NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 37, 12 February 1910, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

gin" Edward's gift to the people of Rooti Africa of the pen used by His -y„... 5 tv when he signed the South Africa Union Act is one of many similar mementoes which are religiously t , carare d in various parts of the world. The" last historic pen was the quill irhich one of the Colonial Premiers, Sir Robert Bond, took Home with him as souvenir of the Colonial Conference; and a few years previously there was tremendous competition for the pens irbieh were used in signing the peace treaty between Russia and Japan. The pea used by the fourteen plenipotentiaries who signed the Treaty of Paris in ]556 is now in the possession of the Empress Eugenic. It is made from a quill of a golden eagle's wing, and is richly mounted with diamonds and o-old. A quill pen used by the high contracting powers in signing the Treaty of Vienna is preserved by Lord Bangor's family. A pen with which Xapoleon marked the localities of coming battles during the Austrian campaign is owned by Baron Koller, of Vienna. The South ALiea pen is not, of course, the first international gift associated with the name of King Edward. There is the celebrated instance of the Cullinan diamond, and a few years ago Australia presented His Majesty with a fine picture containing over 250 portraits representing the opening by the Prince of Wales of the first Parliament of the Commonwealth.

The first memorial which strikes the eyes of a traveller when he arrives at Jerusalem, says a French visitor who has recently returned to Paris, is the new church of the Germans on Mount Sion. It is built on land given by Abdul-Hamid to the German Emperor. Its architecture and vast proportions are admired by all who see the building. The church will be served by German Benedictines, and it is to be. consecrated next year, it is said, in the presence of Prince Eitel, representing the Kaiser. Afterwards the Prince will take part in the opening of the sanatorium, also German, which is near by. At the other extremity of the town near the Damascus Gate, German buildings are increasing. The hospice and hostelry are finished. An orphanage with chapel, are in contemplation. This' will be under the charge of the Lazarlsts of Cologne, whose funds have contributed millions of marks for charitable purposes in the Holy Land l B short says the Paris contemporary to which we are indebted for the "foregoing, it is Germany which holds the supremacy m Jerusalem, and that su*re=ic* is not hidden.

China, hke her Eastern neighbours, is moving on Western lines, but there are some points m which she remains immovable. The proposal to abolish the queue and to reform the native dress has naturally provoked much controversy, popular opinion is decidedly against th- I change. The leading advocate of reform IS Prince Tsai Tao, who has minted out that, besides being objectionable from the hygienic point of view, the queue is a subject of derision among Tho Prince Regent is said to have expressed' the opinion that the change could not be hastily decided upon, as it involved a departure from the institutions laid down by the Imperial ancestors. He also feared that the people had not attained sufficient enlightenment and education to submit to the contemplated change. Ultimately, however, he was persuaded to agree to "a beginning being made with the military and the police, and to the reform being enforced throughout the empire next year! Thereupon one of the Grand Councillors brought forward various objections. He urged, for instance, that the change would render it easier for foreign spies to disguise themselves. But his main objection was that the provision of a new style of dress would entail an enormous outlay on the part of the people. The latest report is to the effect that, in deference to public opinion, the proposed reform has been indefinitely postponed. I

Once it was possible to buy radium at 8/ a milligramme; now the market price is £IS a milligramme, equal to £500,----000 an ounce. Thi3 was one oi the striking statements in a very interesting speech delivered by Sir William Ramsay at the foundation-stone laying ceremony of a new radium factory in Limehouse, an eastern suburb of London. Ths British Radium corporation, which is going to extract, radium from pitchMende found in the Trenwith mine, Cornwall, is .believed to 'be the first company in the world to attempt the production of the precious mineral on a commercial basis. A secret process, discovered by Sir William Ramsay himself, who is chief consulting chemist to the corporation, will reduce the period of manufacture from nine months to six or seven ■weeks. Work in the London factory Till start at the end of the year, and meanwhile a plant has been erected at St. Ives, Cornwall, where the pitchblende ore will be crushed so that the material for treatment may be sent up to London in the more portable form of concentrate or high-grade ore. Even in this crude state radinm makes its presence felt, and heavy rubber gloves have to he worn by those" handling it.

The Russian Government recently received a petition from the Siberian Buddhists requesting that medical schools should, be established among them in which the old Tibetan art of healing should be taught. Somewhat puzzled by tae unusual petition, the Government deputed the Medical Academy of St. Petersburg to investigate. This body accordingly set itself to the study of an ancient handbook of Tibetan medical lore, and found many strange things therein. But the strangest thing was the modernity of so much of it. The book described medicines and methods which European physicians '"discovered many hundred years afterwards." It taught the essentials of modern anatomy, coming down to such details as that the skin contains 11,000,000 pores—which must have needed a deal of counting. The methods of diagnosis corresponded with some of oars, examination of the pulse, tongue, excretions, etc.; and the remedies, besides the medicines, were vegetarian diet, passage, baths, compresses and so forth. The teachings as to the causation of disease were pretty much like ours, with this exception, that not only was dirt recognised as one of the causes, but all *he passions were credited with an especially evil effect upon the brain and liver. Along with cleanliness, therefore (the surgeons of that time were punished if they did not keep their instruments dean!), pure and kindly states of mind were regarded as essential iv getting ■ao. keeping well.

The region of Mount Ararat and the local traditions which still keep alive the story of the Ark having rested there were described in an interesting lecture before the Royal Geographical Society by Captain Bertram Dickson, who made a series of journeys while Military Consul at Van. The country east of the Tigris, he said, was known to the ancient Assyrians as the Mountains of Xairi, and at other times the Xiphates and the Mountains of Urartu, from which comes the name Ararat. The Bible historian took the account of the Ark resting on Ararat from the Chaldean legend, which made it rest on the mountains of Urartu; whilst local traditions, Christian, Moslem, and Yezidi (or devil-worshippers) alke make it Jabel Judi, a striking, aiieer rieky wall of 7,000 ft., which frowns over Mesopotamia. Common sense also suggested that, with a subsiding flood m the plains, a boat would more probably run aground on the high rid«e at the edge of the plain, rather than on a solitary peak, miles from the plain with many high ranges intervening.

The largest scrap-heap In the world is in San Francisco, a relic of the great fire which followed the earthquake of April, 1906. It is 40ft high, 100 ft square and contains 20,000 tons, all cut in equal lengths of ISm, and piled an one solid mass with the sides as smooth and solid as a brick wall. This i s the only one of tour heaps of equal size and proportions which remains intact in its original size and shape, the other three having been drawn upon as the material was needed. Many other scrap-heaps are piled about the bay awaiting shipment, some as bi°as a house, and others mere hillocks' scattered over acres of ground. Since the fire one company has handled 150,000 tons of this old material. It has six large shears in operation to cut the iron and steel, either that it may be better handled for shipment or for the furnace. Little of this scrap is used in San Francisco, the bulk of it being shipped to the Atlantic coast or to European ports. r

Describing, in a report from Shanghai, the ancient and modern school systems of Chuia, the American Vice-Consul savs'There are three classes of schools *in China—the old style schools, the mission schools, and the institutions which are being established by the Government in carrying out their new educational programme. The old style schools, which date back to the time of Confucius or earlier, are found throughout the empire Their number is beyond computation;' every village and hamlet has one or morn. It is in them that the largest number of youths still receive their education, and it will probably be a long time before all of them are superseded 'by schools of modern learning. They are not a part of any Government educational system, nor are they under any Government regulation or supervision. They are really private schools opened in a room of an ordinary reed, adobe or brick house by one of the literati under the old regime, who in most cases was born and reared in the neighbourhood. The teachers collect their pupils, and are paid by subscription from the parents and by presents from the pupils at the great feasts. Out of these primitive institutions have come some of the great men of Chin.-.. The curriculum in them is very limited. Mathematics, science, geography, 'history, are not taught, except in so far as they appear in the old classics. A certain amount of instruction is given in the use of the abacus (reckoning machine), " but the principal thing is to teach the pupils to write, to memorise the classics, to make essays, and compose poetry. China has adopted an elaborate scheme of education, modelled on that of Japan. When it is carried out in its entirety it will have an educational system on modern lines and with a Western curriculum which will compare favourably with that of any other country."

A wonderful torpedo which picks up sound and tracks it down is reported to be in the hands of the British Admiralty, 'by which it will be subjected very soon to exhaustive trials. The principle of the microphone is utilized. The "torpedo with a brain," as the new weapon has been dubbed, is fitted with a delicate mjechianism which is controlled by a microphone attached to the torpedo's rudders. When the microphone picks up a sound it deflects the rudders in such a manner as to guide the torpedo straight to the source of the sound waves. Properly aimed, the inventors claim that the torpedo will pick up unfailingly the noise made toy the propellers of an enemy's vessel. Further than this, it is claimed that the mechanism is such that it can 'be so adjusted that the torpedo will strike not at the immediate origin of the sound, but thirty or forty yards to the right or left of the propellers at the will of the manipulator. This feature, if proved, would make it possible to place the torpedo in the vital part of a ship that was steaming across the new weapon's track.

Considerable amusement was caused in Piccadilly the first day of last month by two men clad in chauffeur's coats and khaki puttees, one of whom was sitting inside a huge tub while the other rolled him along. The men are Italians, and are making a tour round the world in their tub. The expedition was naturally a great source of perplexity to London omnibus drivers and cabmen, who were puzzled whether to take the enormous tub seriously and pull aside for it, or to drive straight on and trust to it getting out of the way. When the dip in Piccadilly was reached the tub broke away, and refused to be held in, but when the road began to ascend the man inside was compelled to get out and help to push. The first conflict with the police occurred when the tub-pushers tried to enter Hyde Park. It was a novel point for the policeman on duty to decide, but he solved the difficulty by stopping the tub and buying a picture postcard from the owners, who continued their way down Kn ightsbridge.

Apropos of art treasures, there is a certain clock in the palace at Potsdam, which stopped at the moment Frederick the Great died. Napoleon, who was a perfect bandit where other nations' treasures were concerned, took that clock to Paris, not as a timepiece, but as a curio. The clock is probably not worth £5, but it cost the French many millions before the Germans took it back from Paris in IS7I. It was duly installed with ceremony once more in the Sans-Souci palace at Potsdam in the room where it originally stopped, and now when people are shown over those rooms the official guide tells with pride the history of the clock, ending with a tirade against all vandals who will so lower themselves as to steal a nation's art treasures. The visitors pass through the palace and out into the grounds, where on the terrace may be seen three enormous astronomical instruments brought from China by the late Count van Waldersee, after the Boxer rebellion. They are magnificent curios, and attract much attention from the little knot of visitors following oa the heels of the official.