NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 40, 16 February 1907, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

Nearsightedness is said to be entirely a disease of civilisation, ~--ng absent in savage races. Japan holds a record in having put five thousand tons of coal in a ship in nineteen hours' work. Glass brushes are used by artists who decorate china. They arc made of glass fibres so thin that they seem like spun silk. About 3000 pieces of glassware and crockery are broken on each voyage ot a first-class ocean steamer. A party of naturalists have captured a mammoth turtle, weighing 11001b., off the coast of Ecuador. It is stated to be between four thousand and five thousand years old. Tha most popular Christmas present in Germany this year is a figure of tho bogus Captain of Koepenick, carrying the plunder. It is made of tin, and, when wound up, marches along the floor. If there is very little else that is private in these days (says the World), at all costs we must preserve the privacy of our thoughts, even if we have to do it by making the cultivation of telepathy a la Zancig a penal offence. There is no doubt (writes the New York Nation) that to see and enjoy England aright one must be an American. The country is, in thb first place, peculiarly rich in small comforts -that nor people take for granted, not knowing their, own bliss. Then there are the literary reminiscences. A novecJ demonstration has just been carried out in Paris. Itasse, the inventor of the unbrakable bicycle fork and bicycle, arranged that 1 a motor omnibus should run over three of his patent bicycles. Immediately after the accident, Itasse and his two sons mounted the machines and rode off to Versailles and back . An eight-year-old boy who speaks four foreign languages fluently, has been admitted to the Brookline, Mass., High School. His name is William James Sidis, and he is thought to be tho youngest high-school boy in the United States. As well as knowing five languages, he has a remarkable knowledge of mathematics and physics. The_ Louisville correspondent of the American describes a successful test of a new invention enabling a railway passenger to telephone from a moving train. Mr. A. P. Jones, tho inventor, is reported to have carried on a conversation by telephone from a train going at the iate of twenty-five miles an hour. With such an apparatus in use, the late awful railway accident near Washington might have been averted. A pocket telephone for police purposes is the most novel thing in telephony. It is said to be seen in daily use in Vienna, where every policeman on duty is provided with the necessary appliance. In every street of importance are special call-boxes, and a man to communicate with his station has only to pull out his pocket apparatus and adjust it to the wire in the box. The Archbishop of Canterbury had onco to open a chess congress, and observed that, though he could not claim to bo a brilliant player, he had, nevertheless, had a great deal to do with kings and queen 3, ho had lived successively in two great castles, and he believed ihat he was the only man living ■who was both a bishop and a knight ! When the British Association was at Victoria Falls last y=ar the experiment was tried of testing the height of the bridge over the gorge — the highest in the world— by timing the fall of a stone with a stop-watch. It would, no doubt haye 1 succeeded (says Dr. Kolbe), only unfortunately the learned professor who conducted the experiment filing his watch into the water, x and gazed earnestly on the stone ! A number of English soap manufacturers (writes Ihc Brooklyn Eagle) organised a trust on the most approved American style. That they came to grief was, due neither to want of effort nor lack of capital. The people, figuratively lynehea them. The incident is really a curious and most instructive illustration of the power of public sentiment to achieve what it believes to be rightf and desirable without recourse to law. "Until teaching can be made" a more attractive profession" (says the Globe), -"a better class of men and women will not enter 'it. And" until "that is done, we may therefore expect English to continue to deteriorate as a spoken language to the uncouth vocabulary of • Polynesian savage." wnich shows that the Wobe does not know much of the copious and euphonius Polynesian tongtte, or of its admirable grammatical structure. . .A lady of high rank in England laments the tendency amongst young ladiss in society to marry' beneath them. The "chaffeur" for some reason or other, has, it appears, an extraordinary fascination for well-born girls, apd several heiresses have recently insisted upon marying these heroes in leather coats and leggings. "Miranda" suggested in tha "Lady's Pietoral, that if the "chaffcur" were called the "carman" he might soon, take his place beside the coachman. M. ''Bonnier has read a paper before the French Academy of Sciences announcing his discovery that each hive of bees possesses an intelligence department, which sends out scouts to discover where honey and other good things are to be gathered. He noticed that some bees remained hovering about flowers for a long time, as if prospecting, lie marked some of them, and found that wbeh they discovered a "good thingji"' they flew direct to the hive ■with a sample, returning almost immediately with many companions. Vionna will shortly possess a museum exclusively ddvoted to music. In tho modern world, at lesfst no city could be more appropriately chosen for its musical associations. Instruments, manuscripts, portraits, sculptures, and, in fact, everything associated with great musicians, \yill be represented. The collection will be especially rich in its historical side. It will include original scores by Bach, Handel, ulendelssohn, Spohr, Weber, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. There will also be a complete collection of pianos, illustrating the development of the instrument from its earliest beginnings. \ Auckland had once a bachelor tax in tho old provincial days — an historic fact not genorally known ; and a like experiment has been occasionally tried elsewhere with scant success. But it has remained^ for tho Argentine Republic to adopt this invidious impost in its severest form. Every man over twenty years of age, not living in matrimony, must pay a monthly fine of £1 i«j<]ess he can prove that he baa three times within the year made proposals of marriage which have been rejected. From thirty to thirty-five the fine is doubled, from 35 to 50 it is quadrupled, and from 60 to 75 the amount is £6. After 75 it drops to £2. A widower who docs not remarry withirf three years is again liable to taxation. Such a tax, making it practically impossible in many cases, to provuie_a.home J .nmjJt,defjeat,its,.o^;n J2JVS&QMU

The Court of Appeal has decided that no foreign watches can henceforth be legally sold in England until the cases have been submitted to the Goldsmiths' Hall. There are not less than three million pounds' worth of these watches in stock or fo,r sale in England. The case is of such importance that the present decision will be appealed against in tho House of Lords. ' The consumption of horseflesh continues to increase in all parts of Germany. In parts of Saxony tho authorities have issued regulations for the slaughter of dogs for food. They are in the form of a series of by-laws ior regulating the slaughter of horses, asses, and dogs. During the last quarter in Chemnitz alone 235 dogs wero killed for food. In the entire kingdom of Saxony in the same period 499 were killed. A correspondent writes to the Daily Mail : — A striking example of the results of trust methods is provided by the .operations of the Wall Paper 'Manufacturers' "combine." Hundreds of hands have been dismissed from some factories of the Wall Paper Manufacturers, Ltd., since the combination was formed. In some cases whole factories were wiped out to save expense. Have wall papers decreased in price ? Emphatically no. On the contrary, there has been a steady increase ; while the number of designs which the operator obtains each year to show to his customers is not nearly so large or varied as it was six years ago. Some plasterers at work in an old house at Nocera (Italy) have discovered a^ large sum in the currency of a hundred years ago. The find is exceedingly valuable, for a singlo coin is stated to have fetched £14. The money is supposed to have been secreted by a brigand known as "Dog's Tail," who enjoyed much celebrity in the early part of the last century, and was much feared by tho inhabitants of the district. The house in which the money was found was inhabited in those days by a priest, who was known to bo on very good terms with the brigand. There was for long a tradition that "Dog's Tail" used, J;he priest's housa and garden for the safe-keeping of his spoils. It is remarkable how the work of missionaries in exploration, philology, and other branches of progress is ignored by the .press. In the late discussion on French and English claims in the New Hebrides scarco a word was heard of the late Dr. Paton and other Britons whose pioneer labours made those cannibal islands habitable. A correspondent sends the following protest to the Daily Mail: — "I see it stated that 'Captain O'Connor has the distinction of being the only white man who knows tho Tibetan language.' May I state that for tho past fifty years the Moravian Church has carried on a mission on the borders of the Forbidden Land, during which pflriod the missionaries have become quite familiar with the Tmetan language ? A dictionary has long since been compiled by them, and a large proportion of the Bible has been translated, in addition to other useful literature. At the present timfi there are no less than ten missionaries, English and German, out there, who speak Tibetan freely, and regularly address the natives in that language" Twenty years ago, when Colonel Pilcher was in Kashmir, a native camg into his camp and complained that he was possessed of a devil which he could not get rid of. Most men would have given the man a pill and sent him away. The "Sardine" (as Colonel Pil chor is called) knew better. Making the patient lie fiat on his back, he placed on his chest a small pyramid made of damped gunpowder. \Ther taking the glass out of his binocular he warned his_ patient to prepare, a< the devil was just coming out. Having focussed the sun on to the pyramid, ii ignited, and the spit-devil disappearec in a cloud of sparks and smoke. The exorcist called out, "There he goes !' ! and the man jumped up and wentawaj cured, and happy. A remarkable feature of the manj parcels dealt with by postal officials ir England in" the Christmas week was thf large number in which ducks and gees< had bottles of brandy and whisky safe ly stowed away in their interiors These bottles, which would otherwise run considerable danger of being smash ed, were perfectly safe in transit. Oni official in Liverpool found that tho ad dress on the canvas wrapping of agoosi had gone astray. He was surprised a the plumpness of the goosej and on ex amining it discovered to his astonish ment a large bottle of Irish whisky sewr up in the interior of the bird. An in nocent-lookjng pound of butter whosi destination /it was impossible to trace was sold for ninepence, and the pur chaser discovered a half-sovereign il the centre of the roll. The youngest collegian in America— and probably in the world— has recently entered Tufts College, Medford, Massa chusetts. He is the son of Professo: Leo. Wiener, of Harvard, and was bofi in November, 1894. He knew his alpha Jbet (says tho New York Tribune) whei he was eighteen months old, began ti read at three, and at eight was tackling Darwin, Huxley, Ribot, and Haeckel After only three and a half years' o: dchooling, he pasoed all his entrance ex aminations at Tufts last June, includ ing those in trigonometry, botany, am physiology. He will make philosophy his chief study. He is describe^] as \ normal, healthy boy, fond of outdoo; sports, especially swimming and base ball He has been brought up a stric vegetarian. This is painful reading Precocious acquaintance with Haecke and trigonometry is dearly bought bj the sacrifico of childhood. - A correspondent of the Sydney Mail who has some knowledge of the sanguin ury mosquito, is sceptical as to tho vir tues of yellow as a deterrent, notwithstanding the story of the immunity of tht sable dogs- when the black ones wen slain. He remarks that insects so noc turnal in their habits are scarcely likelj to make nice discrimination of colours ir the dark. Personally (he iwiys) I bavt a notion that hunger at one end anc blood at the other attract the insects, anc for this reason it would probably be un. wise for those who have black or browr hair to think of making a' change until the colour subject has been further veil' tilated. Sufferers from mosquitoes wil find the following mixture a certain pre ventative : — One-half each coconut oil ant kerosene, with about three per cent, oi citronella, and the same of carbolic. This will save you much better than yellow oi khaki." Domestic classes are conducted a( Messrs. Rowntree's cocoa n orks,. at York, for the female workers, and are attend' ed by 650 girls. Mr. Josoph Howntree, chairman of the company, in his annual address to the workers, referred to the successful development of these clnesco, and proceeds i — "A criticism which it rightly tirged against the employment ol girls in factories i» that they do not, prior to marriage, obtain experience in domestic matteis- This objection is me( t,<s rio small extent by tho classes trliicL hare been tutublishech A knowledge ol cooking and tho selection of economical foodstuffs and dishes, of dressmaking, and of what, perhaps, W us important as any^ thing, tho laws of health, including Hit management of young children, miiy bt invaluable to those who in future will be responsible^- for thg m«njgeui«nt