TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 128, 26 November 1907, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

There are many varieties of this fungus, distinguished by scientCricket — ists as bitter, ' black, A Cornstalk dry, white. One partiRot. cuJar variety, however, flourishes and multiplies- exceedingly during 'the cricket Season. A Virulent typo must have found its way on to the Sydney Oval. It is difficult to recall such a decisive defeat of a thoroughly representative Now South Wales team by an English eleven. It is the more, inc&plicablc coming after the big scores made by South Australia and Victoria, neither of which {States, on last season's play,' could compare with New South Wales. It looks as if the Englishmen were improving. Certainly, in Barne6 and Fielder they have a brace of fast bowlers, whose attack is deadly. , Yet the Welshmen's collapse may have heen due as much, perhaps, to that weird psychological thing, suggestion. With batsmen of the punishing powers of Noble, Waddy, and Diamond making an aggregate of nineteen runs in both innings, the balance of- the team were beaten men before tney faced £he lightning swerves of Barnes and tho hot "off theory" stuff of Fielder. The trance was thrown off by Cotter. But feho ;offort came too late to chango the fortunes of the game or to inspirit his flaccid comrades. Yet his 49 in 33 minutes gave a hint of what might have happened i f the once peerless Trumpjr,

had got going. But he seems the shadow ] of that Tuighty batsman whose drives, cuts, glances, pulls, hooks, were once the delight of the Sydney ban-ackers. ! The best bowling >'n tho world looked : soft stuff when Victor Tnunpor was displaying his versatility with the bat. The Englishmen are an even lot, good in all departments, and brilliant in the field. IJraund and Jones in the slips are masters—whilst Hardstaff and Hutchings are greyhounds in the outfield. It would, in reality, be tho "catch of the season" it the New, Zealand Cricket Association could arrange for the Englishmen to play a match or two here before their return tor the Old Country. ■ These are stirring times in Portugal. ' Senhor Joao Franco, ' Pathos the Prime Minister, is in , nob precisely a CromPortugal. well ; but he is as like him as he is able to be. So that we may say that the Portuguese Parliament has to contend with q, Cromwell plus King Charles— in an un-Eng-lish embarrassment of autocrats. " The existing little difficulty commenced as long ago as the middle of last year, when benhor Franco sent his Assembly packing because 1 it would not agree to his policy of reform. Senhor Franco is a Liberal, and he had a small Liberal majority; but they went with the minority — after a little military persuasion. The House of Peers remarked in a disinterested way that Senhor Franco was a traitor, and King Carlos promptly served the PeeTs with a writ ending Parliament for the time being. King and Minister worked- together amiably, and if either is asked to fix a date when Parliament Mill reassemble, he replies with tho Portuguese for "Taihoa, taihoa." The Prime Minister adds insult to his injury by asseverating that he is the chap to save the country, and that he is going the right way 'about it. His devotion to representative government' is unabated, he says; but he simply had to dissolve Parliament out of respect for law and order. As all news to foreign newspapers is censored; protesting universities are forcibly closed ; and objectionable leaders of the opposition are arrested at midnight — Europe has no very clear idea of what is happening. London Times thinks that Senhor Franco; means well, anyway. ' The Prime Minister relies upon the King, who is support A King ing him at the risk Who Reigns, of his crown. King Carlos ' was - only a youngster of twenty -six when he came to the throne im 1889, so he is still vigorous— as may be ' inferred. Ho is also very fat; and wicked people say that the real difference between him and his subjects is a matter of hte waist-measurement. ■ He says.it ia fortyniner they swear it is ninety-four, Carlos has a Queen who lias a .medical deg- 0: they say she took it in order to doctor her husband. He loves her atrociously, and her are the ,ban« of hi 3 ilife. He can dismiss the Court physicians who reduce' hia diet, but he cannot dismiss her. When he escaped to England some years ago, and stayed with Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House, the j story wont that he . was asked, "What, has' impressed your Majesty mokt in England !" "The roast' beef,') answered the monarch promptly. 5 j" Anything <ilse?" "The boiled beef." And Senhor Franco is said to retain his influence because he feeds his sovereign. From bread-and-butter and an olive at the palace he flees gratefully to the Prime Minister's table, groaning under twenty-four courses. At midnight a' guilty monarch comes home up tho back staircase,, and submits himself to the Queen's patent pill. When he is not eating, King •Carlos is the mbst cultured monarch ; in Europe. Ba has * translated Shakespeare ; he patronises Rodin ; his pajntiug gained' a competition medal at Pans Exhibition. And now it is denied that he has banished his son, a rebellious youth of twenty, who dared to question the paternal wisdom. Here h a king who likes his own. way, and takes it. But "how long? ~' t The Druces aro coming in battalions. The world is full of Druces. More They are English, Austra- ■ Druces. lian, American, French, New Zealander. So many have com© forward now that the lowliest mortal in any country may treasure a hope that he or she is somehow the lawful heir of tho Duke of Portland. There is a romance for everybody ; it .is more exciting than a TattersalTs sweep. It is a case of all prizes and no blanks. In bis dreams every man* may see his picture in the papers with a coronet- op his brow. Since everybody is more or less a Druce, would it not simplify matters if the names of all the world and his wife were put in a hat, and the money given to the drawer of the lucky number? That would save us all from spending our energy in weaving tangled skeins of story such as Madame Valette, an elderly Frenchwoman, has just displayed ■^According to her narrative .the Duke was a person -so proud of his lineage that he always carried bis birth certificate about with him, and took care not to overlook it when he changed his suit. Footpads in Paris also were so degenerate, so, careless about the value of things, "that they took the trouble to steal the document, and finally Madame kept a sealed envelope for four years without yielding to the temptation to open it. This -is too much. That lot> tery is badly needed. All of us are not gifted with such powers of imagination, and it is nob fair that the fanciful should have a chance to get an undue advantage. The hab would place US all on the same plane. Frenchmen aro pirouetting. "There is immense enthusiasm At Manoeuvring the success of the airin ship," says a cable mesthe Air. sage. The producer of this jubilation is La Patrie, of course, the animated cigar which has been the envy of Germany for some time. All Gaul is united now in admiration of the great tube of hydrogen which propelled itself 110 miles in 6 hours 45 minutes,— and got within striking distance of Metz, the German stronghold on the frontier., Already some of the volatile Frenchmen may be having 1 visions of aerial Dreadnoughts, and may have dreams of the Frenchman's oagle spreading its wings over the earth. But Germany is not sitting idly by and allowing France to secure pre-eminence in -the air. Tho Germans aro trying desperately to tako the p,ride out of their rivals, and have fashioned an air-ship which is not a disgrace to the Fatherland. Man, however, has. not yet th& angel wings for which ho so often has sighed. Year by, year somebody announcer, that ho i has struck an idea which will put ocean liners out of action, but always a flaw is revealed. Man's thorough conquest of the upper air is beset with difficulties which keep the achievement a remote possibility. It will be many a ! year before motor wings take the place lof motor wheels. Not in our day shall the spices of tho East bo showered upon us from the sky. For military purposes the "cigars," even in thtsr present shape, are undoubtedly useful for reconnoitring, and yet this purpose may bo served by small captive balloons fitted with cameras. Experiments with these, messengers, which require no human 'passengers, havo been very'successful in England. The enemy's country may be spied out with no ' great i risk to the observer,

Seven lines is the length of a current paragraph in which isA recorded the fact . that Young N.Z. Miss "Elsie" (Dulcie) Author. Deamer, of Featherston, is the winner of the £25 prize offered by the' Lone Hand proprietors (Sydney) for the best short story by an Australasian writer^ besides £5 for copyright privileges. Had this Australasian "championship" been one of muscle instead of brain, a column would have been inadequate to satisfy the demand for details concerning the winner. Miss Dulcie Deamer dwells in' the Featherston district, and has not completed her seventeenth year. She is the daughter of Dr. Deamer, and her maternal grandfather was Colonel Beader, well known "to Wellingtonians. She lovfes the simple life and the open air, and is studious withal, knowing her Shakespeare from cover to' cover; and — like a good many girls of sixteen — her "fancy lightly turns" to the stage. From the mere literary instinct, she has written both in prose and verse^ — from love of the exercise and not for publication, though her verses have been highly .appreciated by some who have seen^ them in manuscript. Though she has had but a pass* ing note in the press, her Lone Hand story will be looked for with interest in New Zealand. Her name may yet I take an honoured place in the roll of New Zealand writers.