NEWS AMD NOTES,

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 129, 1 June 1907, Page 12

NEWS AMD NOTES,

The IJtnh Legislature has enacted a law' making tho game of bridge illegal. Tha penalty is fixed at fivo years' imprisonment. The American Treasury is about to build a. vessel to bo solely for th» purpose of destroying derelicts and assisting vessels in distress in the North Atlantic. The ship w ill hare a steaming radius of 5000 miles. The New York Times has asked the opinion of tho hading republican news-papc-rs as to whether the President's popularity is as great now as it was in 1904. The 68 answers co far received are unanimously in tha affirmative. The fantastic misuse of a form of the diminutive affix "c" or "te" as a mark of the feminine ("pianiste," "cadetto," etc.), peems to be extending. A Melbourne weekly published the. portrait of "Miss , dentiste." Professor Behring, speaking at Berlin on tuberculosis, said boiled milk was not a suitable food' for infants, and the boiling of water killed tho olements therein intended by nature to make bone and einew. Loio Fuller, the wonderful dancer, who is now at Monto Carlo, is, it is stated, almost blind. She herself says her sight was ruined by dancing on mirrors, upon which limelight was thrown to give the effect to flame. Students of animal habits declare that the trotting gait ia natural to many animals besides the horse, notably the deer, the elk, and the wolf. Wild horses, both in North and South America, are noticed often moving at a trot, though not going at their full speed. A few years ago an American professor forfeited his chair through maintaining that man was not constructed for tho erect position. It i? now report?d that certain cranka of the great Republic have formed an association — tho "Order of Nebuchadnezzarites," pledged to adopt the fascinating "alliours" attitude in locomotion. AVhether tho constitution provides that they shall also crop the blooming wayside thistle j is not rtated. Mr. Frederick Bowker, of Lankhills, ■Winchester, who was solicitor for tho Tichborne family in 'the famous case, died on 7th April, at tho age of 92. It was mainly through Mr. Bowkcr's psnevcrance that the discovery was made of tho claimant's identity with Orton, tho Wapping butcher. A German patent covers the employment of egg shells 'ns gas mantles. I aue two ends of tho shell having been removed, it is to be suppprted by « : gas-burner, so that it may be- heated to incandescence from tho inside. The memorial to. Sir Hector Macdonald, at Dingwall, opened a few days ag6, takes the form of a tower 100 ft high. The Marquis of Tullibardine, who fought with the late general in the Soudan and South Africa, was to preside on the accasicn. I Signor Paolo Tosti, the composer, recently became naturalised as an Englishman, and is now surprised to find that when a man assumes n new nationality j»h at the same time loses his former "ono. Only lately Signor To«ti was infornifd officially by the Italhn Embassy th;>t he had lost his Italian nationality,* and now he regrets having taken the step, because he intends shortly to settle in Italy again. Severe we3thsr on t.ho Staffordshire border kept all tho congregation, and even the organist and choir, away from the evening service in a village church on a recent Sunday, The rector was there and the clerk, and the service began. The clerk did all the singing, and th 3 rector preached for nearly half an hour. Then he made preparations for the offertory. Upon this tho clerk explained the position, and the rector, who is very short-sighted, became aware for the first time that only he and tho clerk were in the church. The village inn at Addington, England, has been tona_nted by. tho members of one family since the reign of Henry VII. On the death of tht> mother of tho present hostess she left no son, but three daughters survived her. The three sisters in turn took possession, and tha present hostess iv the last of them. The Jolly Millers inn at Newnham, Cambridgeshire, has been kept by a family named Musk for the last j 400 years. It ia recorded in Cambridge annals that Queen Elizabeth onco stopped hero and drank a quart of "oldo j English ayle" without getting down j from her horse. "Tho_ great big medicine" was the name given to tho phonograph by the Kikuyus of the Kcnia province in the British East African Protectorate, when Colonel Hayes Sadler, the Governor, with Mrs. Sadler, paid a visit to that remote district recently, and set a talking machine going. The natives were wildly excited at the marvel. In ono ! part of the district the people wore very shy, and would not come out to parIcy. Colonel Hayes Sadler wound the phonograph up, put on a bugle-call, started tha machine, and left it with no ono near, .me natives could not believe their ears, but instead of approaching the machine to investigate, they bolted like rabbits. A magazine writer refers to the queer mixture of races in Wisconsin. It has Bulgarians and Flemings. It has an Indian population of over 8000. It is tue greatest Welsh, Cornish, Norwegian, and German State. It has Icelanders with Minnesota, Bohemians with lowa, and French, Finns, and Hollanders with Michigan. The oldest and only purely Hungarian colony in America is on it* toil, and the largest colony of Swiss. It has a native white element a* old as the Knickerbockers, and even English-de-scended families who go back 150 years on Wisconsin soil. The gift of £1,200,000 for an additional endowment and building fund for the Carnegie Institute, at Pittsburg, makes the total sum given by Mr. Carnegie for the institute and for technical schools in Pittuburg over £3,400,000, while tho technical schools can draw on him for £1,400,000 more- as money is needed. Mr Carnegie's total contributions to Pittsburg and Allegheny now amount to over £6,400,000. So far as is known, his total donitions for public purpose* iv Americ ■ and Europe amount to the stupendous r.um of £53,300,000. Of this total. £10,800,000 has been given in the • last four .years. On the Boston and New York City subways there is an apparatus in use to preI vent one train running into another. It comprises an automatic block system of the type adopted by the Pennsylvania and a number of other railways, but with tho addition of a short inclined plane alongside the track at the entrance to the block, , 'J.uiß it interlocked by the mechanism which lightx the red lamp at tho entrance to the block whenever it is occupied by a train. The piano, when raised, touches a lever which depends from the 'second tram, and this lever in turn applies the air-brakes, bringing the second train to a standstill. Hence an engin-drivcr cannot run mst the danger-signal. The device is reported to be perfectly successful in operation, and is regard/cV as an absolute protection against the admission of a I second train to tha blcck already occu-

Mr. Thomas Beecham. the founder of the famous pill business at St. Helens, Lancashire, died early in April. He was 86 yeais of ago. He begun business in tho smallest way at St. Helens, half a century ago. lie goKI his pills from a st:iil ir tho market-plnce of that sombretown. Tho stull consisted of a fish-tub; his tray was part of a door. Somo yeais ngo ho informed a gnthciing of journalists that he spent £5100,000 a year on advertising. Lord Lister attained his eighteenth birthday op Friday, sth April, and at a meeting convened by tho Lister Institute at the Royal College of Surgeons on Thursday it was resolved to commemorate the anniversary by republishing his works. Telegrams <rom the Continent (says tho Spectator) make it clear that Lord Lister's epoch-making services to humanity tiro as freely recognised throughout the civilised world as in the country which hails him as one of her greatest som. Mr. John Smith, the oldest tpnant farmer in England, has died at Amderby Meres, Bedale, in his 91th year. He could remember a t-tlk he had with a man, aged 104, named Geoj-go Chapman, of Crathorne, near Yarm. who was present at the battle of Cullodeu, in 1745! Chapman told him they enjoyed the fightin<r until they got to Culloden, but in consequence of the mercilcs way*iu which the Duke of Cumberland followed up his victories the North Yorkshire soldiers left him iv disgust with the butchery. Two sisters, the ono fifteen, tho other seventeen, have been charged at Olmutz with offending the public feeling of re\crence by coming to church in masks. In defence they protested, with tears (a Vienna correspondent says), that they meant no harm. I'hey had been at a masked ball till five o'clock in the morning, and, being devout Catholics, had not wished to miss their matins. They had never thought of taking off their "loups," but had slipped into the church just as they were. The court delivered judgment to the effect that objectively tho accured were certainly guilty, but subjectively they had meant and done no harm. They were therofoie acquitted. Purely in the interests of icience. it is about time for some authority to diagnose the new madness —''phitorennia," let us cal! it, provisionally —epidemic sii tho United Stales. Idleness, inefficiency, j>nd felf-hululgenco "occm to bo among the predisposing causes. Here »5 one recent example out of many. Miss Josephino Wcnderl, an old woman, relatod to the Astors, is said to have reinsed fin offer of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds for a vacant pitce of ground in Fifth-avenue, New York. Tho reason givcu is that the spot at present serves as a playground for her pet dog Txixie, and if it were eoltl the dog wo«l<l hiive no open spice where it could take it 3 exercise! Corruption among tho highest native officials progresses by leaps ".ml bounds in MoiWci*. It is the only thing thnt does progress. Not only aro Civil offlciils selling largo plots of Government land and pocketing the entire proceed?, but even the supreme militaiy commanders, who are hoirified hy the methods of their civil colleagues, pie purchasing so much gold coin with the ys~y of iuintjiiian- lioops th.it the premium on French and English gold hue risea. The unfortunate Sultan, whoso Piwnrcs ;:rc j in such a st?to that ha is hard at work pawning hi-i jewch, is actually p».v»i'B for 9000 soldiers in the Targier-dLstikt aknc whore it i<? believer! thit rot half thr.t number exist, nnd tho<io that do exj hi itc practically u'cla-'s. Visitors to Kcw Gai'icn?* London, will rcpret the recent de-;th of ore of the •ccicnt ce'l?rs of Lebanon, ulikh, o-is by one. aie gradually riiwppearini;. The tree in question, which w.is about 150 yiais old, and stood neir tiie l J»goda, was 75ft in height, its trunk mrasursiig I'Tt 2in in circumference near the base ?nd lift 7in nt ten feet from the ground. Soni"! three hundred cubic feet of timber h-ive Lcci> cut from it. I-ondoii dirt and •smoke and t> saccea-ion of dry summers .ire bcld to be reoponsible for tho death of this veteran of tho forest, and only sixtetn of Kew's onco numerous big 'cedars now remcin. An interesting stitement appeara in tho last annual repoit of the survey of India. It is said that leccut surreys in Burma hr.ye brought to light tho rapiditr with which the coast-line on the western Fide of the Gulf of Martaban is advancing, uo margin of the sea being now at somo points as much as six miles from whero the survey twelve years ngo shows it to have been then. The Uuli lies be. tvrccn tho Pegu and Tennasseiim coapts, and this advance of tho land on the Pegu side at the rate of half a mile j early is very remarkable. Probably in no other part of the world is a chungo of this kind proceeding so rapidly. In Central Arizona there exists a remarkable hill called the Coon Mountain. 'Rising only 150 ft from the sur- | rounding sandy plnin, its interior concists of a circular crater thrce-quaKors of a mile in diameter and five hundred feet deep. Scattered around tho hi'l fire blocks of candstono which diminish j in size ns the distance from the crater increases, while close in round the rim are many lumps of rnctallic iron containing microscopic diamonds. Recent research has led to the supposition that the crater v/as formed by the impact of a hugo iron meteorite, perhaps nearly a third of a mile in diameter, largo enough to be called a minor planet, and moving probably with a speed of about eight miles a second. Tho crater is at present being actively bored by enterprising Americans for meteoric iron. In view of the scarcity of Australian girls for domestic service /says a Sydney writer) high hopes wero centred upon the prospect of obtaining a supply from the othor sido of the world ; but horc comes the now trouble: A young lady who landed with othor immigrants from England last week, intent upon gaining omplownent as a domestic servant, brings the refreshing information that on tho voyage out sho received seven offers of marriage. Sho ia puzzled to know how to reply, and has appealed to Mr. H. C. L* Anderson, of tho Intelligence Department, for advice in her dilomma. This is quite a new and unlooKed-tor duty cast upon this useful State Department; but if Mr. Anderson is not prepared to face the anger and fury of thousands of householders in this country, he will strongly advise the girl not to create a bad precedent for othoi domestic servants 1 who will" come tp Ihis country. The new Canadian law, which took, ' effect on 11th March, prohibiting the sale of newspapers in the Dominion on Sunday, has had the effect of stopping the importation of more than ttirte thousand' American Sunday papers, formerly sold in tho city of Toronto j alone, and more than twenty thousand iin the Dominion This trade is entiroly I wip3<f out, as even express companies I are forbidden to carry on Sunday nny newspapers into Canada. No Sunday papera arc printed in Canada, and tho best lawyers have advised tho trade that it is useless to teat the law. Tlib penalty is 260 dollars fine, or two rmntW imprisonment.