News Views and Opinions.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 160, 8 July 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

New s Views and Opinions.

So, after all, Mr Ernest Terah Hooley is not to be prosecuted. After four months' "very careful consideration" the Public Prosecutor has decided not to institute criminal proceedings against the bankrupt company promoter. His decision, we must presume, is a proper one, in .spite of the fact that Mr Brougham, the Official Receiver, recommended prosecution. But the Public Prosecutor's delay in making up his mind on the matter is nothing short of scandalous. It is a cruel perversion of the course of justice to hold over a man's head for more than four months a threat of criminal proceedings, and it is remarkable that in a country like Great Britain the dilatory methods of the Public. Prosecutor's department should be allowed to continue. In the case of Hooley the grounds of the suggested prosecution were specific. They were the result of a prolonged examination all of which was on record, and the Official Receiver, with his evidence, was at call. Any competent law officer ought to have been able to decide within v few weeks that there was or was not n prima facie ease for prosecution. To keep the victim in suspense for about eighteen weeks was absolutely wicked.

What is a marriageable age? The answer to this question by a prudent English parent would be from twentyone to twenty-five for a woman and twenty-five to thirty for a man. The legal definition, however, is very different, and varies considerably in European countries. In Austria a "man" and "woman" are supposed to be capable of marrying and conducting a home of their own from the age of fourteen. In Germany the age must be at least eighteen years. In France the man must be eighteen and the woman fourteen; in Belgium the same ages. In Spain the intended husband must have passed his fourteenth year and the woman her twelfth/In Hungary, for Roman Catholics, the man must be fourteen years and the woman twelve; for Protestants the man must be eighteen and the woman fifteen. In Greece the man must have seen at least fourteen summers and a woman twelve. In Portugal a boy of fourteen is considered marriageable and a woman of twelve. In Russia and Saxony they are a little more sensible, and a youth must refrain from entering into matrimony till he can count eighteen years and the woman until she can count sixteen. In Switzerland men from the age of fourteen and women from the age of twelve are allowed to marry. In Turkey any youth and maiden who can walk, and can understand the necessary religious service, are allowed to be united for life. A minister, who is also a deputysheriff, lives in a wild district of West Virginia. Noticing in his congregaton, at Spanisburg, on a recent Sunday, two fugitives for whose arrest he had warrants, he drew his revolver, walked down the aisle, placed the men under arrest, handcuffed them, fastened the handcuffs with a chain to -th.'pulpit, - gave but his text, and preached his sermon as though nothing had happened. After the service he sent the prisoners off to the county gaol in charge of several worshippers.

The large majority of Russians of the Orthodox faith will not pass a church or shrine in the street without uncovering their heads and crossing themselves. Intoxicated men who are staggering along observe this ceremony, and in the case of those who are too helplessly fuddled to walk home, the friend or relative who accompanies a tipsy companion in a sledge or drosky will, while holding him in the vehicle with one hand, perform for him the sign of the cross with the other, when passing a sacred place.

The last of the once famous Marylebone Gardens is represented by an ancient plane tree—laid bare by the pulling down of a house. The tree is the only one that remains of an avenue surrounding an ancient and •famous bowling-green. Attached to it was a notorious gaming-house, which formerly was a favourite haunt of the Duke of- Buckingham and gave Tise to the celebrated toast, "May as many of us as remain unhanged next spring -meet here again." The gardens were closed at the end of the eighteenth century, partly in consequence of the riotous way in which they were carried on.

A prisoner who lately came out of one of Her Majesty's convict prisons -Parkhurst, in the Isle of Wigbt— spoke in the highest terms of the •establishment, and appeared sorry to lave left it. He described it as a tranatorium. He said Mr Jabez Balfour is engaged in making Post Omce bags, apparently as happy as if he was addressing a Baptist meeting. Victor Honor is also, with Monson, at the sanatorium, employed in pulling tip weeds and gardening. 'My informant," he adds, "was of opinion that if the door were accidentally opened three-fourths of the prisoners .•would decline to walk out."

An American newsboy named Jdhn Hamilton, who was selhng papers in New York a few weeks ago, was suddenly asked to step into a lawyer's office, where he learned that his uncle, Samuel Hamilton, had died in Colorado a rich mining man, leaving £50,000 to his brother's child, and that the money was already available, seeing that "Johnny" had turned 21. "Well, give me a thousand," suggested the young man, with a fine assumption of carelessness. He got the lawyer's cheque for that amount, and, with his papers still under his arm, raced to the bank, where it was cashed. With great deliberation he threw his papers into the gutter, and when a crowd of urchins scrambled for them he threw them handfuls of silver and small bills. After giving his grandfather, his only living relative, a $100 bill, he went to Trenton and acquired a wardrobe. Now he is a .man of affairs. In Philadelphia he gave a box party at the Opera House. The guest of his honour was his idol, -Edwin Crowdis, a Princeton footJballei', "Johnny's" diamonds were JS|.e talk of the audience.

The year 1900 will not b? counted among the leap years. The year is 365 days, live hours, and forty-nine minutes long; eleven minutes are taken every year *° make the year 3654 days long, and every fourth year we have an extra day. This was Julius Caesar's arrangement. AYhere do those eleven minutes come from? They come from the future, and are paid by omitting a leap year every 100 years." But if leap year is omitted regularly every one hundredth year, in the course of 400 years it is found that the eleven minutes taken each year will not only have been paid back, but a whole day will have been given up. So Pope Gregory 111., who improved on Caesar's calendar in 1852, decreed that every centural year divisible, by four should be a leap year after all. So we borrow eleven minutes every year, more than paying our borrowers back by omitting three leap years in three centural years, and square matters by having a leap year, in the fourth centural year. Pope Gregory's arrangement is so exact, and the borrowing and paying back balance so closely, that we borrow more than we pay back' to the extent of one day in 3,866 years.

A most remarkable transaction in picture dealing has just, occurred in New Orleans. Mr Earle, a Mew York lawyer, acting on behalf of Mr George Gould, arrived there and paid a visitto a curiosity shop kept by an Old negro yarned Marcel, who has long boasted of possessing a collection of rare paintings of the highest value. After examining the pictures Mr Earle offered to buy nineteen of them for 000.000d015.. conditional on a guarantee of their genuineness by experts. Eventually the pictures were insured for 200,006d015., and are now on their way to New York. They include a "Mary Magdalene, and Christ on the Cross," by Rubens, "The Coast of France," by Turner, two Corregios, and examples of the work of Raphael, Claude Lorraine, and Van de Velde. Marcel states that the collection was once the property of great families of the old Louisiana aristocracy, now reduced nearly to poverty.

On old Carlisle Bridge, in Dublin, there was up till quite recently a fruitstall, the keeper of which, Biddy, the apple-woman, was a better-known figure than even the lord mayor. She had a ready and glib' tongue, and never allowed a verbal assailant to retire with all the honours. An American visitor thinking to take a rise out of the old woman, took up one of the watermelons she was displaying for sale, and said: "These are small apples you grow over here. In America we have them twice the size." Biddy.slowly removed her dudheen, or clay pipe, from her lips, and, coolly surveying the joker from head to heel, said, in a tone of pity: "Yerra, what a fool yez must be whin yez take our gooseberries for apples."

The intensity of French hatred of England may be estimated from the following sentiment which found expression in a recent issue of the "Journal de Lyons":—The Government should take note of the sentiments which the great majority of the French nation entertain for Great Britain. In spite of the efforts of Clemenceau, Ribot, Waddington, and De Freycinet, French public opinion has become more and more hostile to these pirates, who for nearly two centuries have continually despoiled us of our best possessions. ,'. . . We would consent to become the friends of Germany if she would assist us in wiping from the face of the earth this race of bandits, adventprers, and highway robbers called England.

Good old Sir John Cass little dreamed when leaving his estates to Aldgate that that parish would benefit to the extent that has actually been the case. When he made his will the property he bequeathed in Hackney was agricultural land, and brought in an income of only a few hundreds every year. To-day the bequest is represented by rows and rows of houses, and the revenue is no less than £6,000 a year. At the outset only a few children could be educated, clothed, and' fed, whereas to-day the school has a membership roll of 250. Sir John Cass1 died the very moment 'after he had appended his signature to the will that has proved so great a boon to Aldgate. He broke a bloodvessel, and the pen he had used was stained with his life-blood. It is to commemorate this fact that on Foundation Day each youngster in the school wears a quill pen stained red in his cap.

A most interesting case has been decided by the courts in Rome. King Ferdinand 11., the last Sovereign of the Two Sicilies, gave property to the heirs of his predecessor, Francis 1., yielding to each 255,000f. yearly. When Garibaldi entered Naples in 1860 in his quality of dictator, he decreed that all the possessions of the Bourbons should be confiscated for the nation. One of the heirs was Count d'Aquila, and the present pretender instituted a suit, the hearing of which concluded in May. Although up to the present the courts had considered the act of Garibaldi as a measure of war and of high politics above the jurisdiction of the law, the Court's judgment was that Garibaldi had the right to confiscate only property which was the result of despotism and usurpation, but that he should have respected the legitimate inheritances. Count d'Aquila being dead, his widow, Princess Januaria of Bragnaza, sister of the late Emperor of Brazil, and her children will have paid to them by Italy the original sum and interest, which altogether now amounts to 2,040,000f. ■ .;.

The London and North-Western j Railway Company are now running their special trains from Euston to Liverpool—2oo miles without a single stop—-in order to enable passengers to o-et on board the American liners without the least possible delay. A few days ago (writes a correspondent) one of these expresses made q. marvellous run. It left Euston at twelve o'clock noon, and was timed to reach Liverpool before four o'clock; but when travelling at great speed between Bletchley and Rugby it had to be brought to a stand on account of the axles of one or two of the wheels being nearly red hot. This caused a delay of twenty-two minutes. On restarting, the train quickly regained its full speed, and between Tamworth and Crewe 49J miles were covered in forty-two minutes. Between Rugby and Crewe fourteen minutes of the lost time had been made up,, and the train passed the railway centre only eight minutes behind time. Between Crewe and Liverpool this was made up. and the train tlrew np at the Riverside Station at the exact time.

I An incident which occurred lately at Charring, Kent, should act as a ' warning to persons who are inclined Ito carry wedding frivolities to an extravagant, extent. The Rev. Francis I Edward Carter, honorary Canon of ; Canterbury Cathedral, had been mar- ' ried at Charing Parish Church to a. j Miss Sayer, of Pett Place, and as they ! were leaving for the honeymoon trip ' showers of rice were hurled at the | carriage by the villagers assembled I outside the gates. The horses beeom- , ing frightened, boiled, and running , the carriage up a bank, overturned it. The carriage was smashed, and j the bride, who was badly shaken, had to be extricated from the wreckage. I Canon Carter himself was cut about I the face by the broken glass, and both he and his bride returned to Rett Place suffering- from shock.

The journal "L'Etoile Beige" gives some interesting information which has just been received from South America regarding the Belgian South Polar expedition, under M. de Gerlache in the Belgica. The information is from the commandant and scientific members of the expedition, and is contained in a letter from Punta Arenas, dated April 14. They state that a previously unknown strait was discovered and named after the Belgica, also that they discovered land in latitude 04 cleg., which they named Terre de Banco. The general characteristic of the land was mountainous aud sterile, but moss and lichens covered some, of the mountains. The charts, they stale, proved to be very incorrect. The Belgica penetrated to 71.37 deg., and during- three months the expedition was imprisoned in the ice. Dr. Cook, of the expedition, has negatives of 12,000 objects of mineralogical, botanical, and astronomical interest. The Belgica will go into dry dock at Buenos Ayres, and is expected toi reach Antwei.'p about the 15th August.

This little incident has a moral sticking out of it several yards, and that, moral is, children should be kept well under control and not allowed to use threats. It. is not often that a child in a naughty mood does so much damage as was done several weeks ago in a Brahman village named Kizhakkuvelin, in Alathur, Malabar. A little lad of six, having been chid by his mother, threatened to set fire to the. house —and did so, to the consternation of his family, who hadn't taken him seriously. In hot weather on the plains, and especially in a native village, where the houses lie thick and where fire engines are unknown, a fire soon spreads, and the fire that was kindled by the little lad lasted two hours, and destroyed fifty-seven houses. Large quantities of paddy, furniture, and valuable documents were reduced to ashes. Including these items, the loss is set down at R5.30,000. A large quantity of money was reduced to a mass of melted silver. Several persons saved their jewels from the fire, but a good many were unable to do so. As many as 300 persons were rendered homeless.

Foreigners often fall a prey to the ' unscrupulous wiles of the London cabby, who basely takes advantage of the stranger's want of familiarity with the English idiom, coinage, and locality. Cases have been recorded of the intelligent foreigner being driven about six statute miles in a journey from London Bridge to Charing Cross. The cabby got the better of that transaction, but a recent attempt to impose upon foreign credulity was frustrated cleverly by a son of Caul, whose taste for joking led him to try and bamboozle a cabby into trying it on with him. He demanded in exceedingly broken English to be driven to a certain place, the fare to which was exactly one shilling. It may be remarked that he really could speak English as well as he could his mother tongue. On arriving at his destination, he asked, still in a struggling fashion, "'Ow mooche.'ave I to pay?" "Five shillings," promptly responded the cabby. "And 'ow mooche is five schillings'?" queried the traveller, taking out three half-crowns and laying them across his palm. "Them three's right," said cabby, pointing to the coins. "Oh," said the Frenchman. Then dropping his assumed imperfect acquaintance with the vernacular, "Well, here's a bob for you," he said, and departed, leaving his erstwhile Jehu standing with a perplexed expression on his face, which took some time to disappear.

The experimental bleaching of negroes is no new thing, but the results obtained so far have not been particularly successful, the usual products of the processes used having been piebald curiosities more suitable for exhibition in dime museums than anything else. According to the Vienna press, however, a local physiologist has just stumbled on a new and simple method whereby gentlemen and ladies of colour can be transferred into white folks with economy and despatch. It appears that a coal black Ethiopian criminal was brought out of prison to be treated for a nervous disorder in a special hospital. The doctor thought that electricity was the remedy required, and for four months the nigger was electrified daily. The results were rather astonishing. After a week's treatment the patient's skin began to bleach perceptibly, and by the time his cure was effected the nigger was white as a month-old British baby. But he retained his crisp black hair, his thick lips, and spreading nose, and it is an open question as to whether his personal appearance has been improved. The discovery is, however, interesting from the scientific point of view, and if the Yankees objection to negroes were simply a matter of colour it might assist in solving the threatening racial problem in the States.

Charles Knapp, publisher of the St. Louis "Republic," recently made the j statement that the eritra news for which the daily papers of his country were taxed during the Spanish War, laid down in New York City, cost them 2,500,000d015., and that if the war had continued a year it would have cost them 7,000,000d015. This gives a very good idea of the magnificent enterprise of the daily press of the United States. At the same, time that the newspapers were put to this extraordinary expense their advertising patronage fell off, so that it is estimated the war cost, not less than 5,000,000d015., a net loss of that sum. The price of paper rose so rapidly at the same time that profit in circulation was absorbed in that alone, so that the war was very unfortunate as a business matter for the newspapers. The past year, instead of being a good one for the newspapers on account of the demand for news, was a hard one on them financially because of increased cost of publication. __ ... v ..,_.,_: