NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 27, 1 February 1908, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

DUMB POVERTY. When misery issuing from its wretched room takes some lawless step to mend or ends its woes (writes St James's Budget) the result is that either misery or the family it leaves behind it obtains considerable comfort. The lawless step takes it to the police court, where sits a sympathetic magistrate with the missionary metaphorically at his light hand and the poor-box on his left. The poor-box is kept replenished now by a twenty pound cheque from the Merchant Taylors or other company, now with twenty guineas, from the Leathersellers. Misery's starving wife and children . are given enough to tide them over the next few days, while for the man himself work is secured by the missionary. When, however, misery, disdaining this short cut to comparative happiness, strives bravely to win its way up the slippery slope inch by inch, its shoulder set firmly against the rock of Sisyphus which constantly, despite all efforts, rolLs down to the bottom again, when misery tackles this job week after week, month after month, until the final defeat comes and the county court has to be faced, then there is no poor-box, no missionary to give a fresh start. "No court," says Judge Emden, of franibeth, "brings to light the real depths of misery so strongly and so painfully as the county court." A poor-box being out of the question in a civil court, the judge has formed a Lambeth County Court Charitable Committee to administer any funds subscribed by those who feel for tho brave poor. THT CANALS OF MARS. The alumni of Amhersfc college, New ¥ork, lately listened to an informal addiess by Professor Tottd, head of the department of astronomy at Amherst, touch- I ing the work done and Tesults achieved ' by the field staff which he led recently to ] Iquique, Chili, for the observing and photographing of Mars. In his talk, the professor said that never before has astronomical photography of the most interesting of all planets been attempted under such favourable conditions of atmosphere and instrumentation. The telescope, the biggest ever 'taken to tho southern hemisphere, was erected on a rock base between three thousand and four thousand feet above sea level, where for six continuous weeks photographic observations were taken in an air marvellously clear and steady. Ten-thou-sand-odd views were secured of Mars. Two years will be consumed in working out the resultant calculations and data. Of the lines on Mais supposedly marking the course of canals, Professor Todd said : "Their character leads to the belief that they are artificial, not natural. Some of these 'canals' are twenty miles broad and one is three thousand mileb long." DRINK IN EOUMANIA. In P»oumania, ac in Russia, tha drunkenness prevalent among the peasantry is among the most serious obstacles to progress ; and the trade, which in iUiSbia has been mado a State mono,poly, still remains in private, often Jewish, hands. The agrarian reforms of the present Ministry (says the Westminster Gazette) include a measure for its municipalisation, which, however, is being fiercely opposed by the republicans, and has already been so far attenuated that it is to apply only .to spirits, and seemingly only in the villages — the sale of wine and beer not being interfered with, and that of 1 spirits being left to private persons, subject to some restriction, in tho towns. One cannot help doubting whether a village council composed ' oi , hard drinkers will really discourage excess' when it'is profitable to the ! community as well as pleasant to themselves. But tho violent opposition now being offered to the whole of the reform ' programme renders it« passing very doubti ful. [ "Show the incorrectness of the curI rent use of the words jolly, aggravating, awfully, chronic and ripping," was a j "poser" in an examination paper at a Chester girls' school. Half the candidates could give no answer. I The rector of Pureigh, Essex, in searching tho records of the parish, has discovered that George Washington, was a descendant of a Purleigh clergyman, the Rev. Lawrence Washington, who was rector from 1633 to 1643. • i The Asahi, a Japanese newspaper, published a thousand- word special cable dispatch on President Roosevelt's message and comments on it, appreciatively expressing gratification at the representations contained therein concerning the proposed Japanese exposition, and its general friendly tono toward Japan. It says that tho naval and military programme guaranteed the peace of ytho i world. The of. a 1 leading Japanese papers published only a brief synopsis ! of tho message-, and refrained from edi- [ torial comment. The Pall AMI Gazette says :— "The somewhat belated story of tlio absence of British warships Zanzibar- way, when it would appear their presence might have been desirable, reminds one of a time, ten or eleven years ago, when Zanzibar had more British warships in its immediate neighbourhood than the Sultan of thoso days quite cared about. Sir Harry Rawson's ultimatum preceded the brief bombardment which, on 27th August, 1896, drove the usurping Khalid off the throne, and saluted his successor, Said Hamud. Then, too, though not quite as now, Germany was concerned in the matter. The fugitive Khalid surrendered to -tha German Consul, and — which neatly completes the coincidence — was taken on board a, German warship — the very Seeadler sloop whose assistance might have been invoked with that of her consort the Bussard." If tho_ Siate were sole landlord it might gaits possibly realise the paradox. That the whole was Considerably less than tho part it holds side by side with private ownership. "Unearned increment," so-called, is an ebb-tide, the ravers© process is familiar enough, and -lie ebb runs sometimes very low. When taxes ,on a property exceed its total returns, the State makes a bad bargain, though it confiscates the land for rates. A writer, signing himself "Victim," relates his experience in a. Sidney paper : —"I own a piece of land in a deserted village in one of the nfewly-crcatsd shire?, having bought the allotment for £10 at a Crown lands sale. The fair annual value of this land, and that at which it is assesssd, 3s, or 5 per cent, on the capital value of £3. My fair taxation on that allotment is id in the £, or 3d, but instead of 3d I am rated at 2s 6d, because that is the minimum tax provided by the Act. So I am taxeu to within od per annum of the full annual value. No ono will build there, becausa the township is done for. Is this fair treatment to a poor man? I call it land-tax theory run mad when I have to pay to the shire practically the wiiolc value, of my little bit of land('sold t'> mo by the Government, who have my money, nnd then rob me, by Act of Parliament, of the profit of the land it sold me). I can't got rid of the land, because it has no unearned increment, and on this their whole attack on us is based. I should like to know how they justify my casa and that of thousands more small holders in my position." "Victim" is likely to wait long fur a satisfactory reply.*