TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11352, 15 August 1902, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

After the many sad Non-inflammable fatalities that have Clothing. been recorded lately, it seems worth noting that there is likely to be a successful production of that long-desired safeguard, a non-inflammable cotton material for children's dress. Experiments en this direction have often been made. There was a scheme for rendering muslin non-in-flammable as early as _. tbe sixties, when Miss Martineau was writing against crfnolines under the heading "Wilful Murder," si many risks having "been added by this wide extension of muslin skirts to all the ordinary dangers of the household fire. But, upon crinolines going out, the muslin gown became less deadly in drawing-rooms, and the agitation for fire-resisting fabrics has hardly been revived with equal force until the last few years, when it was found that q-dte an equally dangerous condition of tilings was being reached in nurseriea by tho use of that too-popular modern invention, flannelette. Whatever its good qualities may be, this has the seriously bad one of <b__ g a most inflammable material. The kerosene lamp is said to cause the greater proportion of house fires in Enggland, but amongst child deaths by acci- ' dental burning, a terrible number have now to be set down to the flannel—te nightdress or frock. It is the Professor of I Organic Chemistry at Owens College who ! hopes he has* discovered a preparation by ! which flannelette may be made safe in this j direction. A manufacturer at Manchester lately experimented before an interested arJSlience, when portions of the matentreated after the Prof—sor's recipe, whether tried in _$_* fireUi-affi*-?. ox after

h&lt « dozen washings, _t«a_ly i_used combustion otherwise. than as exhibited in a slight —ttouldeiirn g at the edge. The fe*w is expressed by sanitary, experts, that such aa addition to its _tav—s will only lead the ptrbHo st—. further asteay ia th* van of flannelette for flannel, and that, both for&ea&h and safety, the value of the.oonreflammable woollen garment had much better have been impressed upon the pnblimind. There is no doubt, however, .that a large amount of the flannel—te in use takes the place rather of cheap calico and cotton "print, with the decided effect of much more comfort for the price. A more important aspect of the matter is wlr-thex the fire-resistinjg process can be applied without setting the improved— anufacture beyond popular reach, by changing a cheap material into a dear one.

The Paris police ofThe Humbert fioials, and a good many Affair. other people, appear to • have fairly lost their beads ovetr the extraordinary ''Affaire Humbert." Tbe Humbert family, it will be remembered, perpetrated one of the greatest swindles of tho age with their story of the millions locked up in the safe which Mme. Humbert kept inner mansion in Paris. MX—ons of money were borrowed by the Humbert*- on the security of this alleged fortune, and for years they lived in magnificent style in the best quarter of Paris. When at last the safe was opened by the police, and -found to be empty, the Humberta had vanished, ant! all efforts to trace them have, co far, been iru.tless. The offer of a reward of £1000 for information likely to lead to their apprehension has —used) such an influx of letters at the Bureau of Public Safety and the Prefecture of Police, that these departments have been obliged to enrol staffs of extra clerks _to cope with the correspondence. The Paris correspondent of the " Daily News" says that the writers of these letters, manifestly in good faith, are in most cases very positive that at any moment the police can, if they act rapidly, lay their hands on the fugitives. "The writers," adds the correspondent, "have evidently more imagination than judgment. An official employed! to class these letters assures mc that he never could, without this experience, have conceived the fallaciousness of direct evidence, or how far people who are nob mad can go in* persuading themselves of the truth of phantoms of the imagination in which they wisb to believe." In each case, in fact, it appears to have been the old story of the wish being father to the thought. As for the • police, they have added to the amusing and amazing incidents of this remarkable affair by committing an extraordinary blunder. On the strength of an anonymous letter, they ransacked the i_ou_e of M. Gavarry, a senior clerk at the Foreign Office, holding the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary, and drove him off to the Law Courts, on a charge cf having given a —ding-place in his house to the Humberts'. Not a tittle of evidence could bs raised against M. Gavarry, nevertheless he was kept in custody all day, _:s offices were searched, and all his papers carried off. It transpired subsequently that the prisoner was one ofriMme. Humbert's creditors, and had lost £j2,%000 over that artful imposter. Nevertheless " a postage stamp album belonging to M. Gavarry has been seized, and the Juge dTnstructTon intends to ascertain on the day the Humberts are caught whether stamps from tbe country of their refuge are to be found in tbe album." It ■reminds one of Mr Dooiey on the celebrated Dreyfus case.

- - This citys Coronation The bonfire was less successful j Coronation than it would) have been i Bonfires. had the weather been more propitious, and if the Committee who had it in' charge had had more money to spend upon it. The scientific methods that enter into the construction of a proper bonfire were not conspicuous, and it looked! more like a large untidy, heap of boughs and branches than built-up bonfire. The Coronation fires at Home, on the contrary, were skilfully planned and constructed', so as to give the maximum amount of blaze for the longest possible period. It had, of course, been intended to light them on the night of the Coronation, but the postponement of that ceremony led to the postponement of the fires until June 30th, by which time the King had been pronounced out of immediate danger. In the interval, as happened also in thbs colony, several had been maliciously set on fire, and others would probably have gone up prematurely in smoke if any further delay had taken place. The night was dark and! windy, the wind blew fret—ly, and an obliging shower in the afternoon had data ped the country, and thus prevented any danger of sparks from thc bonfires doing any damage. The signal shell was fired from a mortar fixed at the top of the Great) Wheel at Earl's Court, afc five minutes to ten, but so many rockets were, going up around London just then that the signal rather failed in its object. Some bonfires were set on fire too early, and the rest followed for fear of being too late, so that instead of starting at ten o'clock, most cf those within twenty or thirty miles of London were in full flame by that time. But although the simultaneous lighting was unsuccessful, the beacon fires were a great success. On hill and mountain top throughout the three kingdoms "the unwinking eyes of fire answered each other across the darkness," and told of thousands of people gathered for national rejoicing. It is said that forty bonfires could be _«en round London, thirty-five were distinguishable from the high plateau of Hindhead, and the watchers by the fires on Skiddaw, Ben Nevis, and other mountains must have seen many more if the thick weather permitted.-!. --What is believed to have been the biggest bonfire in England was that at Lowestoft, which contained 300 tons of timber, but there were several monsters, notably one on Ocker Hill, at Tipton," which was 46ft high, and contained 110 tons of timber, including seven disused canal boats, and -several barrels of tar. The bonfire on the Town Moor, at Newcastle, was 65ft high, and that on Sansdon, near Bath, was 50ft high and 90ft in circumference. Many of tbe bonfires on the south coast could be easily seen in France.