NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 102, 27 October 1900, Page 3 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

The late Mr. Hugh Frederick Hornby haa bequeathed! to the city of Liverpool an art collection valued at £30,000. The Manchester Corporation is considering the question of buying and working a mine for supplying the city gasworks with coal. The School Board for London- nnnounced on the 2nd September tho nineteenth session of its continuation schools. Last session 124,000 pupils attended the schools. For the first time for many years French officers were invited to be present at tho German autumn maJ&ceuvres, and German officers have received similar in* vitations to the French manoeuvres. In Mecca tlie sacred mosque which holds the Koaba is given over to American enterprise, and every year a cargo of kerosene oil is landed at Jeddah to supply th» 3000 and odd lamps (also of American manufacture) which lighjb up the mosque. The Pasteur Institute has been opened in India, at Kasa-uli, in the Lower Himalayas, naar Simla, after some yews of discussion and correspondence. The Government of India has consented to grant it 800 rupees a month, or £650 a year, for the next three years. On the occasion of the jubilee of submarine cables, it should be remembered in France (says the Journal dcs Debats) that we laid the first of them, and that we owe it to ourselves to remain no longer dependent upon a neighbouring - country, for communication with out possessions beyond the sea. The printing of the British Museum Authors' Catalogue up to the, end of 1899 was completed lasft month. , Twenty years' * labour cm this monumental work has entailed an expenditure of 1 about £2000 annually, or £40,000 in all. This catalogue is- contained: in 400 volumes and seventy supplements. The enormous increase in the supply of food sent into Paris, owing, to the Exhibition was shown by the octroi statistics published at the end of August. The increase in these taxes during that month amounted to £68,000, while • the total increase since the beginning of the year was upwards pf £320,000. The French military administration^ has been tricked in a remarkable manner by 200 Army Reserve men, who volunteered for service in China. These so-called volunteers were eagaged "for the duration of the war," and each received a bounty of £8, and then failed to appear. They cannot be tried by court-martial since there has been, no declaration of war against China, It is understood' that Lord Salisbury has decided to resign the office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and that he will be succeeded by Mr. Arthur Balfour, who will find Waliner Castle a convenient and agreeable country resid«ncc, especially for "week-end" visits during the session of Pariia.inent, Wa-lmer 'Castle has been usually closed since Lord Salisbury's^ appointment as Warden of the Cinque" Ports. Lord Ivea,gh is proceeding with his scheme for the benefit of the poor of Dublin. He has acquired about three and a half acres of a slum district. The present wretched houses are being demolished, and the site will be covered with workmen's dwellings, lodgings for single men, shops of the humble class, a concert hall, reading and lecture rooms, baths and gymnasia,. The scheme will involve an outlay of £250,000. A big scheme for connecting all the London terminv-Paadlinjjton, Victoria, the Great Central, Euston, Kings-cross, St. Pancras, Liverpool-street, Fenchurchptreet and Waterloo— by underground railways' worked by electricity is ' being discussed. The plan proposed is to lower a train, without its engine, bodily into the "tube" beneath, wh^ere an electric engine would carry it tp the central station,- which, it is said, would be under Piccadilly. The Queen and ths Emperor of Austria (says Truth) have succeeded in bringing about a sort of baft-tempered reconciliation bfctween the King of the Belgians and his daughter, Princess Stephanie, the Countess Lonyay. It is expected' that a family meeting at Spa will shortly be arranged, including the King and Queen, the Princess (Xementine, and Count and Countess Lonyay. The Queen has much influance over King Leopold and this is not the first time that she hup exerted it with salutary results. , Mr. Max Nordau has explained to a representative of the Westminster Gazette that the "Zionists" want three things: — (1) A charter from fhe Sultan of Turkey granting them a large tract of land in Palestine for cultivation, and tue Eunotpean Powers to consont to be their gtuarantors with the Sultan ; (2) to organise the Jews who desire to quit the countries they are living in, "so that there may be a methodical immigration, and no tumultuous inrush into Palestine" ; (3) to strengthen the Jewish' Colonial Fund financially. Acording to "H.W.H." in The Times, the Agricultural Syndicates of France, after starting with co-operation for purchasing purposes, and going on to combination for the sale of farm products, have now taken technical training for agriculture in hand. In almost all the departments of France, the writer says, they have s«t up laboratories, classes, libraries, and lecture-rooms, and employed travelling teachers. This movement,*, it is added', excites much more interest thin teaching made obligatory under State control and at the expense of the State, because it proceeds from the men themselves. Passengers between Warsaw and Vienna will (says a London contemporary) miss the old monastery of the "shining mountain," founded in the fourteenth century by Ladislas Jagellon at Czenstochova. Some indiscreet and uncontrolled pilgrims to the shrine of the Madonna known as Ragina Regni Polonies are reported to have celebrated tieir visit by letting off rockets, some of which fell upon the cupola and set fire to the church. A panic ensued', and the soldiers, who shou'id have been employed in extinguishing the flanws, were required to put down the tumult. Consequently the fire burned itself out, and the renowned monastery so famed in the history of Poland is a heap of ruins. Sir Wilfrid Lawson (says the Westminster Gazette— we should say iur. Frank Isitt) may or may not be glad to learn it, but the vintage of the coming autumn promises to be one of quite exceptional quality and abundance in nearly every part of Europe. . In France itsdlf, according to a return prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, it is expected to be ? in ' respect of volume, very good in thirty-five departments, good in thirty, fairly good in four, passable iv four, and indifferent in one only. This will mean a total yield estimated to realise about 1,200,000,000 gallons. Not since 1893, indeed, has such a plentiful vintage been experienced, and this year will have the advantage of that, it is believed, by something like 100,000,000 gallons. From the Rhine districts the reports are equally encouraging; Italy has had a good season, too ; while in Spain the returns promise to prove hot less satisfactory. Now (asks our contemporary) will this mean finy cheapening of thr pries to the consumer? Important experiments in the direction of substituting mechanical for animal traction were to be made during the grand autumn manoeuvres of the French army. By using nwtor-cars it was expected that the transport would be much move rapid, whjle the forage problem would also be solved.