TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13160, 6 July 1908, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

North Carolina, yeA Cat's cently mourned tho Last Honours, untimely death of a cat. Emma -was run over by a train, ami we aro told tliat when tho train crow found -vv.hat it was thoy had run over, "thoy all garnered about tho sjx>t in that hat-ofl attitude which they might have assumed about the grave of a departed groat man." For Emma was a noble- animal. Since the ti.ighr, of a burglary at, the town of Emma in 1901, when she frustrated a robbery, slio had l>e<'n most tenderly cared for by the community. On that night a clerk named Alexander, who slept in tho store-and-post-offico Inrlding, was called to the door by loud knocking. On opening it, he was confronted by two masked men, who pointed revolvers at him and ordered him to om>n tho safe. Alexander liad to obey, though tho safe contained a lar?;p sum of money. .\s ho knelt on tho floor to get at tho combination, he rovolv<fl in his mind schemes to foil the robbers, but with those barrels trained on him, lie decided to roje-et them ali. As tho door swung open, ono robber laid his revolver on top of tho safe and stepped up to sco what was inside. The cat had been viewing these proceedings with alarm from behind the store, and now 'decided; to -.ict. Taking off from a sugar barrel, she leaped at the cromihing robber, upset him, and ploughed his face mercilessly with her claws. Tho other robber "turned his head for an instant to see what was happening, atul in .tJiat instant Alexander snatched the revolver from the safe and shot him. A fierce struggle ensued, whioh resulted in Alexander being s<hot and battered and left for dead, but the robbers made off without securing any plunder. Housed by the noise, neighbours were soon on the trail, and "nefore daybreak tho two robbers and two accomplices war© captured. Alexander's case seemed hopeless, but the girl he was engaged to married him, and this pulled him through. Emma became a State heroine. The postmaster appointed her official mouser at the store, with all the privileges and emoluments of the place. When she -was run over, the trainmen brought her body to the store, and next day she was buried with imposing ceremonies which nearly everybody in town attended. Just to round off the story, we are told she was th© mother of 172 kittens, and that the one surviving offspring would probably be harder to buy than a child of the same ago.

Sarah Tytler, in a "Itinerant pleasant novel publishDaughters." ed lately, introduced a

schemo for tho exchange of discontented daughters. A girl foels herself out of harmony, perhaps, with her natural surroundings. She is evangelical and religious, while her reki'tions take a worldly delight in bridge. She comes of a sporting family, but glances off from parental probabilities at an unexpected angle, and must break out in tbe direction of art. Or whore fate expects her to slido quietly into household duties, Hue her mother, she beats hor wings with a wild desire for travel and tho luck of "all-out-of-doors." In Miss Tytler's book, four girls, discovering themselves thus inappropriately situated, have tho brilliant idea of exchanging homes and parents. Why go on distracting themselves and their belongings, when a simplo movo round will settle all difficulties and bring precisely tho right stamp of daughter into tho right household sphere? So there Wgan the series of mild adventures, ending with all due attention to tho moral and to living very happily over after. Now an articlo in tho "Girls' Own Paper" describes, as a practicable enterprise. "How to see Foreign Countries" by exchange of homes. It appears that tho writer had sent to her an advertisement from a Swedish girl tho wished by this means to sco somethi. g of England. Tho English girl arranged for a transfer, and was delighted with her "six months' winter stay amongst the Swedes, wrJh its ski-ing, sleighing, tolwgganing, and skating.'" Afterwards sho exchanged homes with a German girl in Berlin, and found things equally enjoyable. The English household, meantime, had its insular calm pleasantly stirred by the presence of a foreign element, while on both sides the innovation was judged to supply an admirable resource for girls anxious to know other lands than their own, yet too young or not rich enough for independent travel. This essayist does not contemplate, however, any romantic possibilities in tho scheme. According to Miss Tytler's view of things, an exchange of suitors will also occur, and these itinerant daughters in foreign homes must be prepared to become denationalised wives. Probably more hard In Defence. things have been of 6aid about San FranSan Francisco, cisco iv tho last two years than about any other city m the world. It is interesting, therefore, to come across a spirited'defence of the city in the NewYork "Evening Post." There was never a greater mistake, says the writer, than to think that San Francisco is a particularly wicked piece. For a large seaport "metropolis of half the world,'' there is no excess of crime and vice To say—a.s was said—that San Francicieo was shaken up and burned foT her i-ins seems to be a reflection on tlie religion a.* well as the morals of the city, seeing that eighty churches shared the fate of Chinatown. "Good people come hither from the East, bent on seeing something to reward them for their journey. They do not, the first thing, look into the churches and hospitals, the libraries, and the thousands of happy homes, or pry eagerly into the Sunday schools. All such tame affairs

they see enough of at nome. But when ! night comes they summon a policeman und demand to be shown tho wicked ones, and the filthier the better. These, then, aro thy gods, oh San Francosco!" He complains that semi-Teligious journals of the Eastern States send representatives to San Francisco '"who search diligently for the little filth left by tho fire," and tliey hold it up as tho soul of San Francisco. Tho city claims to be no worse than other large ports, and certainly better than some. She wants no sympathy for her alleged iniquities and lier misfortunes.. A good many black spots could be found in cities in the Eastern States, and as for casualties, moro lives have been lost and more property destroyed in one Mississippi flood than by al! the earthquakes in California dur: tho last hundred years. Moreover, iv San Francisco a man—Rudolph Spreokels— was found to save the city from the disease which had attacked the body politic, and that is more than can be said of many other places. "The future is very bright for San Francisco: a clean city, purged by fire and reform, is rising upon the debris of the pust in such proportions of beauty and utility as to make it second to no other in America."