NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

Mr. Elsdon Best informs the Wairoa Guardian tfiat the fighting pa at Ruafcahuna will be opened in 19C6, when a, native meeting will be held at that place. "The nation's babies are more important than patent right*," said a Now York judge in refusing a a application by a. company owning a patent milk-bottle for an injunction which would have affected practically every milk business in New York. After six years of experimenting, a Los Angelos florist has produced a green carnation. The flower is like other carnations except that its petals are tinged with rivid green, which radiates from the centre to the edge in deep stripes." He refuses to disclose his method. A "woman has been elected as local magistrate in the commune of Rank Herlein, Hungary, because the whole adult male population of the place had emigrated to America, and there was riot a single man left to fill the position. A curious error (says the Gentlewoman) occurs in the Royal Academy Catalogue. By way of explanation of her water-colour drawing of "Vanity Fair," Miss Gertrude Hammond appends a quotation from "The Pilgrim's Progress." Bunyan wrote : "That which did not a little amuso the merchandisers, was that these pilgrims ■let very- light by all their wares." The Academy Catalogue, however, says that they "sat very tight." Among the defendants at the' Bradford Polic6 Court recently was a man named William Shakespeare. His reason for giving 4 fafee 'name and address when found on licensed premises during prohibited hours was that he "did not wish to disgrace an honoured name." The Russian newspaper Kasha .Zhizn (says The Times correspondent) points out that the paper currency has increased from 598 million roubles (£59,800,000) in February, 1904, to 905 millions (£90,500,000) in June, 1905, and intimates that the Government is violating the Ukase of May Uth, 1900, forbidding the issue of banknotes as a means of replenishing the Treatury. ProfessorG odyear's photgrams of concealed curves arid similar architectural refinements in mediaeval buildings continue their triumphant progress. On request of the* Architectural Association of Edinburgh, the exhibition recently given in Home was to be repeated in the Scottish capital last month, but on a larger icale. A committee of the House of Lord? is considering the eight rival schemes for the ■cheap supply of electric power to London. At a recent meeting, Mr. Balfour Browne, K.C., asked leave to amend the minutes of the previous day's proceedings. "It is «, point," he said, "which affecta the honour of my learned friend, Mr. Freeman. I said yesterday that he roared as gently as a 'sucking dove,' but they have got it 'sucking pig" on the notes." The Khedive (says the Westminster Gazette) is a strict Mohammedan, and as such eschews both winea and spirits. His atwfcinence goes even further, for in a country where everybody smokes he will have nothing to do with tho fragrant weed. Like his "father, hs is a monogamist, although his religion allows him four wives. He is known to^^e greatly attached to his consort, -who was a. Circassian lady of the Khedivial household before her carriage. In fact he is essentially a domestic .man, and is very fond of his children. Hoxse-owneTS (says ths Sporting and Dramatic News) ara often extraordinarily (inobservant. They have the utmost confidence in their coachmen, faithful old thoughtless blunderers, and pay no attention to things themselves. One after floon not long since the subject of bear-ing-Tsins was discussed, and one of the ladie3 present was specially emphatic in her denunciation of the iniquities of the .practice. I took her .to her carriage when she left, and was surprised to see her homKS tossing their heads, -with loam-flecked lips, strained up just about «s tightly aa the malefactor on the box could screw them. " I will do all that a another should do. lam not a drunken -woman at any time, but I'll quit drinking everything ibut water if yon will only let my baby /stay -with me." Thus pleaded a mother in a Chicago Court. She clasped in her 'Arms a three-year-old baby who clung •about iho mother's neck. Touched by the mother's pleading, the Judge said "for the sake of the, baby" he would give her a chance. " Only let the baby itay -with me." She touched the right spot in the Judge's heart. Canada seems to have given a striking example of the light in which she regards ''Imperial preference." According to the Ottawa correspondent of The Times, a storm of protest has been evoked by the Quebec Legislature imposing an annual tax of £60 upon commercial travellers engagea in the sale of merchandise other than intoxicating liquors an behalf of firms or cprporationa having no place of business in Canada. The impost will affect many English houses, who are accustomed to send their travellers to Canada every year. The press generally characterise the tax as conceived in a narrow and restrictive spirit, and ' expresses the opinion that it will strike a aevere blow at British trade with Canada. Pope Gregory the Sixteenth died on Ist June, 1846— nearly sixty years ago — and it would seem impossible (says the Daily Chronicle) that a Bishop appointed by him could be still alive and in harness. But to-morrow Dr. Daniel Murphy, Archbishop of Hobart, Tasmania, tho last prelate of Pope Gregory's creation, enters on liis ninety-first year. He was born in Cork while the Battle of Waterloo was being fought,- was consecrated an Indian Bishop in 1846, ami translated to Hobart in 1865. He is the sole survivor of the Council of 1854 that proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and he was also a member of the Vatican Council of 1870 which mode Papal Infallibility an article of faith. It w«irf a fine record which Fawcett, the Wind Postmaster-General,. left behind him (a contemporary writes) ; and Dr. Campbell, the head of the famous Normal 'School for the Blind, is daily adding •miracles of ability to the long list of which he is already hero. Walter Wren opent his days and nights upon a cripple's couch, but trained some of the best men the Empire possesses. A pretty story o( tho triumph of mind was that which Owen noted. Miss Anna Gurney had been deprived from infancy of the use of her legs, but managed to wheel herself about in a chair. She was a sort of captain of the local lifeboat. During the height of the storm »ho would wheel herself down to the beach, and by her example and promise of generous reward animate the fishermen to brave the terrors of the sea, and so save many a life- which would have been sacrificed in tho tempest. The Japanese look upon full, deep breathing as being the most vital force in life. Food la not as important, although necessary. The beat of exercises are of littto value when the breathing that accompanies them is not properly done. Fresh air— and a great abundance of it— in tho Japanese rule. The woman who liea down for her night's rest has the paper-paned window, opened a, taile.. laej

air sweeps into the room, and passes over her aa slie lies upon the floor. If she is cold she adds more bed-clothing ; but she does not close the window. In the [ morning one of the first tasks is- to go > out of doors. There the Japanese woman takes, in great breaths of air. This internal cleansing "with air is treated as ; being of more importance than the mom- • ing bath that follows soon after. The kitchen and tho other rooms of the house ( show closed windows only on the coldest days of winter. There is no air-star-vation. Some highly satisfactory tests of the strength and resisting power of Victorian blue gum have jusl been made at the engineering school of the Melbourne Univer1 sity. The samples were supplied by Mr. 1 Mackay, of the Apollo Bay Saw Milling ' Company, and were taken from the Apollo Bay "forest. A piece, of 30in span and measuring sin. by 3in. in thickness, • that had been seasoned for seven years, withstood a strain up to 27,6501b. Its [ weight was 63.61b. per cubic foot. A trial waa then made with a piece of blue gum that had been part of a skid for five years' and had been made into a spoke. It was tested as a column, the area of pressure- being 2.04 square inches, and it bore up to 17,4901b., or 85731b. per square inch. Samples of oak and hickory tried at the same time showed resistance, equal to 38671b. per square inch and 40651b. per square inch respectively. These tests of blue gum are regarded as being remarkably satisfactory. Mr. Mackay and Mr. J. Perry, spoke manufacturer, etc., state that if there were a protective duty on the spokes that are now admitted free vast quantities of superior blue gum spokes — which can be obtained in the Victorian forests in almost illimitable quantities — could be profitably placed, upon the market, and employment glve'n to a large number of workmen, "He appears to have been a very good lad and to have done his best." So (according to the Dunedin Star) said the President of the Arbitration Court when delivering judgment in the compensation case of Can trick v. Jarvie, and the official utterance is worth more than a graven description on a tombstone, for it represents a conclusion from sworn and cross-examined evidence. It was testified to on oath that Hairy Cantrick, of the Bluff, went as a barber's help when only twelve years of age, so ac to assist his family; and after the death ■ of his mother had made him and the rest of the children orphans, the seniors simply kept themselves whilst . he buckled to as a butcher boy, and sent practically all his earnings to his married sister as a contribution towards the support of a younger brother and sister. Whilst riding out at Kaitangata the plucky little fellow was thrown and killed, and the married sister and her husband thereupon claimed compensation. The Court awarded £55. While the city fathers are assembled at Moscow to discuss in the strictest secrecy questions of the greatest moment to-aIT Russia (writes the St. Petersburg correspondent of The Times on 28tb June) the press here is busy pulling to pieces the Bulyguine scheme for converting a representative Assembly into a bureaucratic institution. The Slovo dubs the whole scheme "foggy," and asks how it is possible to consider it seriously seeing that the latest announcement gives the Council of the Empire the right to ignore the existence of an assembly unless the latter conforms to the bureaucratic regulations regarding its work. The rage for "sterilising" and the indiscriminate warfare against "germs" may, it seems, go too far. It is now being recognised that the majority of bacteria fulfil important uses, and that the malignant varieties constitute a very small minority. Recently an interesting experiment was tried by Dr. A. Charriri, j a distinguished French savant. He fed two groups of guinea pigs on carrots. One group took the vegetable after it had been sterilised by boiling, and all germs thus destroyed ; the other after it had been sprinkled over with dust, or with the soil in which the carrots had been grown. Of seventeen subjects in the first group twelve died before those in the second, and the investigation showed that the total absence of germs in the sterilised food impaired the digestion, and lowered the assimilative power of the animals. Only five altogether were lost of the group fed on the gernvcontaining food. China (the'Pekin correspondent of The Times writes) is following with deep interest the proposed meeting of peace j delegates at Washington. She thinks that, inasmuch as the terms of peace must affect her interests as a Sovereign Power, she ought also to be represented. Friendly Ministers here advise her, however, that the logical outcome of her representation would be an international conference, which must be avoided at all hazards. They remind her that international interference after the last war led directly to the present war, and that all the other nations, except Japan, declined to interfere while Russia was engaged in absorbing Manchuria. Opinion in Pekin grows stronger that ai peace conference .now is premature, that the spirit in which Russia is entering the conference gives no indication of sincerity, but that manifestly she is endeavour,ing 'to gain time by means of an armistice. The opinion is universal that an armistice would give an immense advantage to Russia! The Cavan Weekly Post has a good story about two tramps at the Clones Workhouse. They had gone to bed in the casual ward, when a ghost, in the form of a man, came into the room, pulled the bed from under them, and pitched tho bed clothes about the room. They were so terrified that they would not sleep in the ward, and preferred to finish the night on the cold flags outside. And now the tramps avoid Clones Workhouse as if the devU wero in it I A great moral reformation might he wrought on this line, if somebody would think it out Ghosts are very real to all the ignorant ones, and they ought to bo turned to account. Some pertinent remarks are made by Mr. M'Kenzie in his book "From Tokio to Tiflis," on the Japanese treatment of war correspondents. Aa they were at war on their own account, and nob for the benefit of English and American newspapers, the Japanese had a right to consider their own interests only, which wero best promoted by uecrecy. But the reason they did not make their intention of exclusion clear, and so prevent much chafing and irritation, is now explained as due to their courtesy. "The Japanese mode of expression is different from our Western way. When ? Japanesu has to refuse your request, courtesy forbids that ho should reply with a direct negative. Ho points out to you tho difficulties involved in your plan ; he /ears you may suffer if you obtain whnt you want; he expresses a cordial wish that if you still desire it, it may be possible to grant it in a day or two. Such expressions, from Japanese lips, means 'No.' Correspondents, imperfectly acquainted with Japanese thought, took" them to moan 'Yes. Honcc endless misunderstandings, and many charges of bad faith." For some timo past mice liave been unusually numerous at Warracknabeal, and it lias been found difficult to preserve anything catablo from 'their attacks. It has been reported by one- ol th© district otorckoepeTS that, among other things, I hoy have taken to eating .tobacco*