NEWS, VIEWS and OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 287, 2 December 1911, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS and OPINIONS.

inL \ may console himself with the re-, !tr „ that his forefathers were liable fieCl ?n severer penalties for a similar of*ST\e?v eVffl England Puritans re-| ''f, l-i sin" as one of the cnsnarements . <a is on record that. 10,6 "'tremble of Boston, was set for. CaP toK the public stocks for bis , TJZ unseemly behaviour,' which j le i ted in "kissing his wife pubbquely j S Sabbath day, upon the doorstep ■ ° ( \ hou«c," when he had just returned. cf! " house, of three years; while: f f ",: b ?n her Sabbath in Puritan Mrs, ? in„l" recalls the case of two ?« named John Lewis and Surah *** „ who in 1070. were tried '.or. Chapman, «ho, >» d - „ „„,,,. r Tl,eKnglishfo„. ; ne.-.sfor: •"■•TiaTthc wonder of foreigners to or four hundred years ago. 1" wintry" wrote Erasmus, who was; STthe'eokler customs of Holland. %l are godde-s girls, divinely fair. *£ and Persuadable. And they have W £ to which is praiseworthy c- * H description. Wherever you arrive tfJSKd'witn a kiss. "When you ' t you carry a kiss with you ou '"'"I! -nek again, and doe, the k.ss. n; c r«ocver you meet there are Lc, in plenty, and wherever you go EWorld is full of kisses waiting. The Italians, whatever one may think Am, at least made their move against. Tripoli in a fashion more open ami, J/gtfonvard than that in, which the' Turks themselves acquired it in 1830. iLtlieTurki.il (led arrived there in L year the Bey .was enticed on board I V( ,«cl under promise of protection, and . L there, to his great surprise mtro- I teed to "Mustapha Nedjib Pasha, the: L Governor of the Province." Perhaps,: Em. the Boy was glad u of & protcc- i lion afforded to him. for the Tripohtans . 0 ; old had a short sharp way with officers ; wl.o«e operations were unsuccessful In ' (he course of the fighting against the' Americans in ISCM. the naval commander,! Mohammed Sous, had the misfortune to j low his ship. Forthwith he was court-i martialled, and sentenced, first to be paraded round the city on the back of in ass, and then to receive live hundred strokes of the' bastinado.

Failintr to recover "Mnria Lisa," the French are consoling themselves with the reflection that its value is a matter of opinion, and that other pictures in the national collection have been held by goo.l judges to be worth more money. M. Lebran, the husband of Mme. Yigee-Le-bran, was commissioned to make an inventory of the contents of the Imperial galleries in 1811. He set "Mona Lisa down as worth £.1600 only, whereas his estimate of "La Vicrgc aux llochcrs" was £6000. The most valuable of all the Louvre pictures, according to that critic, was Raphael's '"(Transfiguration," which figures in his catalogue as worth no less than £60,000; but that masterpiece has since found its way back to the Vatican, whence 'Napoleon uad taken it.

The eye .-is caujiUt by- a column In the I "London Daily Chronicle,'' headed "Man a Million Years Old," and we read how j Dr. Sturge has boon setting forth in the proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Aflglia the reasons which support the view that man's-antiquity may be as much as that. It is scarcely startling, however. Once get away from Archbishop Ussher's calculation, according to which the world was created only 4.004 jears before Christ, and into the sixfigure reckonings, and a few hundred thousand years more or less make little difference. Since all that matters to the ordinary man has occurred within the fast 3000 years at most, the past beyond that may extend to any distance. Such figures, however, and the contrast between the tremendous gulf before those 3000 year 3 and the little space in which so much has happened since, are utterly bewildering if one tries to look ahead. it i* impossible pven to imagine the world ol :!000 years hence if "progress" goes on at the rite of the last 3000. Hut what if there 13 another million to come" Well, fortunately, it won't matter to us.

As bandits hold up trains and carry off large sums of money almost daily, the Russian Government, has decided to construct armoured carriages for the use of the State flank. Thjey will run regularly between St. Petersburg and Russia's principal towns. They are to be of iron, and Will contain accommodation for a strong I convoy of soldiers. Each waggon will be j fa planned that the guard can fire from i it us from a fort. Each train will be under the command of an officer, who is to j have full powers to open fire on all sus-1 picious persons approaching the train. The authorities have come to the conclusion that this is the only means of putting a stop to the prevailing lawless-1 ness on Russian railway tracks. As the ordinary postal trains can only carry a j "nail convoy, the raiders have things all their own way. an 1 have grown so daring that they now hold up trains in broad daylight "and quietly bury their booty in a neighbouring forest, whilst the panic-stricken passengers wait for them to set the engine-driver free. In future only mails and small sums of money will be sent by ordinary trains. Private banks will be able to hire accommodation in i lie armoured trains. Tliey will begin to run in a couple of months' time.'

Nanking, -which next Hankow, has wen the most prominently mentioned centre in the present revolutionary outWeak in China, is-no stranger to the vicissitudes of such movements. In the Tai-ping rising it, was captured by the fWs in 18.13. and became to their leader 'hut Oradurninn »•;< to the Mahdi and "is successor. The Imperialist troops invested Nan-king after a fashion for . V(, ar.s on end." and by IS.iO the rebel h'aJer had relieved it'no less than six twos. After this lv settled down in the My, with his harem, and led a. life of dissipation, which, togefl'.-r ivith Cordon's dlorgv. |o,] l 0 lnl . ,„.|!i._, n f the rebelhon. Xanking was the last stronghold °f the Tai-piiics. and hell out for no little tine after lb- risit;-/ had been I quelled fdsrewhciT. The Yangtse "River i hOT, as in former timis. ■wni.» to be I fliv'ne a prominent, part in the fisrhtinsr.l In the lr,s t phases „f (<,- Tai pin? rhino;! it was by lifiumins in the rebels on time; f'drs and shidlhiir t' em fro-;. .1,0 Imperial ', fleet on the Yaiiit-o i'aal (be coup del jrntro was arlroinisWr-d. In tho present! in»tnnro a bad font are of |J V . ease, from I llio existing dynasty's view point, seems to lie the continual secession- from the Imperialist army to the rebels, but it may b< ■•o-vemberrrl that Gordon's ever-vietr.r'-ies army wap recruited lamely by and captures from the < ''• v = i V.

Although much has been done of recent years to .modernise the Chinese Army, the bow in certain I emote sections still forms mrt of its equipment. Alt Imperial Decree recently translated in the "North China Daily News" announced that "at the archery competition of unemployed members of the Imperial Clan hold yesterday, those who hit the targets live times", both on horseback 'and on foot, were given the post of Imperial Body Guardsmen of the third grade; those who hit the targets four times on foot and once on horseback were appointed to the fourth grade; and those who hit the tarpets four times on foot alone were each given one piece of superior satin and ten tads." The beer statistics for France this year are almost incredible. Never before did Parisians consume so much of 'this beverage. We are told that since last January 150.000,000 litres (or about 131,250,----000 ipiartsl of beer have been consumed in France in excess of previous years. Pari:- stands for the largest share in this increase, and if the heat spell makes everyone suffer, the public Treasury alone lias no reason to complain. Beer is taxed, though very mildly, in France, anil the Government has so far taken in ' nearly 2.000.000 francs (or £80,000) more than in previous years, duly. August, and September account for th'S prodigious increase. In the month of .July alone, the "Telegraph" points out, the additional revenue from beer amounted to half a million francs. Italy has found the task of asserting her dignity a somewhat expensive game, says an linplish paper. Up to 1000 her al'tenrpts to hunt with the lions in Africa, in other words, to keep in line with the European powers in colonial aggrandisement, had cost her the enorI motis sum of £17.591,50". In the year ■ named Italy suffered the crowning humiliation of her Abyssinian expedition at Adoua. Baratieri. a dashing Garibaldian soldier of the old school, goaded by the ; taunts of Crispi, advanced with '20,000 ' men to meet, the enemy, 80,000 strong. ; under Mcnclik. On March Ist, 1000, the : Italian army was utterly routed; the ; disaster was complete and overwhelming. ; Baratieri lost all his artillery, 2">4 oflii eers, including two generals, and 4500 ' men: 4.> officers and 1500 men were enp- ' turcd. The disaster led to the abandon--1 ment of suzerainty over Abyssinia, Tt is perhaps well for the Sultan of Turkey that Ire does not understand the English language as spoken and written by Mr. Stead. For some unfathomable reason, possibly Kismet or Fate, his Sublime Majesty granted an audience to the Apostle of Spooks and Ghosts, who duly presented himself at tie Palace of Dolma Bagtehe. praying devoutly that he might be permitted" to instruct the Sultan on Home Rule for Asia Minor and the blessings of a Constitutional Monarchy. For an hour the Sultan listened with Oriental resignation to bis visitor's discourse as translated and, probably, diluted by an adroit interpreter. As a reward for the ordeal, the monarch is in the "Review of Reviews" gratefully likened unto '"the old Land Leaguer, Matt Harris of Ballinasloe." Pleasant, very, for the Father of the Faithful. In addition. Mr. Stead calls the Sultan "a landsman who has not got his sea-legs"—who is, moreover, devoid " of an alert mind or of resolute will, whose "eves, blinked with a somewhat vacuous expression"— set in "a dull, colourless taee." To heap such personal insults on a man, even though he as. a. 1 Sultan, who has just regaled one to coffee in diamond-decorated cups, surely is a ; trifle rude. What would Mr. Stead say, ' writes Mr. T. P. O'Connor, if 1 were to 1 interview him on, let us say, Ins pet ' protege, Madame Blavatsky, and were ' to use the occasion for telling the world ' in "M \F" what 1 thought of his face;

Princess Christian of Schleswig-Hol-stein one Monday last month launched at Portsmouth the latest addition to the British Navy, H.M.S. King George \. The vessel is the first of the Coronation Dreadnoughts, and is a sister ship to the Orion, now being prepared for service, but 1500 tons bigger. The King George V. will be armed with ten 13.5 in. "tins" in five centre-line turrets, and twenty 4in. quick-firers for repelling torpedo "attack. She will be the largest British battleship afloat. There are, however, several foreign ships which are larger, though none that are. more powerful. Thus in the United States there are completing the Wyoming and Arkansas, of 26.000 tons; and, for the Argentine Navy, the Moreno and Rivadavia, of 27,040 tons; while the German battleships Kaiser and Friedrich der Grosse are understood to be of about the same tonnage as the King George. All these foreign vessels, however, will be armed inly witli 12in. guns, and so will compare not at all well with the British ship, with her 13.5 in. guns. The King George V. was laid down on January 16 last, and is due for completion on the same day in 1013. She was on the stocks eight months twenty-three days, as compared with, an average (for ships "built i under the two-year rule} of nine months I five days. The Orion, which will be in ' service well within the two years, was lon the stocks only two days less than I the King George; while the Vanguard, I completed in a month under two years, ! was not launched until ten months and nineteen days after the laying of the keel-plate.

News comes from Sweden that Professor Svante Arrheflius has been trying the effects of electric waves on children. He has selected a hundred and divided them into two classes, naturally using his own skill as an educationist to make the classes quite equal in original educative possibilities. One class was set to do its wi>rk in the ordinary way in an ordinary atmosphere. The other did its work in a room through which electric waves were continually passing. The children in the room under electrical influence have developed their minds apace, and have run far ahead of those in the other department. There arc experiments taking place at the present time in one of the great London institutions that may possibly throw light on the changes through which the brain passes. It is even suggested as possible that all our so-called methods of elementary education many vanish whence they came. Anatomical facts are gradually being disI covered by two experimental psy< holoI cists, which suggest that certain phases in t.he development of the human brain ' ensue when a child becomes capable of j comprehending a certain idea. However I carefully the idea may be presented it lis impossible for a child to comprehend lit until a certain part of its brain is ! developed. After that has happened, the understanding will come so easily that the minor methods of the teacher becoma of little importance. These physiological and psychological experiments, when published, are likely to alter many of our idea-s on teaching. John Stuart Mill's early education, in which nothing was exercised excepting the wonderful , i memory of childhood, may possibly be-