarence Moore at Washington- will contain'.- sixty bathrooms. Mrs Moore's private bath will be a work of art. It will be constructed in imitation of a cave with stalactites hanging from the roof. The tub will be a rose-eolored shell* and on the: walls will be representations of aquatic plants. The floor will be coveis ed with a rug in moss color. . £30,000,000 GIFT, Mr James J. Hill announces, snys the New York Herald, that on Saturday next the stockholders pf the Great Northern Railroad will receive a: free distribution of securities worth £30,000,000. There -: are 1,500,000 shares of Great Northern issue and each Great Northern stockholder will get share for share in a. trusteeship,- created to manage and divide the pionts of the famous ore transaction made with the United States Steel Corporation. MARRIED IN A MOTOR CAB. T)ie latest experiment in Automobile marriages is reported by the New York correspondent of the Telegraph from Cleveland, where Miss Irene Dennart and Mr Lawrence Damschert has been "hitched up," as the telegraph account says, "while going at the rate of 40 miles an hoiiir. The bride afterwards admitted that the ceremony was completed soniewhere between Ninth street and Nineteenth street, but could not say precisely -where. In the absence of a clergyman, Magistrate Parker officiated.! For a part of the journey the car was hotly chased by a bicycle policeman, whom the chatfeur managed to -elude; -^. THE HUSBAND'S REFUGeT -: For many years a faithful housekeeper worked for a bad-tempered old bachelor, but finally grew tired of his eternal complaints, and decided to leave- him. Biding her time, therefore, Bhe informed him that she was going to California. "To California !" he repeated/ in alarm ''What to do theie: pray?" x ; "To find a husband," she^ answered boldly. "They say there are 'many more men than women in California." ; "Bah!" the old bachelor snarled. "Don't flatter yourself that you'll find a husband among them, woman. It's true the men are. in the majority, but they're not the marrying sort. They're runaway, husbands who've gone to California in search of a little peace !" . MR CHAMBERLAIN. I am told, on very trustworthy authority, that the affection from which Mr Chamberlain is suffering is dilation of the heart. This is a very serious matter for a man of his age. He : has had previous attacks of the same nature and recovered from them. But this i time, standing the reassuring dementis issued by the family whenever it is suggested that the eminent statesman is not in a fair .way to complete restoration to health, he is not recovering. I regret to have to»add, on the. same authority, that the. chance of Mr Chamberlain's re-entering public life is remote.— Glasgow Herald. AN IDEAL THEATEE: * The new national theatre, at New York, organised on the lines of the Theatre Francaise at Paris, is to be built at once. Workmen have begun clearing the site in Sixty-second street. The site, for which £200,000 was paid a few months ago, is in the heart of the •millionaire district, on the west side ol Central Park. Between thirty and forty wealthy New York financiers. and art patrons, including Mr Andrew Carnegie and Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, have subscribed £600,000 to found this- theatre,, which will be the best equipped and most magnificent in the world. The new theatre will seat 12,000 people, and will be completed in about a year. .EMPEROR'S ADVENTURE. The Emperor Franz Josef had an unusual adventure while taking his customary walk in the gardens of the Hofburfi at six o'clock on the morning of November 30. . His Majesty was accosted by two men, who pretended to be veterans of the campaign of 1848. One of them asked for the Emperor's pencil, with which he. wrote an order for £48. The Emperor then signed it, and sent a servant to fetch the money. The "veterans" grew nervous, however, and suddenly bolted out of the gardens. The Emperor, who was greatly upset by the incident, called an aide-de-camp, who secured the arrest of the two men shortly afterwards. . "| They proved to be well-known rogues, aged respectively thirty-two and fortyseven years, wearing false beards. . j LONDON'S DRINKING WATER. "Londoners have been drinking, ancl for some time yet are going to drink, the water off the Thames and the Lea, which receives effluents, and sometimes, bad pollution, all up the river, plus all storm water and land drainage, without any sterilisation at all, and although, we are told by eminent persons that we are threatened with a serious epidemic in consequence, the water authorities have, so far, been able to supply wateir that lias not produced these effects." This was the summing-up of Messrs \V. P. Digby and H. C, H. Shenton in their paper read before the Society of Engineers at the Royal United Service Institution on "Prevention of the Bacterial Contamination of Streams and Oy-ster-beds." The authors emphasised the enormous difficulty of collecting water anywhere at an absolutely uncontaminaled source. The pollution of streams and oyster-beds could only be prevented by a thoroughly scientific treatment of se\Verage. TRAGIC TALE OF THE SEA. A Berlin cable gives a tragic tale of the sea, involving the loss of a British ketch in the Bristol Channel. The sjtory reached Berlin in a curiously roundabout way from Spiekeioog, one of Hit- East Frisian islands, off the north-western coast of Germany. _ A bottle washed ashore there and picked upon the sands at low tide, contained the following message, scribbled roughly in pencil on a scrap of paper apparently torn out of a ship's log-book : — "The ketch William and Mary of Bridgewater is sinking sixteen, miles south-west of Hartland. God help lis! (Signed) James Gamesons (master), William Fry (first mate), Samuel W 7 illiams (second mate), John Eley (boy), all of Bridgewater, October 18, 1906." This bottle was thrown overboard at the mouth of the Bristol Channel, carried round Land's End, up the English Channel, and across the North Sea until it laudi'd at Spiekeioog, six weeks after the time it was dropped in the water, over a thousand miles distant. SCANDALOUS CONDITIONS. The grave scandal in connection with tho Kent strawberry fields, to which the Local Government Board's attention is being called is this : — The strawberries for the London and other markets i grown in the northern parts of Kent are picked by a horde of homeless wanderers, who are lodged for months in field huts no larger than pigsties and unfit for human habitation. A large proportion of the pickers are of a poorer -and dirtier class than hoppickers. The ordinary habits of cleanliness are unknown among them. They rarelv wash, for they have scarcely any mean's of washing. They sleep in their clothes, which they often year for weeks together. Whole families herd together in single cubicles not more than 81 1 square. They lie on straw, which is provided at the beginning of the season. As they have to pay for any further supply, they often lie oil the same straw for weeks or . months. No sanitary supervision is exercised over their hovels, which by the end ol the season become 100 foul for deserip" tion. No medical supervision is exercised over the pickers themselves, who are fret to pick the strawberries without any test as to the healthy condition, or otherwise, of their hands. Children are born in the huts.

MUSICAL TRAGEDY. There is clearly a growing taste for musical tragedy. During tho season just closed every opera without exception has been fatal to its heroine. Not one has survived. — Punch. A DOUBLE EVENT. Tho wives of two young men, brothers, named James and Thomas Donnelly, factory workers at Drogheda, gave birth to twins, all boys, on Saturday, says the Irish Times. The grandfathers ancl grandmother, as also "the great-grandfather and greatgrandmother, are all alive. MORE VENTILATION. If the air of churches, post offices, shops, and all other public places of resort were sanitarily inspected from time to time, surprise visits made, and all owners compelled by law to ventilate, what a difference would be made in the health and happiness of the people.~The Lady. "GLORIFIED SAWDUST." „ Transvaal tobacco-growers complain that the Government model farm at I Tzaneen, instead of being used as an educational medium for the benefit of local ! cultivators of the weed, is "flooding the market with an article that is only glorified sawdust with the flavor of sulphur." LATEST "SMART" OFFENCE. ft is a curious trait in the English character that a fool commands a great deal of popularity and affection of a certain sort, and I consider it a grave offence on the part of certain smart women that they encourage the friendship of men who do not fulfil the most elementary conditions of manliness. — A Frenchman, in The World. THE DOCTOR'S SUCCESSOR. What has become of the general practitioner, of the family doctor? He is slowly disappearing, ousted by two formidable opponents— the patent medicine and . . . . . the clairvoyant. Yes, the clairvoyant; and this fact is hardly to the credit of men and women of the present day.— The Bystander. THE COLLAPSED TRUST. We are interested in registering the failure of the first attempt on a great s v eale to introduce the American Trust system into this country. The unequal, the almost hopeless, fight which has been waged against this system in the United States has read Englishmen a lesson, and we rejoice to see that they have so quickly and so thoroughly mastered it.— The Spectator. . DOUBLE DEATH COINCIDENCE. The double funeral of Joseph Quiver, aged seventy-nine, and Sarah Ann, his wife, aged eighty-six, took place in Bishop's Stortford Cemetery. The old couple died within a few hours of each other, audi their coffins were carried side by side to the grave. Their next-door neighbours, a couple named Perry, aged eighty-six and eighty-three, also died on one iday, and were similarly buried together. "A KILLING HABIT. I. The gravedigger of a little town in Scotland was induced to give hp his habit o'f hard drinking and sign the pledge. At a public meeting he gave his "experience." "I never thdcht to tell ye," he said, "that for a whole month I haven't touched a drap of anything. I've saved enough to buy me a braw oak coffin wi' brass handles and brass nails — and if I'm a teetotaler for anither month I'll "be wantin'it!" ':.■-, THE FAMILY SKELETON. A farmer was present at a political dinner. His right-hand neighbour asked him why his wife was not with him. The farmer replied :—" Well, Maria's so thin that when she wears one of them lownecked evening dresses, she looks nothing but skin aud bone." . "So you persuaded her to stay at honte?" said the other, almost choking with suppressed laughter. "No," said the farmer, with a gleam of fun in his eye, "I didn't persuade her. It's no use argyfying with Maria. I jest turned the key on her, and locked the family skeleton -in -the cupboard." .-■■•'■ GOTHENBURG SYSTEM. At Motherwell Town Council (Scot land) a motion was adopted to apply to the Secretary for Scotland for power tc. take over the liquor traffic for behoof of the ratepayers. Councillor Ferguson said the profit of the drink bi|l foi Motherwell was £40,000 a year. It this was applied for the public benefit it would almost-- save the. ratepayers from any taxation. The Town clerk. gave his opinion that it was quite in the powei the Scottish . Secretary to order the "Magistrates to take this step in the pub : •lie mterest.THE JAPANESE DEEP BREATHERS. Fresh air — and a great abundance of it — is the Japanese rale. The Japanese sleep rarely with their paper windows closed. In' the. morning one of the first tasks is to go out of doors:.., c Theie the Japanese woman takes in great breaths of air. And the Japanese look upon full, deep breathing as being the most vital force in life. Food is not as important, although necessary. The best of exercises are of little value when the breathing that accompanies them is not done properly. — W. Irving Hancock. MARCONI'S ROYAL MEDIUM. Signor Marconi is reported from Rome to.be conducting important experiments in spiritualism in collaboration with a certain Roman princess whose name is not mentioned, but who is said to be an extraordinarily gifted medium. King Victor -Emmanuel, whose interest iii all matters appertaining to spiritualism is well known, is said to have been invited by the celebrated inventor to honor a seance with his presence. '-' Some remarkable materialistic phenomena are said to have been recorded by Signor Marconi with the aid of his royal medium. CAGED. LIKE A WILD BEAST. A wealthy farmer, named ■' Torihey, and his wife,, living in the . village of Beguins, Switzerland, have been arrested for torturing their daughter. Mile. Thonney, three years ago, when she was fifteen years oldyhad a love affair, which ended in her father locking her in an underground cellar. She has been kept there a prisoner ever since until yesterday, when Thonney's daughter-in-law, after a quai-rel, gave information to the police. Mile. Thonney was released in a pitiable condition. She was half-blind, speechless, and indescribably emaciated. She was removed to the 'hospital. THE ADMIRAL'S PAPER-CHASE. The Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Squadron, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford,- during the stop of the fleet at Malta recently, organised a most enjoyable paper-chase, in which he himself acted as "hare" and personally distributed the paper "scent" from the bulky bag he had swung over his shoulders. Over sixty junior officers responded to the Admiral's invitation to take -part in the chase, and he gave them a hard gallop. Over hill ancl dale, after fair scent and foul scent the hunters went, but never a sign of the hunted did they find, so well was the scent laid. Filially, the. thin line of paper led round to tho rendezvous,'' V.erdala Palace, aud here the Admiral was found, delighted at his exploit. ELEPHANT HUNT IN A TOWN. The suburbs of Cincinnati, (U.S.A.) 'were recently thrown into a panic by a hunt alter escaped elephants from the Zoo. A surgeon had endeavoured to amputulo the tail of Basil, an elephant ninety-live years of ago and weighing over four tons. Another elephant had chewed the tail, causing blood-poisoning to set in. ' Basil was fastened to the ground and his feet chained. He rebelled when the surgeon seared the wound with a branding iron, and burst his bonds. He charged the animal-house, destroying the greater part if it, ancl freed a herd of elephants, which at once stampeded from the park through the city's streets. The surgeon was seriously injured by the falling timber of the animal-house, ' and several keepers were also injured. Hundreds of men joined in tho hunt for the elephants, which lasted for hours. All the animals were recaptured. HIS LAST FIGHT. A remarkable scene occurred at Omaha, Nebraska, when "Kid" Wedge, the champion light-weight boxer of Arkansas, declined to take part in a boxing contest, on the. ground that he had been converted, and that- it was wrong to fight save in self-defence. Wedge entered the ring (says the New York correspondent of the Express) in the presence of 2000 people, and astounded everybody by handing his opponent a tract, with the wish that he would read it carefully. The amazed boxer seemed to regard this as a personal insult, and he promptly smote the "Kid" on the nose. Wedge then said, "We are told to turn the other cheek." He did so, and was rewarded with a terrible blow which sent him against the ropes. "I have not been told what to do next," said Wedge, "but I uness 1 can pound you to pulp without interfering with my conscience." The fight which followed was -much livelier than the one advertised. ; Both pugilists were badly disfigured, but -the victory was given to W 7 edge, who. promised ta pray for his opponent. He has retired permanently from the prize ring.

DISTURBERS OF TRAFFIC. The telegraph service in Africa frequently sutlers interruption because of giraffes and elephants becoming entangled in tho wires. This disturbance has occurred on tho Victoria Falls line six times, suvs the Export Implement Age. EXPLOSIVE FOR AIRSHIPS. General Crazier, of the United States Ordnance Department, has admitted that Government experts have invented the most powerful explosive known, and that it has been designed especially for use in the airships for which the Government is negotiating with the Wright Brothers, of Dayton, Ohio. SPEAKS 5 LANGUAGES AT 8. An eight-year-old boy, who speaks foui foreign languages fluently, has been ad : mitted to the Brooklin, Mass., High School. His name is William James Sidis, and ho is thought to be the youngest high school boy in the United States. As well as knowing five languages he has a remarkable knowledge of mathematics and physics. STOLE A LOCOMOTIVE. Frank Pochard, twenty-two years old, of Taunton, Massachusetts, recently stole a locomotive from the railway yard there because he was in a hurry to reach New York. The engine broke down within a few miles of Taunton, and he was -ll'l'GStfiQ FOUR WIVES TOO MANY. Joseph F. smith, the President of the Mormon Church, has been fined £60 for having married five wives. Smith was arrested at the instance of his monagamist brethren, and was tried by a Mormon court. He had previously been warned that his weakuess for fresh matrimonial alliances was distasteful to many of his brethren, and' that he was setting an evil example to the church of which he is the head. He continued his reckless course, but at the birth of the forty-third child the patience of his friends gave out, and he was arraigned. r THE VOICE OF THE GODS.. A laughable incident recently occurred to Miss Lena Ashwell when' she was appearing in New York as the brutallytreated wife of the old Boer farmer in "The Shulamite." She had reached the scene where she falls on her knees by command of her elderly husband that he may the more conveniently, flog her with his sjambok, when an indignant voice from the> gallery shouted, "Tarnation, don't stand it no longer! Shoot that old 'cuss" where he stands, or I guess I willi for the honor of the 'Stars and Stripes.' " MILLIONS FOR MOTOE-CARS. "More than £2,000,000 was spent on motor-cars during the late Olympia show," a press representative was informed at a West End garage. "More money is being spent on cars just now than has ever been expended on any one class of goods, and good cars can be easily sold much faster than they canbe built." .Retail merchants all over London report a record Christmas trade, and all agree that more money is being spent for luxuries than has been spent for spvoral years. £1 BANK-NOTES. One of the most interesting currency reforms which; is now receiving the at: tentiou of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the issue of £1 bank-notes. 'At present the law provides that no English bank-note shall have a less value than '£s, and in this matter England stands alone in the world. Even Ireland and Scotland have their £1 notes. England has not always been without its £1 bank-notes, but they were forbidden as long ago as 1776. Before then they were issued in large numbers by the country banks, and in some cases even smaller sums were the limit. In those days, many tradesmen were bankers in a small way, arid the issue of notes for small amounts by them led to many abuses. ■ J THE GOSPEL;OF HEALTH. A suggestion was made recently by Dr Eliot, president of Harvard University that "selected physicians, should become public practitioners as well as private practitioners." In commenting on this suggestion the Practitioner '. says :— " Wo should prefer that 'the. two functions of teaching and healing were separated. If the preacher is a practitioner also, he will always be open to the suspicion of advertising himself, and this would go . far -to destroy his success as a missionary. T.he preacher of the gospel of medicine should, in fact, be a specialist. "We are convinced that if the idea of what may' be called an order of medical preachers could" be realised, the ignorance ancl superstition that now hinders the acceptance of medical truths and foster quackery would be gradually dissipated." ' , " LADY'S HAT ON FIRE. ' While the congregation were singing the last hymn in a church at Heaton Moor, Manchester, during a recent service, a. tall waving plume in a young lady's hat was ignited at a gas bracket. The flames were observed by a member of the choir, and he~ immediately left the choir-stalls audi ran down the chancel, pulling off- his coat as he went- to where ,the lady was standing. Two schoolboys sitting behind saw what had occurred, and instantly began to search for her hat-pins, but the lady not knowing the reason for such a liberty was stunned with amazement.; The congregation naturally .turned around to follow the movements 'of the chorister, but before he reached her the schoolboys solved the mystery of "the. l hat-pins, took hermit off, and stamped the fire out. This act, however, was 'too late to save her from her impetuous res-/ cuer, who enveloped! her face and head with his coat. The young lady collapsed, and the gallant chorister retraced his steps to the choir-stalls. THE CHICAGO PACKING HOUSES. Twelve hundred new Government inspectors, writes the New York correspondent of the Age, aie now constantly employed in and about the meat slaughter-, ing and packing houses, enforcing the legislatibn that resulted from the revolting revelations of a few months ago. The proper sanitation of the plants ha6 been rigidly insisted upon. It is eloquent of the laxity and slovenliness tluifc formerly existed that of the nearly 400 large slaughtering plants in the country there was not one' that did not need cleaning up and altering iri order to comply with the requirements of the new Act; and some of them needed to be practically rebuilt. On the day the Act became effective about forty of them had failed to conform to the sanitary regulations, and consequently their products were barred from inter-State commerce. But very soon they found it to be the part of wis-, dom to* accept the dictates of the department. Tinned meats put up under the new conditions contain the magic Government stamp, "Inspected and passed" ; and this is accepted as pretty conclusive evidence that the contents of the package are wholesome, clean meat. Moreover, it is insisted that the labels state exactly what the tins contain', so that the day of veal masquerading as potted, chicken seems to have passed. As showing what a vast amount of ground the American packers have to -make up, the exportation figures for August are of interest. In that month the exportation of tinned beef totalled 659,1271b. as against 5,048,5331b in the corresponding month of last year. THE LUXURY OF RACE PREJUDICE. Race prejudice, meaning the inability of black Americans and wliite Americans to live side by side in amity,- has its liumoroxis as well as its tragic side. . It is in New York that this humorous aspect has manifested itself. It seems that the enterprising negroes have found a way to com into hard cash the dislike in which they are held. Thus, the AfroAmerican Realty Oompanv, a corporation with a capital of £100,000, all negro money, and managed solely by negroes, has for two. years past followed the plan of buying or leasing properties in neighborhoods in which only white people reside. A placard is put out inviting negro tenants. In all cases this has caused almost a panic amongst adjacent property owners who have been only too willing to band together and buy out the negroes at a handsome advance on the price paid. When forming the company two years ago, Philip. A. Pay ton, who is now its president ancl moving spirit, issued a prospectus in which the objects weie frankly set forth. "Race prejudice is a luxury," he said, "and, Tike alh other luxuries, can be made very expensive in New York City, if the negroes will but answer this call of the Afro-American Realtv Company." They answered the call to the tune of £100,000, but some of the stockholders are dissatisfied with Pay ton. and litigation is pending, which , is the reason attention has been directed to the methods of the concern. This man :• Pay ton is tho leading colored speculator anil financier of the United Stales. Tic > is --'said to have netted over £200,000 ju • five years by real estate operations in i New York City. He lives in a magnifi- ' eently furnished house in West 131st > street, and is to be seen any day dashing I about the streets in an expensive autoI mobile.

A TYROLESE SKYSCRAPER. The tallest woman in the world is said tu be a native of the Tyrol who has just arrived at Vienna. Twenty-seven years old, she is 7 feet 5 inches high, and weighs 26 stone 10 pounds. She is spare rather than stout, hard of features and voice, and somewhat of the masculine type. Her father and mother are not above ordinary stature. TEA DRINKING IN INDIA. The custom of drinking tea was practically unknown among natives up to twelve years ago. Government servants were the first to.be taken up, and it is at present in somewhat of this class Gradually its uso extended to village landlords, and even to the more well-to-do cultivators and village officers, especially within the last three years, the example of railway irrigation employes having materially assisted its introduction. Some cultivating castes have a special liking for it, and drink it even three or four times a day'. BOY KILLS HIS MOTHER. Eli Alfred Mounter, a boy of 15, shot his mother accidentally at Kingsbury Episcopi, England, on December 1, and was so overwhelmed with grief that he was unable to speak for more than a day. . The gun, which was used for scarithg birds, was left by its owuer in Mounter s charge. He showed it to bis mother and sister, ancl a few minutes after the latter left the room she heard a report. She rushed back, and found her mother lying dead, with her face blown away, and her brother dumb with terror. Mounter recovered sufficiently to explain that -.he did not know that the gun was loaded. He pointed it at his mother in fun and pulled the trigger. Tho recoil knocked him down, and when he was able to iget up he saw that hia mother was dead. FREAK OF THE CAMPAIGN. It has oeen a campaign of freaks in more States than one, or even two, says the Springfield Republican, commenting on the recent election for the Governorship of New York State. Out in lowa Andrew Townsend Hisey, an eccentric character, who is a little loose in his upper story, has been campaigning from place to place, pushing a wneelbarrow ahead of him and wearing an old stovepipe hat. Somebody jokingly suggested to him during the summer that he ought to run for Governor. The little old man took it seriously, and began to canvass for names on his nomination papers. Still thinking it a joke, people gave him their names, and then awoke to find that he had actually secured enough to place him on the official ballot. The joke cost the State,,of lowa 5000 dollars in : the new printing which it necessitated. A REVENUE FOR THE LAIRDS. It has oeen estimated, says the Yorkshire Post, that like £450,000 is paid yearly as rental for the 2400 grouse moors of Scotland. Therefore, the sportsmen, who begin a day later than their wont, pay liberally for their birds. The statistician puts at a sovereign the cost, of each brace brought down. Rental of a grouse moor varies from tenpenco to half-a-crown an acre, and one of 10,000 acres, with shooting lodge attached, fetches as much as £5001 Perthshire is the great county for this form of sport. In the good old days a ktndowner was content to shoot his own birds, inviting his friends to be partakers of his joy. But, the growth of commerce and of wealth has altered matters, and the rich Londoner or American is, for a time at least, lord of the ancestral acres. Whether good or bad from a patriotic standpoint, this is certainly a source of considerable -revenue to the lairds. • "WORM" SIXTY FEET L.ONG. A strange story of a sea-serpent is circulated by a Swedish telegraphic agency, and attracts considerable attention, as it is signed by M. Victor Ankarcrona, King Oscar's niost intimate friend and master of the Royal Hunt, who declares that the statement is accurate. While promenading"'with three friends along the coast near the fashionable bathing resort of Sattsjabaden, an hour from Stockholm, M. Ankarcrona and his companions saw, at a distance of 200yds, ah animal sixteen to twenty yards long swimmingly rapidly through! the water, at a speed "at least equal to that of a good motor-boat," throwing up large waves and causing a heavy swell all alongthe coast.' The movements of the animal in the water were similar to those of a worm. Its head was above the water, and looked very much like the body of a turtle, being absurdly large compared to the circumference of the body. The back was round, and without any outgrowthifor fins. Its color was greyish-brown. ., After several minutes ; the animal slackened speed aud then .disappeared:. suddenly,, whereupon the water became still. _ PASSING OF THE BROOM. The broom threatens soon to bo as obsolete as the old copper warming-pan, judging from the number of vacuum dust removers which are being placed upon the market. The change, says the Lancet, is one which must, meet with the unqualified approval of all who know what a breeding-ground of disease is; the -•oinmon dust of our houses. Every nousewifc who is possessed of cleanly instincts should welcome an apparatus which removes dust instead of scattering it in all directions, lost to the senses, so to speak, for a time by its attenuation in air, only sooner or later to settle down again on shelves, pictures, curtains and carpets jn a thin film. Moreover, the removal of dust and its collection in a receptacle by the new method permit Of its absolute destruction by fire. Bacteriological science can easily demonstrate the existence of disease germs in common household dust, and there is evidence of an eminently practical character; that dust is othervvise a source of disease; there could hardly be a more effective means of spreading the infective and irritating particles than the old-fashioned broom. The method is not only insanitary but absurd. REMARKABLE OPERATIONS- . At the meeting of the Congress of Na tural Research and Medicine, at Stutt gart, on September 20 (says Reuter's Berlin correspondent), Professor Gare, ol Breslau, delivered au interesting lecture on the transplanting of blood-vessels and organs, the topic which attracted so much attention at the meeting of the British Medical- Association at- Toronto in August. Professor Gare traced the development of the idea of transplanting, and mentioned a recent case in which a child of four years suffering from cretinism, had a portion of its mother's thyroid -gland transplanted into it* spleen. After nine months the child was beginning to develop intellectually and to walk and talk. The transplanting of the thyroid gland was, he said, a simple matter, owing to the fact that a portion of the thyroid gland can always be safely removed from a living person.' He narrated a number of successful experiments in transplanting the blood-vessels in animals. He had, ho said, succeeded in removing blood-vessels six centimetres (2 l-3in) long, not only from live animals, but from animals which had been dead an hour ancl a half, to other animals. While it was not possible to remove and transplant large blood vessels from living human being, yet blood-vessels could be suitably taken from freshly-amputated limbs.-- -Such transplanting would be of great use in many cases in modern surgery—for instance, when, in removing large tumors, large blood-vessels have to be tied up, which often results fatally for the parts of the body fed by these blood-vessels. DEFECTIVE SIGHT IN CHILDREN During the past four years the Londoi, County Council has, says the Daily Mail, instituted examinations of some 82,00C children attending its .schools, with the object of testing their eyesight. In addition to this a separate examination was made with respect to the infants schools. As a result no fewer than 22,00C . of the. elder children were found to bt suffering from defective sight, while a , relatively similar number was shown tc exist among the infants. Serious as thes'c figures are, they by no means denionstrati the true stale of affairs, inasmuch as ii: ; consequence of the superficial nature ol tho examination, only the most obvious ; cases of defect were noted — a fact freel.v ; admitted in tho official report from whicl these statistics arc taken. Passing. fron i London to the provinces, Binninghan and Manchester are the only munieipali • ties which have produced any statistic; [ of importance bearing on the questioi ■ r of the prevalence of eyesight defects. Ir i the former the most scientific examina > tion of the eyesight of children attendinj ! the public schools that has yet beei i made was recently instituted. In the re l suit something like 35 per cent of all th< [ children examined were found to be af i "footed to a greater or less degree. Ii • Manchester the system adopted wa: ; neither thorough nor scientific, but 3( I per cent of the scholars were certified ai i suffering from ametropia. This is hi - imperfection in the refractive powers o t the eye, so that images are not brough t io a proper focus on the riteria, produc - ing cither bypermetropia, myopia, o astigmatism.

MOTOR FATALITY. Dr Lytic, of Shrewsbury, England, was driving into tho town along the Wen-lock-road, and when ascending the hill the car began to run backwards. The chauffeur, a man named Parry, applied the brakes, which failed to act, and the car eventually overturned upon the occupants. Parry was killed on the spot, but Dr Lytle escaped. THE HIGH DIVE CURE . In Revere, Minn, U.S.A., they take drunkards and give them what is locally called the "high dive cure" by ducking them in a largo tank of water situated in a convenient location in the town. A couple of, dips is all that has been required in any case yet, and one chronic offender from Walnut Grove, who was immersed one evening, has never shown up in Revere since. sbo MEN STRIKE FOR A EARTHING The 550 men at tho Vauxhall Collieries, Ruabon, Wales, have come out on strike for a farthing, which they contend they should have received extra when wages were last increased. There is every promise of a great strike throughout the North Wales coalfield. A section of the miners refused to join the North Wales Miners' Federation, and the unionists on December 19 intend causing a general lock-out by handing in notices at all the collieries to cease work a fortnight from that date "as a protest against working with non-union men." A TRAGEDY OF THE DEEP. Suddenly there was a wild shriek. The passengers on the lower deck caught a momentary glimpse of a dark object falling swiftly from above. \ They rushed to the side of the boat, and gazed in horror at a woman's hat bobbing up and down on the rapidly receding waves. It was all they could see v Where was the woman? Up on the hurricane deck of the steamer, bareheaded, wringing her hands in despair. It was her only travelling hat, and had cost her 5s llj|d. BLOODLESS WARFARE. Mr John P. Holland, the inventor of the Holland submarine has perfected a new type of submersible which will, he says, revolutionise the art of war. It is designed to cripple warships without destroying them. "My boat will stop war by making fleets unserviceable," said Mr Holland to. day. ,l At the same time, it will operate without loss of human life. "In the hands of experts, a fleet of my new submarines will be more than a match for any navy in the world. It will be a bloodless campaign with victory absolutely assured for the submarines." American naval experts are investigating the new submarine. ■ MANX LIQUOR REFORM. A Bill to nationalise the drink traffic in the Isle of Man is being introduced in the House of Keys by Lieutenant-Colonel George Moore. It proposes to abolish all private interest iri the trade, which is to be placed under a disinterested board appointed by the Tynwald Court. The proportion of public-houses is not to exceed one for every YOO inhabitants, grocers' licenses being abolished. | v Bonds bearing 4 per cent, interest will be given iii compensation to the owners lof licensed premises. Pensions will be given for a limited period, to those deprived of their, living. The revenue from the traffic will be devoted to public purposes. . WORLD'S LARGEST CAKE. The largest Christmas cake in the world, which is on view at the shop of Messrs Mardorf, of North End-road, Fulham, London, is as notable for the enormous quantities of its ingredients- as for its collossal size. Mr H. A. Mardorf gave the following list to au Express : representative on Saturday. In its composition there were used*: — 5 cwt. currants -. - 30 cwt. flour 5 cwt. sultanas 16 cwt. sugar 5 cwt. lemon peel ; 8 cwt butter "The .total value," said Mr Mardorf, "is £125. It took two men two months to make it in sections, after which three months more were occupied in building it up. About three-quarters of a ton of coal was consumed in baking it." LOVER'S DISCOVERY. A Wyoming miner named Richard Vfixtson, who was engaged to be married, made the startling, discovery, four days before the wedding, that his fiancee was his sister. The bride to be, known as "Miss Anna Mills," was kidnapped from her parents' home when she was four years old by a ! farm laborer named James Mills. The latter brought her up to believe that he was her father. He deserted her teifyears ago, and she went to Lander, Wyoming, where she met Richard Watson, a prosperous. miner. The latter fell in love with her, and all the arrangements were made for the wedding, when a chance remark miide by "Miss Mills'' •-. led to the discovery that the lovers were brother and sister. MR CARNEGIE CONDEMNS FOOTBALL. Mr Carnegie on December 5 at Prince-' I toil, New Jersey, formally handed over to the University the "Carnegie Lake," an artificial sheet of water 3£ miles long and from 400 to _000 feet wide, which has been formed on land costing 103,000 dols, at his own expense, and is well adapted for aquatic sports. In the course of a speech Mr Carnegie said he desired the lake y6 be used following contests, to the discouragement of football; and after declaring that all athletic sports should be conducted in a gentlemanly manner, he continued: "I have never seen a football game, but 1 have glanced at pictures of such games, and to me the spectacle of educated young men rolling over one another in the dirts was — well, not gentlemanly." Mr Carnegie's remarks were received with murmurs ot dissent from the undergraduates. CURE FOR LOCKJAW. An American physician lias cured a case of lockjaw by heroic and unprecedented methods. Richard Miller, a carpenter, ran a nail into one of his feet ten weeks ago. Within eight days his jaws were locked, and he became unconscious. After antitoxin had been administered, and the wound in his foot excised, the patient became still worse. It was a very bad case of tetanus, and the doctors abandoned hope. Convulsions racked the man's frame. In desperation, and as a last resorvto give some relief to'the-ten-sion on the heart and brain and internal organs, Dr. J. B. Garvin, head' surgeon of St. John's Hospital, Long Island City, took a pint and a half of blood from Miller's left arm. Relief came, and to this heroic method, which, it is suggested here, may lead to a revolution in lockjaw treatment, the physicians believe the man owes his life. Now Miller is out of hospital perfectly cured, and Dr. Garvin has been invited to read a paper on the case before the New York Medical Association. "NEWSBOY" MAYOR, The fashionable residents of Newport — the "city of millionaires," near New York— are staggered at the election of a newsboy as mayor. The new mayor is William Clark, aged thirty-three, who has delivered newspapers to Newport subscribers since he was ten years old, and who 'now owns a large newstand in the principal street of the city, aud still delivers newspapers himself. The defeated candidate, Mr Robert Cottrell, a millionaire, was . mayor last year. This year the millionaires elected only three aldermen, and also lost the majority of the town council. In some instances the victorious candidates for the town council are clerks and shop assistants who defeated their employers. Mr Clark, the new mayor, has a majority by 42 votes! .... He declares that he is "going to make everybody happy," ancl that when he is mayor "all the people will cither- wear silk -stockings or no stockings at all." EVEN IN BORNEO. .In an out-of-the-way corner of the world like British Borneo the gambling evil has gained a footing, and its spread there is occasioning some anxiety. The local Herald has the following on the subject :— "Gambling, being a vice, ought theoretically to be suppressed and abolished by the State. In practice, even those who now propose to strike it out of official existence in yet another part of the British dominions must admit that by so doing they are merely covering up the sore, and hiding it on the principle of 'out of sight out of mind.' As to the wisdom of this, it is not for us to criticise. The question has only newly been mooted, and possibly it is not yet clearly recognised at home that licensed gambling is itself the most powerful restriction on gambling. It ensures, to a great extent, fair play, and play for ready money only. 1 1 also confines, play to ceri tain approved places, under the coni slant supervision of the police — places ; which aic bound to keep certain hours, i and conform to certain regulations. The admission of cfiildren is prohibited, as is , the weariug of weapons, the door must be kept open, and in fact everything is done • to keep the vie? within reasonable bounds."

There are 71,000 motor vehicles in use in the United Kingdom, of which one.sevonth are commercial vehicles, ancl the remainder for pleasure. Thus tho Northern Luminary of January sth : — It is no use being civil to a number of our clients, and as they aro edging for a summons, they shall be accommodated within the coming fortnight. The births in Germany last year were 40,000 fewer, and the deaths 30,000 more than, m 1904. ' The birth-rate has been sinking for' some titno past. In 1901 it was 36.9 per 1000; last year it was only 34. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has .a cartoon on the Californian situation. California is represented as a loutish boy showing a beehive labelled "Japan," while Uncle Sam, in the background roars, "Get out 'o ther, ye fool '." Mr Joseph H. Choate was asked to define the difference between ex-President Cleveland and President 'Roosevelt. "Well, he said, "Mr Cleveland is too lazy to hunt, and Mr Roosevelt is too restless to fish." — Financial News. Sir Lauder Brunton, the well-lino wn physician, thinks girls should be taught, hygiene in the schools, not by the present method of reducing it to dry statistics and bewildering formula, but by nursing her doll as a baby. "Let her be taught how to wash dolly, how dolly should be fed,'' said Sir Lauder. The air hi cutlery factories is charged with invisible metal dust, and this being carried into the lungs causes asthma and consumption. The steel grinders, bending over their work, inhale such quantities of metal dust that they rarely live beyond the age of forty. All metal trades are hazardous, and phthisis or tubercular affections and respiratory diseases are the frequent penalties of those pursuits. '.'Do sermons grip?" is now the question. It depends upon the preacher, St. James's Budget replies. Those of a certain parson oi the wilds of wnoin Bishop Potter tells certainly grip. His vocation lies among the mining camps, where he will take a room over the local grog-shop, "round up the boys," and talk them into tears and penitence. After one of his sermons he ran his eye over his rough congregation, and, picking out the greatest desperado of the lot, announced, "Billy the Kid will now take the collection." The gambler called upon sprang to his feet, seized his hat as offertory plate, and began his round. The first . man he approached offered a _o-cent piece. Quick as lightning out came Billy's revolver. "Young man," he said, quite politely, as he pointed "the weapon at him, "take that back. This is a -ollar show." And with hat in one hand and a six-shooter in the other, he put, the finishing touch to the, virile sermon they had heard. He got as many dollars as there were people present. -; The "farmer" with his daily milk supply attached to his bicycle, . and the wealthy sheepfarmer whose first clip was packed in a couple of sacks slung across a horse, 'have a parallel in commercial circles. _ Years ago, in North Canterbury, a pedlar started his regulation rounds with his stock-in-trade strapped on Ids back. Things prospered, and his trade grew abundantly, and he was soon' able to purchase a horse and a packsaddle to carry his wares from farm to farm. The next investment was a coverI ed van, and with this he traded for some years. A lucky, investment of his cash enabled him to buy ''farm land, and he also started business as a draper and clothier. With a roving tendency, he recently left i the home of his adoption for the North Island, selling several thousands of acres of land in several farms, to say nothing of his yachts, horses, and a splendid town residence on the fringe of historic native bush. The Home representative of the National Dairy Association, Mr C. Mackie, will have special problems to unravel when he reaches London, and one of the most vexing will be the -falling value recorded in London in connection with our butter when no.legitimate reason can be assigned for it. The fall this season (says the New /Zealand Times) has been explained in a trade quarter- by the fine English autumn, but the increased quantity of butter made on the dairy farms of the Old Country as a result of this will certainly not account- for the heavy and continued decline. The true reason will probably be found in the "bearing" of the market by dealers who paid too high for New, Zealand butter before the season opened. No doubt these London friends of ours argue that if they gave more than the butter proved to be worth when it reached the market, they are doing a legitimate thing in rigging the market in order that they may ma ]- e gOO( j t |, eir losses by buying consignment butter below its true value. Consignment' ought to bo the best business for the producer, but in the present instance those who adopted the principle are apparently being made to pay for the high values some factories received on outright sales. It is evident New Zealand butter producers are in the. hands of a section of the trade: Exact information of the unsatisfactory position is what, a direct representative of the producers may be able to secure, and having the information is the first step in the. direction of reform.

' '^l*? 11 : Harry Schmidt, a German schoolboy;- at Honeff, heard that the Kaiser intended to Visit that,, town he said to his classmate, "Here's a chance for a holiday.. I will arrange it." Instead of wasting effort and paper in writing to court officials .Henry went to the public telephone office and rang up the Schlos Schaumberg, in Bonn, where the Kaiser was staying, "Hello," he said, is this the Schloss Schaumberg?" "It as. "Well, kindly ask his Majesty to come to the telephone. Henry Schmidt wishes-to speak with him." Not dreaming anybody but an intimate friend would dare, to call up the War Lord, a Court messenger sought his Imperial Majesty, who at once went to the telephone. The Kaiser's feelings can be imagined when he learned that the person who so peremptorily wished to speak to him was a schoolboy of Honeff, but the Emperor's sense of humor came to his aid, and he listened to the boy's petition. The next day he sent one of his chamberlains with a message to Henry, saying, that the school was to have a holiday when he visited Honeff.