TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 12013, 14 October 1904, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

"By slow, but sure, deMunicipal grees, tho City of LonExtravaganco. don is advancing towards a condition cf bankruptcy." This startling statement is mado by a London paper, and figures are given to back up the statement. According to this paper this disagreeable and surprising fact is proved unmistakeably by the Corporation accounts for 1903, which have recently been issued. The actual cost of maintaining the interests of the city was £539,968, wliile the receipts amounted to only £445,638, leaving a deficit of £94,330. In 1902 the deficit was £76,339, so that the city's indebtedness increased in a year by £18,000. Now, the total available assets in cash are only £201,858, so that if the expenditure increasea at the present rate, the city will be insolvent in eleven years. The largest item in last year's expenditure was "Markets" £159,379, and the next was '*CSvil government" £76,805. Education absorbed only £17,698. The reception of President Loubet cost £1429, and that of the King of Italy £1586, while the address to Mr Chamberlain cost £223. A remarkable item in the expenses of magistracy was £5 10s paid to the churchwardens cf St. Magnus the Martyr and St. Mary-at-Hill "for landing dead bodies found in the Thames," though this can hardly come under the head of extravagance. "Conveyance of prisoners and repairs to the prison van" absorbed the large •sum of £576. The extravagance of the city expenditure was, most noticeable in the expenses of civil government. The Lord Mayor receives £10,000, but does not pay income tax out of this sum, and a special grant of £625 was made to cover his expenses in this direction last year. Ermine and coronation robes for the Lord Mayor cost £128, and this is not the only item of this kind. The gold Askets for President Loubet and the King of Italy each cost £210, and the "illuminated vote of thanks to Sir J. O. Dimsdale, lato Lord Mayor, by Common Council," £52 10s. "Ditto by Common Hall," came to the same amount. The cost of the lunch to President Loubet was £868, and that of the lunch to the King of Italy £911 lls, while, the police pocketed £597 in gratuities in return for their services during the visits of these celebritiea We were informed by A Seer of cable the other day that Regent Street, certain West End palmists and fortunetellers had been heavily fined, the prosecutor being Sir Alfred Harmsworth, the proprietor of the "Daily Mail." Hie "Daily Mail" had previously conducted a crusade against theso people, and several prosecutions followed the publication of the exposures. On September lft, for instance, "Keiro," one of the seers of Regent street, who in private life bears the somewhat prosaic name of Charles Stephenson, was charged under the Witchcraft Act with telling fortunes. The evidence contained some very interesting information as to "Keixo's" business. One inquirer, for instance, enclosed two guineas, and wished to know the winners of the"Lincoln Handicap and Grand National, and four races at Kempton. A lady enclosed specimens of the handwritings of two of her admirers, and asked vluch she should many. Another applicant for matrimonial advice enclosed a lock of hair as a guide to "Keiro" in hie solution of her problem. One inquirer put no less than seven questions, two of them being, " Will our daughter marry, and whom?" "Arc our visitors friendly disposed or otherwise?" In "Keiro's" premises in Regent street were found deep and abstruse works on palmistry, clairvoyance, and hypnotism, also casts and models of heads and hands, and "crystals." It was shown, too, that "Ketro" had many applicants for ipitiation in the mysterke of his art, for ho had printed forms for such people, who had to bind themselves not to divulge any of the "secret formula)" of the craft A lady who visited Madame "Keiro" was told that she would hare five or six children in all, one of whom would be a genius. She was told that her husband was a contractor, and would build a lunatic asylum. He also "suffered from his inside." As a matter of fact the gentleman in question was a retired police inspector, with an excellent digestion. Money wouM be left to the lady, said the clairvoyant, to the amount of £8000, by a relative abroad in a dry hot place. The lady explained that the only relative who could ponsibly leave her money was in Russia, but Madame " Keiro" waa quite equal to this. "Ah," she said, "when it is hot, it is very hot there, and when it ia cold, very cold, indeed." Mrs Stannard, better "A Bat known aa John Strange on tfoo Face." Winter, the well-known novelist, had a very strange experience in London the other day, to which she devotes a column and a

half in a London, paper. Aβ she was crossing a road she heard screams, and noticed a small crowd ot a corner. On arriving there she saw a young woawn, "very small and very comely," gather herself up from the pavement, '.' her mouth streaming Avith blood, her dress torn open at the neck, and the whole side of her face frightfully swollen." A young man of five or six-and-twenty stood over her, and liad evidently knocked her down. Mrs Stannard caw that the man was preparing to repeat the blow, and as the crovrd was apathetic, she stepped in between the iron and tiho woman, and faced the man. She then proceeded to tell hhn in plain English what'she thought of him. Somebody in the crowd, evidently under the belief that the rights of a husband include personal violence, said, "She/s his wife." The wife gave her version and the husband •his, and Mrs Stannard stood for about ten minutes between the pair, trying to control the woman's excitement, and sting the husband into something like ehame. The crowd rendered no assistance whatever, and were perfectly silent. At length two policemen appeared, but Mrs Stannard says she was never so surprised in her life as «lw> was by the cold-bloodod way in which they reviewed the case. The woman declared that she went in hourly fear of her life, but tho policemen only bado her behave herself. "Are you not going to take this man up?" said Mrs Stannard. "No, lady," said one of the constables, "there is not sufficient damage." Mrs Stannard pointed to the streaming blood and the swollen and bruised neck, and then on© of the policeman made the astounding remark, "Well, you see, lady, we can't take up a man for giviircr his wife a bit of a bat on the face," this "bit of a bat on the face" being apparently considered a most trivial affair. The end of it all was that the constables recommended the woman to go 'home, and told the man they would take him up if he did not behave himself, but it is evident from Mrs Stannard's account that they would not have done even this much had it not been for that lady's energetic protests. Finally they promised to keep a watch on tho houso of the pair. " I relieved my feeling?," says Mrs Stannard, "by a few withering remarks to the apparently awestricken crowd gathered round us, among whom -were a.tr least a dozen decently dressed men, some of them wearing Panama hats." She o«ks if it is a fact that the police cannot arrest c man for ill-using his wife unless a certain amount of damage is done, and who.is to determine the amount of the damage. Those who are aware what utterly madequate punishmente are often inflicted in the English Courts on men for assaulting women, will not be altogether surprised at the facts of this case.