TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 12027, 31 October 1904, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Th-re ere many etoaage A ' oonjpetitiowi nowadays. Cock-crowing but it .would be hard to Competition, find a stranger one than •■.-' war : held recently.... in Paris. Thie was nothing less than a cock-crowing competition. According to the Paris correspondent, of a London paper cock-arowing aeeme likely, for the ti&e being to take the place of cock-fighting «• a ipopular. pastime. ' According to him, owner* take immenw pain* to improve the "vojoea" tA itheir birde^; ;13m> method of training ia noT«l, yet delightfolly simple. Without interferirig with the TcntilatJon, t.ho cagee in which the birde are confined are left in darkness. Every day the cages are taken out into the open air and the coverings suddenly " removed. .The birds, seeing. the light suddenly, and believing that, they- have overslept themselves,: and that the dawn i* far advanced,, of Veouwe crow' ; Icrttdly, possibly mow loudly thai! vsqal, ; 'in "their effort to make up for loet time. This exercise goes on for about a quarter of an hour, and then the unfortunate birds, who nroei think the night* extremely long and the days extremely ehoit, oro covered over again. This is kept up for several week* before the competition, and tlio hird'e denre to crow loudly and long every tjne he sees the light is increased. Each owner feeds hie birds in a special manner, and guards his reacts jealously. The writer, however, "seems to have been partly initiated into the great mysteries of thw "dieting, for'he idle as that finely chopped beef, barley and phosphates are used. The. food is carefolly dosed and made as stimulating as poanble, for three weeks prior to the ebow. I'Daxing tlie crowing contest," <*$%>■ the writer, >'la timekeeper with a' chronometer stands in front of each bird and marke the number of crows sad the variations'of notes in a given time, generally fifteen, minutes.? The crowing tends to increase itself, for 'when a bird hears other binds crowing all round him, he is stimulated to, greater effort*. • "The noise is absolutely deafening," adds the correspondent somewhat gratuitouely. Anyone who has been to a poultry show noise is trade r 'by the crdwjng of quite birds, and when this is increased by" training end dieting, the resolt muit benerre; destroying in the extreme! * <

■'■ -*■■''■'; \* '•■> , f ; . , T -■;■; .■'', , ;' 'in 'ii -'yy ,^'^rj^. ' ''i':'.'■'/■■' ;, ".,•'■- [ '..\ ■7~'^J l * i u ™*^ T -' l s* m ? ,, yM ; ■' ;'^fcroirSew.^.:s ! '■'• -V v '/■'■■'■ •■s'"'.;■:?'«. VH>nweetMg^r«ini«tß^jbyi Bjf ; 'JB^^^w»^i^^.jpwi.] : ; feasor. means' nothing < derogatory or Cynical, • tint: defines it ■■. '/«nablM-tlMm '» kind ef"<x>nedcnentie of wh»t is'behindthen." . lliie, «nie,'. the fcolewor, "■ißOTOte;<e;m; ,i ; in^'rt/V«Bid : ; ? eeawd by VMHon 'in• etantly working tmaJl ;are reJlyth* outcome of ; niere ■.. ;?«aiih ; neitly; without'la; vim "co«nld accompliah, *tfn'd needle easily •while,a man'l^rould -l«g.-:time« in finding^ ; tb^-'(^\-^tiTit«if-1 again, a■; men -may. join piec«e of' fabxio j with » pin is a careful and ectentific'iinaii-'j , nerj wiihout eaiisfactory reeulfc>V ■irWl^' woman tek)e^-'&e;{ea^V'P«*' :^: «*c«itei :; ;-i" . of ;\OTW-handVinOTem«t,-^jaia^'!r : - ;7i ; . donbW and, with a:*rig-t ! glr «>riw«;, thing;. Je.-'done; 1 ;' - ■ p|o|de'. »;^,eBWB.^; ; jTo>f ;mth : pinning iajr ae;a puzzle,; to a"woman^a hairpin Iβ a aouroa <>f - : Alter eiprceeing ".wonderKJat; r ;:^he^great' a woman over • man In the oniappeal to many bachelora, the e«wing yn of 'bnttonn, end notices that ber* agiin man.M : cluninneee iteelf compared! woman. . 1: It;"ii;«t^wonder'-' 'W.ihimfi'aa'At miist have been to many before him, how a -woman in sewing, a button on a piece, of cloth always bite one of the holes from tho back of the fabrjp, while a roan, ■ tbjree )iimm : - out..of l "four,., will strikei the button and one ef 'the*"opening? 1 doing all theas thinge;' according to/the • I professor, a woman exercises a facultywhich' hae been handed V down* toj her through a. tioueaod, generation, for; *he » 'the'dtOd of along line or grandmother running; back to the; Age %ff Stone |and beyond." v To;.■■■"•■'mdm^d'^ViproinenW 1 in; -~theee,^inatier»: i we/jmuet retliwi; that woman' were onginaUy th| duefcrialJeexii iv J*>«T ; ,:.*ewi the flrei blew, tailom, weaver*, and fanriew, while of war and the cbaee, *od conridered that more peaceful *»rte were^^low r their" dignity. "thw through alt the history of mankind, woman have been tie conaerren sof f tbe art*, and what they have learned in the oonn*. of iigee of experience they have been'unabie ~ r if:C' ■ ■ \ ''■■••

Th# ways of the mine "welter" Golden are various and often deep. The .But. ewindle it said to be as old as < goldminiog itself, «cd the devices which hare been'resorted to put gold dost into ore for testing constitute a chapter in the romance of gold. How important ia the effect of e\tn a mmute quantity of gold 4ust in a iramplo is nhown by* nmple explanation once nude by a mining engineer. He deroooetrated that Vpiece of'paper increased one-tenth of a milligramme in 'weight when the word * bullion" was written on it,witb a eoffc lead pencil, preeted modmteiy, and pointed' out that the weight of that pencilled word in an assay for gold would mean ICb per ton' i» the value of the ope. ' The miner, who wttbe* to 'aalt"

'hue to contend with/tho sharp Jtat&«c|| ibo clever in hie devices. One <h nffini oldest,tricks was T to scatter v goJd pdl*u|j! find flake* ity dnst on tlieJfaoe hi tbe ngil witfv a shotgun, but:this 3a out/of d4c|3j West African, natives'have been; tnunSgi ! to the practice of scattering gold duM» tawi oro*with**'l)low-pipV ttll thoroughly expert m this trick, and a ftlif years ago Mr Ghamberlafc/ ia his pMtipji of Colonial Secretary, warned the trickery practised in the mmes in tssM part of the world. In the old,AmericwJf and Australian 1 days the rusfe were <%(£•§£ paratively simple, each as carrying duet {Jiff the beard and stroking H down into titfjj pan white telling th"o inspector a faqrci I story, or carelessly dropping the laadssi ashes of a pipe into the aunple. Wbp|| 1 experts began to put their eampke in hajfl] nnd seal them the "ealtor" took to 4bJ| jectmg chloride of gold in liquid fortaJi Sometimes the swindle wa» ovefdone/'Stjl when a suspicious expert assayed tMJfi I fibre of hie wmplo bags and found that wl yielded gold to the value of £10,000,f|l 1 ton. Sometimes the whole face of a iesl is " painted" with chloride of gold, somfcji times gold ie pat in the material that fJS^jl 'the hole after a shot has been ineertSj|| and flomcthnea the " Salter" .adopt* iS*m tedious devico of "stacking." Hiia taking out a whole eection of a mine Mmf filling the space wiUi ore from uwU&jjf part ol the mine, or from another altogether, and the work has to be artUpil so Uiatthe ground may.appear'e* and pick had never touched it. dodge was made use of m Victoria ; considerable eucoces in a eilver-lead ' : uwg| Borne. yeare ■ ago. When th« of Quebec advertised for ten miners years ago, a number of .ingenious imported a qoantlty of tin ore from wall, * planted it,.'' diecoroped- , , it■;» or t\ro later, , end eecured the reward «nd. the . money of iha Byndjo{||9 formed to work the supposed mine." ■^■^S|