LONDON GOSSIP. NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1908, Page 3

LONDON GOSSIP. NEWS AND NOTES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) ' ' . LONDON, 20th December. To-morrow will be .tho shortest day, and the winter solstice. Theoretically, therefore, it ought to be attended by vhal are commonly known ais the "Solstitial gales that are usually ' mucli niore asvero ij,nd 'destructive thai} tho storm's which traditionally "accompany' ths Equinoxes, although sometimes 'they are conspicuous by their absence. J3ut in this case we have had our Solstitial gale well in advance. It was setting in on Friday evening. Throughout that .night and ail the following- day' and nigb.t _treniendo,us tempests raged with t«rrij{c/;atid, in sorn.e places, unexampled fury,' "causing , immense destruction of property "on land and sea, and -an exceptionally* large loss of human .life. Several of t'hc disasters due to the gale were of a peculiarly sad character. In one case a man'of-war's boat had put off at Sheerness, taking fourteen sailors ashore, to make preparations for Christmas festivities. "While approaching the pier, 'and 'when only a few yards distant from it, the boat was capsizad and eight of those on board were drowned almost within 'hand-reach of thoir friends or • the pier, although every effort was made to save them. Another , dreadful mishap occurred off the Scilly Islands, where one of the most remarkable vessels afloat went down, with the loss of eighteen lives. Her peculiarity consisted in her being Ihe largest sailing-vessel in existence, only just under 5000 tons in register, also in. her being rigged as a seven-masted fore-and-aft schooner. This curious craft, the Thomas Lawson, had seven masts all of equal height, about 150 ft from the deck. Each carried a hugo tri-sail and gaff topsail, while on the topmast stay, between each pair of masts, a staysail was set, and ths bowsprit and jibboom carried five more fors-and-aft sails, viz., fore;staysail, inner jib, outer >jib, flying jib, and jib topsail. This gave an enormous spread of canvas, easily worked, however, by a relatively small crew, wjth the aid of donkey-engines and steam-winches. Sb.3 was said to be remarkably handy to work; especially in "ntaying" when "going about." From the land she was seen to be in difficulties, and lifeboats went' out to her assistance, tha pilot gallantly going on jboard and remaining with her. But she dragged her anchors in the hurricane and heavy seas, and capsized with a loss of all but two of hjsr men, -these escaping, death almost by a miracle. Almost sadder were the circumstances attending the, loss of a large schooner close to Swanage, near Bournemouth, which "turned • turtle" in the storm, every one on board being di'owned quite close to a safe harbour of refuge. Other maritime casualties too numerous to mention occurred during this ,terrible and memorable etorin. The devastation on shore was also -'very extensive, and the fatalities were many. These\ in most instances were occasioned by the falling of .large trees or ljuildingb: Quite a number of old trees crashed down upon the roofs of houses or buildings, in several cases' crushing their inmates. Some, of. the escapes were marvellously close; one cyclist -saw his front wheel smashed into a mere tangla by a falling tree, yet he himself remained nnhuit. In London itself the wind-caused accidents were numerous, and the escapes many. Perhaps' the 'narrowest occurred at the corner of St. James-street and Piccadilly. One of the mighty cranes whirh was reared high iji th© air in connection with the works 'on one of the vast new buildings goin# up in that locality, swayed alarmingly in the gale and showed . imminent symptoms of : crashing down upon ,the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians below. Happily, by the adoption of- prompt measures in tho -carrying out 'of vhich, the utmost "personal risks were incurred.by tho men and those in charge of them, the menaced catastrophe was averted, but the process occupied no less than twenty hours of continuous labour and peril, during which time, moreover, all the | traffic had "to be diverted from Piccadilly to various back' streets, much to | tho public inconvenience. NEW BUILDINGS: VENTILATION PROBLEMS. ¦ Apparently there is always something lacking. in tha efforts of "our modern architects to secure complete ciiccpss in the greatest ' now buildings (,i ths day.' During -the current week sr-veriJ of qur leaMins' judges ha. -a had several unpleasant, things to say on this heac. •liV the course ol the great liiwder t.-ial winch has engrossed almost, all publje interest this week, there weie steat .and bitter complaints -of tif venti'jtion of the new Central Criminal' C .-art' — '¦" tilelr is' variously known a&> th'» "New Bailey" or the "New ' Old Bail<iy." No, I do not mean tho want of ventilation. .'lt is tha particular system of- ventilation adopted as "the last word" ' on tliatiubject which is declared to be so objectionable. Although a dead calm prevailed outside the court, -there raged in, its interior surh \v fter'o? galo that the barristers had ¦ the greatest difficulty in /keeping 'on their wigo. Other people complained of the' bitter coldness of the blasts, yet Mr. Juslicg G-nmtha.ni, while, entirely^ endorsing the general dissatisfaction, pdinted out that with a temperature of 65'deg., a most disagreeable, "stuffiness*" prevailed, and he summed up the indictment, with ihe vigorous obiter dictum' that" the . whole place needed pulling down and' rebuilding ! Aff.the "New 0!d Bailey 1 ' is stilj in its first year of existence ' such a remedy would be somewhat drastic, and its' 'adoption ccems improbable! "¦ " On the vcryaanlc day another leading judge,, Mr. justice Darling,' W355 airing his 1 uncomplimentary views of the grtat Gothic Law Courts in the-Stran'd, I^ondon's oplendid but most', inconvenient Palais ac Justice. He had an important case to try, yet in '.all' that huge block of buildings-- no - place could be found wherein to try it. ' 'Dangerous diseases," remarked 'ftuy Fawkee, «*"re quire desperate remedies !" ' ¦ Upon this prineipl' Mr. Justice Darling '.actsd. Kb caused what he aptly termed, m stable parlance, '"a looss box" to b? constructed for • him in -the* vast and splendid ' central hall, which has no function but" that of ornament. That is to say, a '&psce was temporarily partitioned off and- roughly lifted up for the- purpose. Within this "loose bor" the , teamed iiidge • haard his ease, hut he could not resist the temptation to let off a telling verbal "squib, appropriate to the occasion.' He dsclared that ths law. -courts consisted- of- what ho was told was a very handsome Gothic facade, together with "windows that admitted no light and passages that led nowhere." That is a painfully accurate description. Ona is sorry to remember that the unfavourable reception accordeJ to his magnum opus /caused its architect t-> die of a 'broken- heart. CRIME DETECTION. Unluckily our system of crime-detec-tion icims, to bs ns faulty and iaadequats as the buildings, in which our Lria-ls take phce. It is being remarked with a good deal of dnquiet b*o\» large a number of murders and other heinous crimes— sOMl3 ot special and peculiar atrocity — have remained unexplained and their ' perpetrators unpunished. Quite a crowd of instances will at once occur to everyone's memory, and now it appears almost certain that the brutal murder of £".mly Dimmoi-I; will add' another to this grim nnd discreditable list. Tha mode i:i v.hjch thfi" police authorities saw nt to . deal

with this case was to trump up a ridiculously feeble and inadequate ca.se against a clever, yet rather vain ancl silly young man who appears to have been dropped upon almost casually as ¦1 fit subject, for pro&ecution. Againcb this unhappy youth, who himself wes a strange, mixture in point of character, the police 'spcm to have pressed thair case most persistently. Their traiiifest object wds to convict young Wood, instead of jts being to discover the real murderer, who consequently has had, abundant timr" and opportunity .to make himself safe by flight. "The strongly significant fact that the girl's death "was duo, to virtual decapitation by <i smgta powerful or. skilful stroke seems to have had no significance to the police authorities. Yet nothing is clearer than that. ' the blow must have been inflicted with either a cavalry sabro of a Broad sword or some analogous weapon, perhaps of Oriental character.' But this prominent ancl suggestive clue does not nppear qven to have been noticed, much less followed up. It will be remembered how in the case of the murder of poor Mary Money in the Morstham Tunnel, the efforts of the police were devoted toward proving the cass ons of suicide, so that the murderer easily escaped, and this notwithstanding that strong .and even expressed suspicion attached to a particular individual who was allowed to go scotfree without even a trial. -These- .things do, as the French 6ay, "give one furiously to think." SMOKING TN THEATRES. - A most unpleasant proposal has just been put forward, namely, that smoking should be freely allowed in all theatres' at all times. I am glad to cay that the suggestion has not been at iill favpurably received. , Most of. the. performers object to be choked, » and the audiences show repugnance to be stifled. ' Seeing that thcro are abundant opportunities for those who cannot do without their smoke during n performance, to- go outside and get it in the street, no possible justification exists for the infliction upon audiences generally, many of whom may greatly dislike the smell of tobacco-smoke, and even be made ill by it, of such a. serious nuisance. One very reasonable, but I fear impracticable suggestion is that theatre-smoking should, in some way, as yet unfortunately not devised, be associated . with the matines hit. The idea was that smoking should only be allowed in the stalls at the rear of those total-eclipsing hats, or that some portion of a theatre should be set. apart where the smokers and the matinee-hat weirers might co-exist, and be mutual nuisances. But at present. alas ! all theso ideas exist only in the crudest shape.