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Press, Volume LII, Issue 15777, 19 December 1916, Page 6

His Excellency the Governor has received a cable message from Lord Norfolk, representing tho National Committee of Relief, appealing for a Christmas offering for the benefit of the unhappy little children of Bolgium. It is suggested that at every Christmas dinner table some gift should be made for this purpose. We hope that the suggestion will be adopted in every household in the Dominion. We have been receiving subscripfions towards a Christmas offering for the Belgian chil- i dren, and our fund is growing nicely, i But what we have so far received is, we ! trust, only a preliminary to a cc nera ' j recognition by the people of this conn- i try of tho unhappy plight of the little folk of that devastated land. We have , on earlier occasions described the wretchedness of their lo<% which has crown

worse witli the passage of time, and the continuance of the brutal policy of the invader. If everyone in this prosperous country were to give but a fraction of .his Christmas expenditure, a very large sum -would be raised, and we wish everyone would understand that by giving up some little luxury he could provide some Belgian child with some sorely needed food. Canterbury, wo are sure, will endeavour to do its part.

The people of New South Wales were provided with not a little entertainment by the Government's proposal to introduce the totalisator. The bookmakers, naturally, did not like the idea at all, an<l they were uncommonly bold in the arguments they advanced against tho machine. Mr O'Dea. the president of tho Bookmakers' Association, headed a deputation to tho Government, and made a remarkable speech, in which he spoke of bookmaking almost as if it were un essential industry. As a. professional bookmaker, lie disclaimed "competence to speak from the moral standpoint," but he nevertheless sternly condemned tho totalisator and even gambling. Tho "tote." ho said, was much moro harmful than "the system at present in vogue"; and he added: "Although a bookmaker, 1 hate to think my children should have 3113' knowledge of gambling, and as the father of tlireo little ones I never allow racecourse matters to he discussed in my household." Ho put it to the Minister that the introduction of a Bill which would extend gambling "would be taken by the children to mean that it is a rightful thing to gamble." This Mr O'Dea obviously considered a most undesirable thing. There are evidently more things in the bookmaker's philosophy than other people's philosophy dreams of. The Minister was sufficiently impressed by Mr O'Dea to admit that "it would be unfair to ask men who had followed a particular calling for the greater part of their lives to take on some other avocation for which they were probably not fitted." 1 It was in the summer of 1900 that the first experiments with a Zeppelin airship over Lake Constance were noticed in England, and the "Opectator" has done well in reprinting tho substance of an article which was then written in its columns by Mr Meredith Townsend, sometime joint editor of the "Spectator." He came to the conclusion that there was not much in the invention to causo alarm. Tho. machines, he pointed out, could not carry large bodies of men or large quantities of munitions, and he thought the idea of their use for a sudden and great invasion conld be laid aside as impracticable. "If the recently-passed rules against dropping dynamite from balloons were disregarded, they might, effect a certain amount of destruction, but not of the kind which Governments seek for because it will help on eououest."

" Tn another respect this able journalist showed that power of ''intelligent anticipation" which is such a valuable equipment for tho practice of the profession. "The new machine," he wrote, "will, we think, have one main result, a great increase of tho power of observation both in pcace and war. The balloons can bo so made as to remain many days in air. and very wild lands, even tho regions round the Poles, or the sources of the Niger and tho Yangtso, may therefore bo accurately surveyed. , . . And it will certainly alter ono condition of warfare, as it will enable a besieger to see the interior of a besieged city and all the shifting chances of a great pitched battle over, say, twenty square miles. . . . Tho Zeppelin will be an observatory, hcliographing accounts of every movement every five minutes. The effect of that will doubtless bo to incrca+se greatly tho brain-power of auy good tactician in command, for he will bo able to seo the early movements of his enemy and tho exact position of his own widelyscattered troops. No doubt the advantage will be given to both sides, but it will bo more useful to tho one which has the abler and more decidcd commandant." Experience has shown thijt tho advantage in aerial warfare is to the side which can produce tho most gallant and skilful airmen, and at present, we need hardly say. this auvantage is enjoyed by the Allies. The one point which even so shrewd a prophet as Mr Meredith Townsend was unable to divine was the fact that any nation professing to be civilised would chiefly use Zeppelins for the purpose of making war on innocent women and children and destroying unfortified towns.

A simplo alteration in the British Army regulations now makes tho moustache optional instead of compulsory as hitherto. It is supposed that the original idea was that the moustache added to the "horrific" character of the warrior's face, an idea to which the Kaiser's moustache, sedulously copied by numbers of German troops, lends some support. It cannot be said, however. that the English Tommy or tho French "Poilu" has shown signs of being very much daunted—one reason no doubt being that it is only on rare occasions that tho living Germans wait long enough for the enemy to see their faces. "The Times" welcomes the change, and quotes the Greeks and Romans as classic authorities in favour of a clean shave.