NEWS, VIEWS and OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 191, 12 August 1911, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS and OPINIONS.

True to her destiny as the amazcr of ~ wor id, America now claims possess- • f "the biggesst and most bouncing Llf' OD earth. This interesting crcaT • is one James Adolpli Cody, of vimt Mr,' Georgia, who, although now 3 Ttwcnty-scven month's old, meaus- • yard and three inches in height. Jwtvsix inches round the waist, ami I -Ire inches round the arm above the ikntr He dines oil" boiled bacon, caba whole pie if he can get ,t. I After a day spent mainly in eat- ?„ to enjovs his supper with great heartiness, and then retires to rest from t h hours of the day. 1* js easy to •„ tha< James A. ( odv as the St" of babies, but a, his weight °3 be considerable, the "bouncing r a litics of him are not so apparent. gTwould say that, on the athlete side, "Is A. must be somewhat 'angmd. I„ d. according to the "London Do.ly £t ? rn P h." his only form of ex.re-se „art from the actual enjoyment nf the lasures of the table, appears to conE in crying loudly for them. W hat "life of the house he mu«tbe? May we hc allowed to hope that he will not soon b» translated to a travelling snow to make an American holiday. Poor James I may at least be left to enjoy his Inches,'his cabbage, and his bacTra in -ne privacy of his home. in attempt is being made to provide low-rented dwellings for the workingclasses in Paris, and at the same time to demonstrate that such buildings as it j 5 desired to build may well return 5 per cent on the money invested. The Prince de Polignac has put up one such Cuilding at a cost of £24.000 which 1 '.« some very novel features. It has not on lv a sensational bathhouse with all larja of douches, but a garden divided into forty sections, which may be rented for 20 francs a year by any tenants who care to pay for this luxury. Each section measures about 50 square yards, and is supplied with water, so that gardening will be relatively easy. What constitutes a British citizen? It Eeems to vary considerably in various parts of the Empire. A man, for instance, may be a British citizen in Canada and an alien in England. The Americans, for example, v,Tio are settling in Canada by the hundred thousand become naturalised Canadian subjects in a very short space of time. But if they visit London they nre still considered American subjects. They can only be naturalised after five years' residence in the I'nited Kingdom. This anomaly has been considered by the Imperial Cou ferenee. If a uniform Naturalisation Law is impossible at present, it is at any Tate practicable that time spent in any part of the Empire should count towards the period of residence required for naturalisation in the United Kingdom.

There is an extraordinary necropolis at Bahrein, the famous centre of the Persian Gulf pearl fisheries. The tombs jtretoh for miles into the interior of Bahrein. The origin of the necropolis is to a great extent a mystery, but primitive civilisation probably first began in tin's region, and possibly this desert fppuli-hre is the oldest piece of man's handiwork in the -world. Some of the mounds are fifty feet High, the remainder vary from thirty to twenty feet. There are usually two chambers to each mound, an upper and a lower. It is believed that the mounds were originally higher, and palms were growing on the tops of tome of them in the time of Alexander the Great, but the palms have long since disappeared, and in the course of ages the summits have been worn smooth. Captain Prideaux, political agent at Bahrein, conducts ibe excavations on behalf of the Indian Government. The most expensive vessel at Spithead on the occasion of the Coronation review was the representative of the German Fleet, which cost £1,833,000 to construct. Such an outlay for one ship would have amazed the Kaiser's grandfather. Mr. Andrew D. White relates that, in 1881, when he paid his farewell visit to William 1. on leaving the American Legation in Berlin, "He asked me about the ship I was travelling in." I told him how beautifully the Elbe was equipped, it being the first of the larger chips of the North German Lloyd. He answered, "Yes; what is now doing in the way of shipbuilding is wonderful. I received a letter from my son, the Crown Prince, this morning. He is at Osborne, and has just visited a great English ironclad man-of-war. It is wonderful; but it cost £1,000,000 sterling."! At this he raised his voice, and, throwing up both hands, said very earnestly, "We can't stand it; we cau't stand it!"

Despite the strictures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it seems probable that even the best paid doctors make considerably less than the leaders in some other professions, says a writer in a London daily. At one of the late Sir Henry Thompson's famous "Octave" dingers, King Edward (then Prince of Wnies) started a discussion as to the earnings of the various professions. The tost was of opinion that the most a doctor at the very top of the tree could hope to make was £ 15.000 a year. A leading .barrister, according to another of the guests, -who has since become I-ord James of Hereford, •could make 420.000 a year, and enjoy a much longer holiday than most doctors. Millais, who *as also present, remarked "For the last tea years I should have made £40,000 a fear, but for an annual holiday of four months. As it is. 1 averaged £30,000 ' year." There must be something even u modern art.

Heno, in the State or Nevada, U.S.A., f* still to retain its attractiveness as &e greatest centre for ilivorce in the trholc world. The 'State Legislature, Which a short while ago was considering • bill permitting n prisoner condemned for capital crime to poison himself, if hj chose, has now distinguished itself liy defeating a bill requiring residence of "Be year in the State for people seeking divorce. Reno is celebrated for the large number of Eastern society people it contains from time to time. By State •law sis months' residence is sufficient ;for the purposes of divorce. The defeat 'oi the measure was received with immense rejoicing. Telegrams were rushed to New York and other eastern centres stating that Nevada's divorce law .vould not be altered. Reno attorneys declare that a large number have been aAvaiting the action of the Legislature before detiding to start fur Nevada, and the defeat of the bill means an influx of newcomers.

The more one studies contemporary documents the more apparent becomes the fact that there was but little else ill those ages we are accustomed to associate with romance than brutality and superstition. During ten successive years of the reign of James 1., 704 persons were hung for felony in the county. During the same period 32 persons, including three women, were pressed to death for declining to confess or to plead to indictments. Cases of the infliction of the death penalty for witchcraft are also recorded, including that of Agnes Godfrey, who was executed on the ground that she was responsible for the death of an infant named J. Nutting. Who can talk about "the good old days"?

In front of the Presidential residence in Hayti is a ™iant cocoanut tree, but its leaves are always in the same condition. In storm or sunshine their serenity is never disturbed. The tree is the republic's tree of liberty. When the Republic was established it was thought that a tree should be plam.ed to signalise so great an event, but H'ayti, it seems, has but one tree, and that the cocoanut tree. But the cocoanut tree is hardly the species to be chosen for a tree of liberty, for it grows to a good height and becomes bare as its age increases. How was the difficulty to be overcome? It was a very simple matter. One of the council suggested that an imitation cocoanut tree made of zinc should be ordered from London, with leaves, etc., painted to represent nature. The idea was adopted.

Another convert has been discovered among millionaires to Mr. Andrew Carnegie's theory that it is better to give away a fortune during one's lifetime, and witness the benefits thus besowed than to leave it by will. Inquiries into a series of unusually large donations to various charities by Mr. Lispenard Stewart, a New York bachelor possessed of a large fortune, elicited an interesting confession. The millionaire, who is a lawyer and ex-Senator, explained that he was approaching his sixtieth year, and as he grew older he found his needs nere greatly simplified, so that h e was not able to use the whole of his income. He had therefore cancelled sections of his will benefiting favourite institutions, and was gradually bestowing on them the wealth he had intended to bequeath m order to see what use they made of it. Ho had already given £250,000, and expected next year, if alive, to find that he needed a still smaller income and to give away more of his capital. An infirmary, the Zoological Society, and several churches are among the institutions Mr. Stewart has endowed.

In a classification of millionaires by nationalities it will be found that Irishmen arc very far down on the list. Why this should be so may seem hard to understand at first. The Irishman, generally speaking, possesses more than average intelligence. He is an excellent ■workman and a capable business man. But the fact remains that he rarely becomes a millionaire. Rev. Francis X. 3klcCa.be, President of De Paul University, Chicago, has offered an interesting solution. He says the fault, if it can •be called a fault, is in the Irishman's heart, not in his brain or business acumen. The Irishman *s bo generous towards his fellow man that he has little chance to accumulate millions for him-, self. "Irish generosity is a bar to the Irish millionaire" is the way that President 'McCa'be puts it. '"That is why there are not nearly so many millionaire Irishmen as there are millionaires of other individual nationalities. The Irish are always looking on the bright side of things to come, not only for themselves! 'but for others as well. They have car-' ried with them always a spirit of optimism. They are, moreover, a people of deep religious convictions and faith. They have done an important work in the building up of the civilisation of the! world."

( 3lr. Frank Richardson and other experts on the whisker question will be interested to learn that the New Orleans Court place no pecuniary value on whiskers in compensation cases. Colonel E. O'Sullivan, one of the 'best-known political leaders in Louisiana, has just lost an action in the New Orleans Courts on the ground that the loss of his whiskers cannot be considered a disfigurement or inconvenience. Colonel O'Sullivan claimed 60,000 dollars from several prominent rival politicians for assault and loss of whiskers. The case resulted from a political fracas during the election at Kenner, Louisiana, in 1908. The colonel's most conspicuous adornment was a flowing white beard and noble whiskers, and during a squabble on election day a number of his opponents seized him and cut off his -whiskers and beard with a pair of scissors. His tormentors were given in charge for the assault, and were convicted in the Criminal Courts, but the colonel instituted civil actions against them, alleging that, having received a black eye and several cuts by scissors during the scuffle, in addition to the loss of his whiskers, he had been disfigured and seriously inconvenienced'. The Court, however, dismissed the case on technical grounds, holding that, except for the shock caused by the assault, for .which the perpetrators had been punished, no damage had been proved.

We are bound to say that we cannot quite make out the logical connection between coal-smoke abatement and Mr. yßexnard Shaw's disbeliei in washing, says the "Pall Mall Gazette." Perhaps the issue is confused by his painful lack of the courage of his convictions. Having proclaimed to the anti-smoke society and the world in general that he sympathises with Sir Almroth Wright's hostile attitude towards ablution, he admits that he compromises with convention by washing his face and hands. Then, boldly revealing that the concealed Shaw has never been washed since nursery days, he compromises with public alarm again by submitting that it gets a cold tubbing. And then once more he wriggles out by pleading that (1) this is not washing, (2) he does It, not for cleanliness, but a3 a stimulant, and (3) it is I probably bad for him. But, even if we nssumc'tliat Mr. Shaw would be a wholehogger if he dared, what is the application to The smoke nuisance! Is it that I one of the curses of coal smolce is that it drives people into the vicious habit of washing? Or that the right way to abolish smoke is to refuse tp wash? We almost gather that Mr. Shaw does favour such a passive resistance campaign, since he argues that the way to I abolish dust is to get motor-cars to 1 stir it up until it becomes intolerable. ' His doctrine, in fact, is rank Socialism. Why should the individual be pestered into keeping himself clean when the Slate ought to do it for him by abolishing dirt? Only, we fear that, just as Mr. Peggotty required no driving to th» ; "Willing Mind," Mr. Shaw and other hydromaniacs would still wanton in their j tubbing even if they were not compelled I to it. J