TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10148, 22 September 1898, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

It is curious that the "ignis "Wandering fatuus," or will-o'-the-wisp, Fires." hag apparently been almost

neglected by science. A very interesting paper on "Marsh-lights," read by Mr R. Coupland Harding, before the Wellington Philosophical Society last year, and printed in the volume of "Transactions" jnsfc issued, expresses his surprise that "marsh candles, so long known and observed, are still the property of poetry, and superstition." Scientific books give very meagre and very contradictory information on the subject. The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" seems to hesitate between the altogether untenable theory of Kirby and Spence, that such appearances "may be. due. to luminous insects," and the more reasonable view that they are "caused by the slow combustion of marsh gaa (methyl hydride). ,. Of any scientific experiments nothing is said- There is a story of a man who held the end of his cane in a will-ofr the-wisp for a quarter of an hour—rather a difficult business, one would imagine—and found that its point remained nnheated by the* mysterious flame. There is another story of an experimenter lighting a piece of

paper at one. Upon this last Btataoagfijjjp.': Mr Harding comments, "That any bubbw|l|| of luminous gas floating in the is of so high a temperature as this, I d&tlil not believe. If it were, the farmer whofcelW" haystack is mysteriously burned need aot^Jj? , suspect incendiarism if there is a near at hand. In the case of a stream of natural gas Issuing under presauir ''■$■£ from a small orifice in the earth, artificially ignited, it would be eacy to light a piece of paper; but a burningjet of this kind is not the 'ignis fatuuß.* B . I !t4* Mr Harding's personal observations are ex. "s*'' tremely interesting. He describes an ex. *''! perience, in February of last year, on the k~Kuataniwha Plains, when two of these lights first appeared floating in the air, and »ii' he next had an opportunity of seeing a new J born will-of-the-wisp actually emerging ' *rt from the ground. "Attracted by a light on - the ground, I looked down and saw one of -. - 1 these* horrible little bubbles disengaging it. *" self from the sodden grass close to my feet probably forced out of the soil by my * weight. I had thus the opportunity of closely examining it. It was of a well- '' denned form, apparently cylindrical, rounded at the ends just like the bubble in the glass tube of a spirit level, only come- '' what curved in shape, and about the size' of a small bean. It shone with a lambent yellowish flame, brighter and moie concentrated than the two floating beside mc. [fc appeared to cling to the grass, but worked its way out slowly and steadily, with a wriggle almost like that of a living creature." Shooting up at last suddenly/ the new light joined the other unwelcome companions of his way, to whose presence Mr Harding felt from the first, in epite of ' science, an unaccountable dislike. The wandering fire, however, kept up quite correctly the elfish character always attributed to them in legend— except, perhaps, i a % Carlyle's translation of "Dae Marchen," * where the will-o'-the-wisps certainly be- • hayed like gentlemen. These New Zea- ,*'< land lights first attracted Mr Harding's at- i tention by simulating the wished-for gleam of a farm-house window; and finally, after lending him their uncanny escort for nearly a mile, did their best to beguile a traveller by preceding him in the direction of a bog.

Oke of the best portraits of • Bismarck's the hte Prince Bismarck re-' " Dog. presents him as standing ia a forest attended by two • gigantic mastiffs, fit companions for thei* ' * ; gigantic master. Neither of these animals, ; ■ however, can have been the dog to which *> ' one of the encrmous m>p<of Bismarck stories., .",-■ now current in Berlin refers. The Chancel- V,\ lor was once met at Kissingen by a frie.nd> ' J - who commented upon the miserable sped- & men of a dog -which the great man had with l; ; him. Bismarck agreed t!hat it was a sorry ■ >JJ animal, one that he had never found either : wise or beautiful. "At first," he said, "it , T, '> was painful to look at him;" and he com- }$ mented grimly upon the women who were *sU "cracked enough" to desire a few hairs from y§ the creature as a keepsake. "Ah I" he added, 'VI "if they only knew tihat dog was a present ".-{?v from the Emperor." Bismarck had once a really fine greyhound, to whom he was much '.".,!? attached, and under whose guardianship he, * ,. 1 ~, 1 , •was safer than -under the protection of the,, whole of the Berlin police. But Tyras died, --T.-" poisoned by a scoundrelly farm servant. ' 'J~ When Bismarck's next birthday approached \ P i the old Emperor asked advice from '-, ;V his Ministers, Botticher, as to what he should give his Chancellor. TRotticher told' ~' ' him about the poisoning of the Prince's dog, ; \_,- • and the Emperor commissioned him to b'uyVvi a new ona So Botticher, who Bismarck, «i>r subsequently said, with evident justice,' ~';? "knew as much about dogs as certain diplo- 'i y\ matists do of history," went to a dog-trairi-~ # > -'■ '- ing establishment and ordered a new dog.'-,- j s "When the animal was introduced to said Bismarck, "my servant shed tear* of, \,'-'% emotion, and wanted to give it to the Sama» ; v-\c ritan Association. Its rib? stuck out,from ; its starved body Kke those of a stranded ship. \ Its tail was like a disjointed flag. I felfc?;j like covering my head with grief, for I in- £ '/f £ voluntarily interpreted it as a bad onion for. ~,ffc "• the New Course. 'Hold the thing, or it will tumble over, , I called out." Congratulated*-";|;tv next day by the Emperor on his birthday, the Prince could not bring himself to say XjtM anything about this lamentable dog, so that ' ;t,(¥ the Emperor at last reminded him of his, £||§ silence on the subject. * The situation was, £§■! perhaps, a trifle awkward, but Bismarck;\"V*| took the readiest way out of it. He ordered the animal to be brought in: "What a sight! 'Ihe Emperor in his astonishment could find- \t£§ no word 3 suitable for the exgprt taste of his . diplomatic dog-dealer, Botticher, and plainly perceived that he could reap no great honour ~V? with this Imperial present. He saw that ;;"■•<«•" he ibad been had once again, and cried out, -< r*And this*thing cost mc £30.'" This was' - not the last of the incident. The firm who had supplied the living skeleton asked per* ?- - mission to describe themselves as "Dog; \ „ -„; dealers to Prince Bismarck." This was, ''■ ". deed, adoing insult to.injury, and Bismarck %" >'\ expressed hincself as confident that his reply" : ; to lihe request would never be sold by "tie,; • firm to an autograph-hunter.

The art of advertising; J\, To Check is carried on in QerSy^\> Misleading many under some diffi--t>^,yj Advertisements, cultiee, for it appears r^ to be necessary for the/W;* advertiser to stick to facts. If he strays evefcfU; so slightly from the path of absolute rectness he becomes liable to the paina andp . v }*s penalties of a law against unfair trade >.; petition, of which other traders take full ■; ;,f advantage. The German advertiser has thus ,*. f "no scope for the exercise of his imagination. ' '.;.vTwo cases where advertisements led pur->V'; chasers to believe that they were obtaining boots at "manufacturers' prices," and at "cost price," when they were really enjoying no such privilege, resulted in trader being fined £10, while the sentence l&fif was ordered to be published in the papWβ,.i^;H Some other shopkeepers who announced sales' of goods at "unheard-of prices" and "without profit," and "below cost pn»>"4l§|| were sentenced to sell at these prices they had cleared out their stocks of particular goods. It is also a ; \-t offence to give wrong reasons for sales, w\ ; - shopkeepers who untruthfully advertised,;'>.. "Sale, retiring from business," "Sale on ac-,- - count of removal," "Sale after stocktaking,'' '■ ' found to their cost. At the Leipsic Exhibi-; tion a certain firm exhibited a view of come works, including a building purporting , to . ■ . be their "carpet-weaving department," "Aβ they were proved to be merely vendors and ,; nojb makers of carpets, and an the "carpet- •_ weaving department" had no existence, they , were fined and prohibited by injunction from , attempting to mislead the public in future. In. another case a man advertised an "in- /g fallible grease-eraser." At the instigatibn ,-,' : . of nine rival firms he was invited in Court .<> to remove epme grease-spots prepared,for y him by an individual, an expert in grease, j.;, appointed by the Court. The • experiment * rt proved that the inventor's claim of infalli- & bility for bis grease-eraser was an empty ..ig boast, and he departed the poorer by the sum of £5 and costs. This opens up a wide .yg*. field for conjecture as to how the medicine man gets along in Germany, con--fronted as he is by the prospect—if , claims for his patent all the virtues attributed to such preparations—of havintf;|p|

|o malte good his claim in Court. We imagine, however, that it would be difficult to secure a conviction if he was charged with making misleading statements, for he could always argue that if a man took sufficient of his medicine, and took it for a long enough period, it would cure him, and it would be most difficult to disprove the aseertion until the patient died. Some sort of a Statute of Limitations would evidently be re iaired to enable the Court to deal with euch cases. And it is possible the invalid wohM object—and quite reasonably— to being made, even in the interests of justice, the "corpus vile" for an experiment lasting months or perhaps years. The matter is full of knotty points, which seem to offer plenty of work for German lawyers.