HERE AND THERE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2096, 24 September 1901, Page 3

HERE AND THERE.

The late Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, was for a long time the most typical Yankee figure in the United States Senate. Thinner than Sara Bernhardt in her leanest davs, he was over 6ft in height, bony, lan-tern-jawed. He was once staying with a jocose doctor in Kansas, who one morning lured a newsbo-- to open a door m his surgerv. The inevitable skeleton sprang out, and the bov ran away shrieking. At that moment, the Senator entered. Wanting a paper, he ran to the window and called the fleeing youth, who stopped, turned, and gazed at" him with a shudder. " Not much,' cried the bor, "I know you, even if you have got vour clothes on.' _ The series of lectures on workmen s insurance given this year at Berlin strives to show how complicated are the details of this hu -e piece of State machinery,, how mucfl time has been required to build it up, how incomplete in many respects it still remains, but how important it already is from a social point of view. The magnitude of the insurance system may be estimated bv the fact that it pays out, in one way or another, about one million marks 1£o0,000) a day. Though poverty and misery have, of course, not been driven out of the world bv the insurance svstem, yet the sick workMan has no longer to trouble himself as to \ow he shall obtain monev to pay for medical treatment, and Avhat will become of his family should he himself be rendered unfit for work. The workman whose earning power is reduced by an accident conFected with his employment now obtains jhst compensation, and the aged poor have t«ie satisfaction of knowing that, although tLev can no longer work, they can still, P T "hif to the insurance system, contribute their" share towards the ' expenses of the household, and are not obliged to depend on the earnings of their children or on ordinary public charity. R'ecent mysterious attempts at assassination have thrown the towns of NijneFasuilsk and Kombra, in the Perm government of Russia, into a state of panic. Several of the inhabitants of these towns, among them a policeman and a priest, have received packets by post from an unknown sender. The policeman came into possession of a very elegant ci?ar case, but as he pressed the spring a violent detonation occurred, and he fell dead. To the priest a small case was sent, apparently containing a As he was on the point of open big ic he remembered the policeman, and stopped in time. Several other persons who "* " '\sd similar presents handed them oyer the police. They were opened with £V p it caution, and found to be filled with airro-glycerine. They were, in fact, small but very ingenious infernal machines. In the succeeding few days packets were also found lying in the public squares and gardens. Several persons have been arrested and taken to Orenburg for trial, but in v.o case was there sufficient evidence to convict. The vox populi accuses a new sect in the Oural Mountains, but the police are persuaded the affair is me work of some mentally disordered individual, probably a mechanic.

A disagreeable incident happened the other clay to Professor Carl Hudovemig_ at the Budapest University. A wild-looking woman met him in the corridor, brandishing a large kitchen knife. She said : " Herr Professor, I know that I am mad. You must, however, restore my mental balance at once, or I shall without further delay plunge this knife into your breast." The professor preserved his composure, and told tije, woman to follow him to his consulting !'><om, and, taking a rather roundabout route, they encountered several servants, whom the doctor signalled to follow him. With considerable difficult}- they overmastered the woman and placed her in an asy--"Ji.

I'he manifesto concerning scholastic reforms in Russia has just been published, and the new measures are to be applied upon the reopening of all gymnasiums and colleges in August. The principal change is the rejection of Greek and the less arduous study of Latin in those classic colleges which are preparatory to the higher university courses. The long hours devoted formerly to the dead languages are to be employed in the study of French and German, and of Russian history and literature, branches which had been singularly neilected. But these reforms (remarks the St. Petersburg correspondent of the ' Sydney Morning Herald') will not reach the root of the evil which causes the disorders —i.e., the extreme amount of disrespect for religion manifested by many *vuss : an youths. The defects which preail arise from the whole method of eduction, too severe and dry, entirely separating the teachers from their pupils, and ",he profesaevs from the : .r young disciples. These radical defects of the Russian schools, perfectly known and keenly felt by all well-meaning and intelligent parants, cannot be uprooted jn a few months, even by the strong: will of such an energetic and devoted patriot as General Vannovsky. the present Minister of Public Instruction. It is only gradually that youth can be won over to love study for its qwjh sake, and not to consider it solely as"iT means for petting a position. Step's should be taken to check the materialism and pessimism so rapidly invadng the Russian schools, so that the suiide of pupils that occurs so often will cease to take place. It is no doubt in view of this that the Czar, on signing the manifesto, wrote with his own hand the following words:—"All this I approve, but I hope that the most seriou attentio" will be turned towards the religious and moral education of our youth among all classes'."

M. Marconi's much-talked-of method of telegraphing without wires—wonderful as it seems—seerns almost crude when compared to the invention of Mr A. Frederick Collins, a vounsr electrical engineer of Philadelphia. Mr Collins has invented a mean' of telephoning—that is, of sending spoken WO rds—from any one place in the world to any other place, without the use of intermediate wires, not through the air but through the earth; and the apparatus, unlike that necessarv for Marconi telegraphing, is so extremely small that one <• up the whole thing in five minutes and carry it off in anv ordinary dress-suit case. — 'Pearson's Magazine.' There is a doT in London which turns out without fail to almost every City fire, and to many bevond the boundaries of the sqvare mile. By breed he is a Great Dane, and he is the pet of the men at the Thames v street fire station. He came into t'ie ; r p< ssession in a curious way. One day a j,eniV man called at the station, chatted with the men, and showed an interest in the engines The dog was with him, but when he wa' leaving it positively refused to go. Said his owner to the officer in charge ', " I shall ■tail to-morroM', and if he refuses to come -&£: may keep him." The Jog declined -to next day, an'? so Became the property of the station He has since been at almost «\ CV <- iire M which the men have turned *wft. Fire seem.< to be " in" him, as chemistry was "in" Mr Eden Philpott's boyhero "Nnoby" Tomkins. but it has not yet led '1- bis undoing, although he has run ~isks by entering burning buildings when 0 one'was watching him.

r aeals.— Maggie uiged six): "My ideal uv nan is a soda-water clerk; dey's simply perect!" Kate (aged eight): 'How young you are' Jes' wa i i «S1 yer old enough ter go ter a ci r see a guy wot kin turn three Bomersaults over seven elephants and a eanrel!'