NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 305, 21 December 1912, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS, and OPINIONS.

o-ber failure i= tn bo added to the of su-.-b experiments. Anarchy Sβ to the Soc . ialist P lass works of % France. Vet under what rosy ;. - the venture , «.i- inaugurated! ffst: many year- ■"■' thp P l;l * s jjße tn br a laije corner of the "'-™nnkt millennium. MoAWiming in the industry. Funds ii plenty. M. Jaures fLred his pon: = li.-.il biessins on an SSe in -hi.-.; -.., U -a. to be as ,'35 to nu-i'T. or. rather, in which were tn bi , no masters, only comfS working Inprthir in the" faith. Cα Btt]e while a!i went well, or >rately wll: hut wry soon thore -several rift* in the lute. Expenses Ln to go up and profit* to go down— mysterious thing, when one conJjera - that the harpy pl.i?a blowers of ilbiwere no lorjrer the slave? of a brutal ■ad maspinfr capitalism. Th ■ governing anximi-. and met in confer It was discovered— a painful dis-::'-jiioa—that wh:r was wanted was a jtflt less talk of rijrhts and a. little more of duries. Something must Clone if the whole enterprise w:vs not -n founder. Finally, it was a confession ■•• detect. Authority was railed in in •jp person of M. Spinetta. a '"bourgeois," 5 man who liad been known to wear a t iip hit and was —crowning infamy!—a tertmcated engineer. M. came. 3 5T, and stood hi- jrround. A weaker 3 ja would have thrown up the sponge k>32 a? 0 - * or l^r atmosphere in which ji/Spinetta live? ami works is hardly cne of sympathy. The brothers have lirowa aside momentarily their individual enmities to fijrht aarain.st the comnioa foe. for M. Spinetta represents all tinti= mos * hated to the-m—authority, eCTpelence. and the old, benigh-ted nation of a fair day's work for a fair java irage. Hence confusions and cabals. jjrGices that po out. plass that breaks, sd-jlteration of materials—all the artilierr of "sabotajre." Rut, in spite of it ill." If. Spinetta. who is a Corsican, will jd: leave his post, in which the governJ3g body has jus: confirmed him. Will bo in the end brincr authority and order ■jjio the communistic chaos? It may be so, but in any case the slass works of ilk, as a Socialistic venture, have sigsjflv failed.

We gather from English pxohan<rps tilt tae moon is helping to haeten the Fioset of the Moslem Crescent in Earope. The battle which raged dnrin<* lit night of October 23-4. and ended at diylieht with the Servians victors ax fcnnanovo, was fought in the brilliant liriit of a nearly full moon; and the Titanic combat around Adrianople contianed three days and night, the waning moon laving afforded sufficient light Tark and Bnlgar to carry on their murderous straggle. This waning October aeon beneath which the Crescent seems finally to have gone down before + he f>oss inevitably recalls the origin of the Crescent.as a national snnbol. More tlan a thousand years before the Turk Filtered Europe a great battle was fought aroncd Byzantium, where now rtinds Constantinople, then a Greek city besieged by Philip of Macedonia, father nf Alexander the Great. A night attack by the Macedonians had almost taken the Gieek defenders by surprise when a Tinta*- inotnf "rose a-nd betrayed the «tal% approach nf the enemy. That tessrSe-inoon saved Byzantium, and in Mi srjfcitnde the citizens adopted the Cissst as their emWem. WTieu the Terts overthrew the Byzantine Empire ja tie fifteenth century, they transferred its Crescent to their own use and it is so* fie universal avmbol of the Moslem pmrerthronghout the world. JAn amnsing story is related by a ftm correspondent. When the Sultan or Turkey gave orders for the mobilisa Don of his troops he sent to the Kinsr of Mpiaa sack of millet, with the'fol™>g letter:—"Ferdinand Effendi. aoHise if yon like, bnt be assured that fee are as many soldiers in Turkey as tee are grams of millet in this sack. Sw, if yon wish, declare war." The Eβ? of Bulgaria's reply was in kind. He sent a very much smaller sack, filled *Kh the tiny grains of a most virulent red pepper of the conntry. "Ischouski" it is called , , and it does not belie its [j tpe, for its effect is that of a very I rigorous snuff. With this went the fol louring dedication:—"Dear Mister Sul to,—The Bulgarians are not numerous, Sis true; but be assured that to stick ywimose into their affairs is like stick rag it into our national condiment. Try j it and fee. They'll sting you so sharply i that the whole of Aeia will not be able : to save too." , The fortified lines of Chataldja, which, i h the event of renewed hostilities, are saw the only serious obstacles intervening between the Bulgarians and the Bospioraa, are some twenty-five milee in iayth, and stretch in crescent shape in front of Constantinople across the ThraOM peninsula from the Black Sea* to tie Sea of Marmora. Wellington's historic lines of Torres Vedras were of *ont the same length, and extended from the estuary of the Tagus to the in front of Lisbon. But the Mc had two parallel lines at an internal of from six to ten miles, totalling »ue fifty miles, including 150 redoubts, ■■"Bed with over 600 guns and defended 2 sixrat 60,000 men. Retiring behind wose tremendous fortifications after f*** 0 ' Wellington could defy Massena, *™ never even attempted to force bis l£!l? Onsh the lines had been hurriedly up by Colonel Fletchei. Royal Queers. He did the work with the ™P «f 8/100 of the Portuguese peasan«T and at a cost of only £100.000—as Peat a marvel of military cheapness al- ™* as Kitcheners Nile Valley rail-

Will the skyscraper of the future at--2? » height of 2000 feet, divided into 60m,?° n ? ? Ui? entire 'y within the winds ot possibility and practicability. J*?ntog to Mr. J. E. Kockhart, who. iVonl \ A - C Gilbert - the Building. New York. "There pJvviT- I° the hei?ht of a buildin * ea Air Bockiiart, as he stood on top L**? 1 P ile - He gone there, Jg* the "Herald," ™th about thirty iT* members of the Architectural J*** oi New York, to attend the first J**™? «the organisation on the fiftieth Offiw - n P o33 ' o ' l of the future &HW? are unlimited," Mr. said. "The only obstacles 1 *KIT^ a the Way of a bu 'Wi°S that *° be a giant even among the lofty of the present time, are the £**«& themselves. They are averse puling up such high buildings, as it "garded as unsanitary to erect a so high that light and air fe excluded from the lower floors" authority remarked that they w\£ le r if 3teel was p roof JO- * ac destructive atmospheric * Clos to w hich it was subject

Silk is not the best material formatting costumes, especially if it has been kept for any length of time. This fact was discovered too late by a lady wellknown in Society, -who bears 'the name of one of England's most famous artists. Shortly after she had taken Irer morning plunge at a fashionable Continental watering-place, she had the horror of seeing her entire new costume of crimson hue come away in ribbons, and she. soon found herself in a state that can bo better imagined than described. Her distress was accentuated by the fact that the French boulevardiers insisted on taking the keenest interest in the methods which had to be resorted to to «-et her out of the water.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children does so much splendid work that a email-child story at its expense can do no harm. An afternoon drawing-room meeting was being held the other day at a country house near c p n ( *ZJ° Tm a local b " ranch of th e Of I ?* ttle **"&**, aged four. w ♦mIE f ° Wed to be P resent > but was told that it would not amuse her and she had better remain in the rnir-K-f"" H ° W ?J er V 9he P ereist ed. and at last was told she might come if she remained very quiet. The opening proceedings d,d not interest her, and at laet getting bored, she turned to her neighbour and eaid, * dulL the cruelty going to begin?"

with the indigent unemployed on economic principles, holding that a man without employment, if left to himself is likely to become unemployable, and that for a community to allow one of its members who is capable of work to remain unemployed is a public waste No toleration 13 shown to the loafer Be»----jruig i s prevented by law, and vagrancy is classed as a crime in the code. The unemployed person must make a serious effort to find work, and if he does not then the authorities will do it for him. If he will not work, then he i≤ placed in a workhouse, where military discipline is maintained, and where he finds he must! exercise himself to his full capacity. He, of course, receives board and and, in addition, a wage varying from three halfpence to fivepence a day.

What is troubling the Germans most in connection with the Balkan war is not so much that the Turkish pupils, of Marshal yon der Goltz have been beaten by the Allies as that the field guns of Krupp, with which the Ottomans are armed, have been distinctly outclassed by those of Creusot. For some time past there has been an uneasy feeling in the German army that the great "Cannon King." Krupp, had at last been dethroned by his FrancoGerman rival. Schneider, of Creusot. In his diary of the Franco-German War. the Crotvn Prince records that when his father. King William, after the capitulation at Sedrn, met the captive French Emperor in the Chateau Bellevue. thp latter attributed his defeat mainly to the Prussian artillery, which, he "said, "was the first in the' world, and his troops had not been able to withstand our fire." At that time Krupp was undoubtedly the best cannon maker in the world.

Without waiting for the report of LoTd Fisher's Commission, the Admiralty have taken the bold step, according to the "■Navy League Annual," of •building armoured ships which will carry oil fuel only. They will, of course, he steam-driven; the day of the internal combustion engine is not yet fully come. But the advantages expected include an extra three knots speed on a given horsepower, and a twenty-five per cent, increase in radius of action. In addition there will be a considerable reduction in the stokers' complement, and the vessels I*lll not be compelled to return to port to replenish their fuel supply. Altogether, the innovation should increase their "enduring mobility" by nearly fifty per cent. As against this must be set the -fact that, until scientists succeed in distilling coal into oil, they wfll be dependent on a fuel which is "not produced in the British islands.

"Modern life is much more likely to drive people insane than the primitive antique life," said Dr. F. W. Mott. F.R.S., to a meeting of the Sociological Society at the Royal Society of Arts, in London the other night. "Competition in examination or business acts as an irritant, which sends men and women off their mental balance." Dr. Mott also expressed his anxiety that no one should take disappointments in love too much to heart. It is a strain which sends recruits to the asylums, just as extreme grief or extreme hate are lia-ble to do. Again, in our complicated competitive existence there 13 a frequent break-up of homes, and this produces shocks from which many minds do not recover." The doctor paid a compliment to " 'Appy 'Amstead." It has only three insane people registered per thousand, while Bloomsbuxy' has 10.6 Westminster has 10.1. and the Strand 10.6. The lecturer concluded that it is in the ''fast life" of the Weet-end of London that insanity is prominently enforced. A number of contradictory pedigrees were thrown on the screen to show that, after all, research cannot clearly establish the transmission of insanity. T!ms a. genius is developed from an insane stock side by Fide with a suicide, an epileptic, and a tubercnlar patient. Dr. Mott concluded by stating that on the •whole the apparent increase of modern insaiiity was an increase of registration and retention.

Any system of caste works mischief wherever it may be practised. It makes the upper class arrogant and the lower class servile. It is in India that its evil effects are most frequently and plainly witnessed. In her. account of "Our Tour in Southern India," Mrs. J. C. Murray-Aynsley tells a story which illustrates the annoyances that attend the observance of the caste rules. It is related of a missionary who was some years ago attached to the Oottayam Mission that he was walking one day, accompanied foy a native of the slave class, when he saw a Brahmin making frantk signs and calling out to them Telling his companion to remain where he was, the clergyman walked on and asked the Brahmin what was the matter. He received for reply the statement that the Brahmin was acting thus to warn the low caste man to keep away from him the requisite distance of ninety-six paces. "Oh, so many," said the mission ary. "Show mc exactly, if you please, how far that vs." Unsuspectingly, the Brahmin walked off the road to indicate the proper distance, on which the missionary beckoned to the slave to come up to him, thus making the Brahmin leave the path open for his hnmihler born brother. When in Trichoor, I myself more than once saw a man of the people, when he was addressing his superior, hold one or both hands before his face. I was told that this is a token of respect. It is done that the breath of the low caste man may not offend the nobility of the other.