TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9020, 5 February 1895, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Committee of the I)anAHs edia Athenseam are going to considerably . outside the Students, round of their ordinary

: duties in studying the convenience of the subscribers to the library. Wβ learn from a reporb of the Vice-President's speech ab the recent annual meeting of the Athenaeum that daring the past year it was suggested to the Committee that it would greatly assist students desirous of reading up various subjects if some indication were afforded them of the best books in each department of knowledge. The subjects especially mentioned were political economy, socialism, sociology, astronomy, biography and travels. The Committee so far approved of the suggestion that they asked several gentlemen, authorities on the above branches of literature, to draw np a list of the: best works in each. Ihe request was complied with, the lists were compiled, and will shortly be hung in prominent positions in the library and reading room. All those books whioh were recommended and were not on tho book shelves already, have been ordered, and if the scheme is found to be useful, subscribers are promised that it will be extended, and courses of reading on other subjects drawn up. We confess. we recognise something of the heroic about the gentlemen who compiled, the lists at present in usjß. Theirs was a thankless task, as recommending books to other people almost invariably is, and it ia perhaps just as well for their reputations as authorities that the Vice-Presidenb was silent as to their names, and that he took pains to make it clear that the lists did not pretend to be exhaustive. At the same time the idea is capable, wich a good library and good advisers, of being of great value to j students, and even though both these don- | ditions may not be quite fulfilled in Danedin, the experiment being tried there will be watched with interest. ,

It is a eingnlar thing, The to say the least of it, Imperial . that although the com' Commissions. . mission just obtained by

Lieut. Wollstein completes ai series of five from Canterbury alone holding) appointments in British regiments, there has not at any time been even moderate competition for this gift to the colony. Possibly this may be occasioned by want of information on the subject, for it can scarcely be supposed that while the ranks Of all professions are just now overfilled by young colonists there can be a disinclination to' adopt as a profession that which has at all times been the choice of adventurous spirits. We can only assume that the wretched and disorganised condition into which our own forces have drifted offers no inducement to the young men of the right olass and with the right sorb of stuff in them to come forward and accept commissions, while the few who do probably get diegusted speedily with things military. As it is only through hold* ing a commission in the New Zealand Volunteer forces that the British commissions are obtainable, it might have been expected that the successes of our Canterbury lads before mentioned would have filled the force with eager aspirants; and for the information of those who are unaware of the general particulars concerning these Imperial'"commissions it may be mentioned that the candidate must be between eighteen and twenty-one years of age, musfr have served for at least fifteen months with the Defence Force of New Zealand, holding a com* mission, .and must have attended two annual trainings. The examination consists of papers on general knowledge, from which only a 'University degree find further papers on military subjects .'fSJhese papers are preparect'jan England, are sent out tinder seal and are , ire* turned in the same way when answered, end reported upon from the Old Country. We understand that the Garrison library in Christehurch affords great assistance in many ways to any young officers reading up military subjects. Lieutenant .WoUatein's success should be the means of inducing a larger number of young New Zealanders than hoe hitherto beeo the case to avail them* salves of the opportunities afforded by the War Office o! obtaining commissions in the Imperial Army.

Sous two or three years ago Modem considerable interest was Palestine, excited by the statement that a French Company was about to construes a railway line from Jaffa to Jerusalem. To some people this appeared to be little less than sacrilege, and indeed when the line was completed it struck most people as an outrageous anachronism that the whistle of the locomotive should resound under the walls of the Holy City. Except to the tourist, therefore, ib will not be a matter for much regret that the line is not a success. According to the Rev. J. Hargrave, a Sydney clergyman, who has just returned from a holiday in Palestine, the Railway Company declare that the line does not pay for the grease on the axles, "as all the carrying is done on camels by the Bedouins," in the same tray as it had been done for the last few thousand years. In this case the unchangeable East has again demonstrated its conservatism, and has temporarily cheeked Western enterprise. The Turkish Government /has apparently no sympathy with the {efforts made by Lord Rothschild and! other wealthy Jewish philanthropist* to *e<establuh the Jews in their aaoiont

country. They say they cannot allow poor Jews to come into the land, and that most of those there already are supported by their co-religionists abroad. So long as they did not come on the Government for support we should have' thought it made little difference who kept them, and the action of the Turks is no doubt really inspired by their fear and dislike of the Jews. The Palestine Exploration Committee are, we learn, still hard at work, and having recently obtained a three years' permit from the Sultan, are excavating with unabated energy.

" They have traced the walls of the old city of Jerusalem as it was in Solomon's time, and found that they enclosed a much larger area than they do at present. For years the exact site of the Pool of Bethesda has remained undiscovered. That has now, it is thought, been identified beyond any question, chiefly from the fact that over it was built an old church, probably before the days of the Crusaders, and to reach the Pool it is necessary to go below the church. Three of the porches remain intact."

The Arab 3 cannot understand the archaeological explorations that are being made in Palestine, but believe firmly that the object of the excavations is to find buried money or valuables, and the result is that they sometimes do a little " prospecting" for hidden treasure on their own account. For the same reason they often demand " boom " prices for plots of land which the explorers desire to turn over. Mr Hargrave visited tho Synagogue of the! Samaritans, now a tiny community of some 150 souls, and saw tbe Pentateuch claimed by them to have been .written by Moses. . Every page sof -~, tb,ia venerable , manuscript which is. certainly 2000 years old, was photographed bythe revisers of the English Bible, so that they might have its exact text before them while they were engaged at their work. Mr Hargrave went to seethe "manger cave" at Bethlehem, and was struck by the fact that an armed Turkish soldier mounted guard over it. This, he learned, was necesssary in order to prevent the Armenian, Greek, and Latin Christians, who use the place for their ceremonies, and are always quarrelling, from cutting each other's throats over the birthplace of the founder of their religion.