NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 33, 8 February 1908, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

"SANTA CLAUS" LETTERS. Philanthropic ladies and gentlemen and in some ca&cs societies in the United States have for many rears past sought to obtain delivery of the children's letters addreFied to Santa, Cluus, in order to avoid disappointment to tho writers ; but such requests Lave always been denied. _ It would be, it waa said, exposing to private parties confidential correspondence ; that the lettois might contain enclosures, and that such a practice would not bo in keeping with the principle of the sanctity of the mails. PostmasterGeneral Meyer, however (says the Argonaut) saw the bushels of letters coming in, each with an eager little person waiting for an answer, and decided that the i;cd tape could be cut from this one kind of mail. Recently he sent out an order to postmasters all over the country to let the people in their cities know through tho newjb.rmpers that mail addiessed to Santa Claus will be turned over to those who will undertake to act as tho :eal Father Bountiful from the north. It will be interesting to know whether the new arrangement will appreciably increase the "Santa Claus" mail. "We have a suspicion that it will. "CATTLE-DRIVING." The Spectator says that tho "cattledriving" movement in Ireland is two-fold in its objects— it is predatory and ifc is political. After dealing with tho former aspect, it says : — "Tbe political object is equally clear. The Irish Nationalists are in clangor of losing their hold upon the people owing to the rivalry of the Sinn Fein Party and other causes. They also believe that there is a danger of the Liberal Party forgetting them unless tiuy make themselves unpleasant. In older, then, to kesp things moving, tnej have deliberately fanned and fjocouiaged the desire of the peasants to get possession of the grazing-lands. That is the last piece of agrarian agitation which is left to them as a motive-force for drawing the Home-rule car. In view of these circumstances, it is surely nothing short of madness for the Liberals to toierato tho present disorders in Ii eland. The Nemesis of their paradoxes confronts them, and the only way to escape is frankly to admUi*that they were wrong wnen they made their previous distinctions between coercion and the oidmaiy la-v. All enforcement of tho law involv.es coercion, and to pretend that thero is any way of oiLSiiring obedience to the law sure ty coercion— i.e., ibe punishment to cune — is nonssnae, and mischievous nonsense." THE LION ON THE LINE. Tho story of the Babu itationinasler on tho Uganda railway and his complaints to headquarters of tho way in which lions interfered with tho 'working of tha line has been already told (writes St. James's Budget), but th^ fresh details juvt to hand lend a melancholy aud piteous atmosphere-- to ths bravo manS struggles against adversity. There is a lion on the platform, he telegraphs "urgently" to the traffic manager; and only blank cartridges have been served out to him — the stationmaeter — so the lion mu&t remain in chargo of tho "signal in yard," but let the driver of the next train beware how he , trusts too implicity to the signals of which 'tho lion is in charge, and it would bo as woll if passengers got out at sorno other station. Even the blank cartridges uro exhausted after a time, and tho ~ poor man's position fttcomes if possible oven more lerrible. Tho lions again vindicate- their right to attend to the signalc and worry a pointsman who is returning from his work. "Henco pointsman' on top I ,' of telegraph past nrar water tanks. As hs. cannot remain there indefinitely, pwhap3, telegraphs the sympathetic Babu, tho next tra-iu n/ight stop within jumping distance of tho telegraph post and take the man on board. Tho right man to attend to the*=. 3 signals and clear the platform of all intruders except those who actually wishor' to travel was tho butcher of Antwerp, who lassoed ths lion that hud strayed from its menagerie. Even he had his difficulties — not with tho lion — but/ with the lion-hearted policemen, who cowered under tho archway until they saw tho disturber of law and order lassoed, and then opened firo promiscuously with their revolvcis, and hit — the beast! No, bub the butcher, and broke his hand. Hod it not been "that the plucky man went on with the lassoing the policemen might never havo seen their ioiflil:?s again. Becauso a fortune-teller told them that their son would one day be a great poel, Mr. and Mis. Oliver Browne, of Trenton, Now Jorcey, havo decided to christen the child Longfellow Milton Tenny.son Bum 3 Browning Browne. Tha autobiographical volume which the lalo Michael Davitt completed shortly before- his dsa^h, and intended to publish under the playful title of "From Ballybrack to Jericho," is to bo suppressed. These rising trade returns (observes the Westminster Gazette) were all vary well as a pleasantry at the beginning, but now the Tariff Reformer feels that the thing is g-etting boyond a jokd The Metropolitan police protect an area of CM square milea; that is, a circle with a raduis of 15 miles, but not incidding the city of London. In China all the land belongs nominally to the State, but in practice is held for ages by the sams families. Tho average rent is half a crown per acre. The soil of the .Yangtze Valley is so rich that a square mile is capable of supporting 3840 persons. t Next to London, Manchester has the largest Jewish population of any English town. There are 28,000 Jews in Manchester, and 20,000 in Leeds. Liverpool has 7000. There are 827,166 Jews xa Great Britain. At sea-level, water boils at 212deg. F. ; at a height of 10,000 ft at 193deg. F. When Darwin crossed the Andes in 1835 ho boiled potatoes for three hours without making them soft. An extraordinary mishap is reported from tho Medical College, Philadelphia. In accordance with the terms of the will of Walt Whitman, the brain of I tho dead author has been prosorved lit j the museum of tho college, but one of ! ths attendants accidentally dropped the preserving jar in which it was kept. The jar was shattered, and its contents weio destroyed. Among curiosities of invention are tht. small gondola-shaped floats called Chballitos (little horse*) employed by fishermen on the coa6t of Peru. The rider rests on his knees and guides his water-pony with a paddle. Ho goes over tho roughest waves, arid penetrates tho surf and breakers without fear. Occasionally ho is dismounted, bnf immediately regains his seat. His little raft defies the stormiest sea. Every rule has its exceptions— f»von tho rule that water is the bent and handiest chock to fire. On a quay at Algiers lately, five tons of carbide had been placed noar a quantity of inflammable material, which suddenly caught fu-e. The firemen, instead of removing Iho boxes of carbide with hooks, smashed them, and then turned water upon the contents. Tho rcsuit was a great development of acetylene gas and a destructive, firo, which might have been prevented had the firemen known the properties of tha carbide.

Tho name of Miss Florence Warner, of Chicago, is associated with tho latest invention for obtaining photographs in natural colours. Ths Florence heliochromic plate is finely ruled in three colours, so as to permit of colour im- i ages being taken. Ifc is claimed that ' tho new plate, which is not yet on the ' market, is capable of taking colour snap- ' shots, and some excellent results have been shown, which had exposures only nf ons-fifticth part of a second. A farmer in Plainville, in the caster" part of the State, is said to be the ! greatest hoarder probably in Massachus- . ctts. In buying a two-thouGand-five-hundred-doliar-farm a few days ago, ho : offered in payment twonty-fivo thousand dimes, tha counting of which occupied seven hours. Tho buyer had not been ] affected by the recent money famine. Years ago ho began to hoard ten-cent ' pieces, his settled purpose being to ac- ; cumulato enough of them to buy a farm. No savings bank was ever trust- • ed by him. Last year (says the Sydney Bulletin) insurance companies were hit hard by marine losses ; this current financial year it looks as though firo lossas will givs the profit and loss accounts anaemia. On top of WaUach's big fire in MclI bourne comes the destruction of Cohen's warehouse at Newcastle, with damage estimated at £150,000. Tha whole block, including the Commercial Bank of Australia, had a narrow 03capc. The south-eastern corner of the continent has also boon having blistering heat, and that means extensive bush and grass fires. Few x\ustralian offices will insure grass at any price/ but there are some foreign concerns that gamble that or any other way. Much sympathy (writes the British. Weekly) will bo' felt for Mr. W. T. Stead in the death of his eldest son and right hand, Mr. William Stead, junior. Mr.' William Stead lias for long helped his father in the Review of Reviews, particuarly in the book department, and was his strenuous' colleague in the Daily Paper while that journal was published. He caught influenza, and blood poisoning resulted, which speedily brought the end. Mr. Stead ivas only thirty-three years old, and to all appearance had a career before, him. The King of tho Belgians is always being caught at something, and now it is highway robbery. That is, he has set tho front of his new palaco eight fest over ground that belongs to the city of Brussels. Of course he blamos his architect — but, however that may be, tho court of justice has ordered Leopold to set tho walls back where they belong; and Iho cily authorities say that if he doeun't obey, a force of workmen will bs set to removing every stone placed boyond the line of the King's land. From tho point of view of legal her- { cdity, neither the Coleridge nor any i other English family can compare with ! the Pollocks, the descendants of David Pollock, who a century ago kept a modest. saddler's shop near Charing Cross, London. Of David's fivo sons, one" becani9 Chief Justice of Bombay, another was Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and a third was Registrar of the London Court of Bankruptcy. Of the saddler's grandsons ten took to th& law as a fish to water ; and^ they included a Baron of the Exchequer, three I Masters of the Supromo Court, ono offi- i cial referee, three other barristers, and two solicilor3. In the next generation of David's descendants there aro nine barristers, including a King's Counsel and a Professor of Jurisprudence, whilei of, , solicitors there- aro seven. ' Mrs. Milton Prior,' wife of tho war corr'eopondent and artist, was knocked down by ie London County Council tramcar' in Lowioham High-road on 7th November, and sustained injuries to which she. sucpumbed gh'ortly afterwards at tho Miller Hospital, Greenwich, without recovering consciousness, from concussion and compression of the brain. She was tho daughter of Mr. John Grecvcs, surgeon, and was married to" Mi.. Prior in 1873. Jt ; is estimated that « quarter of a million Mohammedans have died of plague hi tho Punjab, solely becauso they rcfuso to evacuate infected villages on tho ground that Mohammedans are forbidden to flen from the wrath of God. The principal maulvis (law doctors) of tho Punjab have- now issued a fatwa (judicial decision) declaring that tho Koran expressly enjoins Mohammedans to quit places smitten by Allah with disease. Ths Government has welcomed this proclamation, and has offered to facilitate the printing and publishing of an unlimited number of copies. Sir Henry Hibbert, speaking at the Blackburn Chamber of Commerce on the importance of sending children to evening continuation schools, said in Glasgow, out of 110,000 children in elementary day schools in 1906, only 73 left boi'oro they were fourteen years of age, whilst in tho Lancashire . area 92 per cent left before attaining that ago. It was no surprise to him, in face of euch figures, that such an enormous number of valuable positions in this country in various professions were- occupied by Scotsmen. Their initial education was far sounder. The rdport of the Mount Morgans mine, West Australia (says tho Sydney Bulletin) for 1906 has only just come to light in Australia. According to this belated document, the actual loss on working was £7740; but as depreciation absorbed £21,200, and as £10,942 was written off on account of development previously charged against capital,' the profit and loss account shows a total loss of £39,882. The company, it socms, owed tho bank £14,523, and there were other creditors ; but this liability has been reduced by £6000 since July last. Also, having regard to recent developments and the improvod financial position, the directors have abandoned tho idea of forming the proposed development syndicate, and have returned the money subscribed. This syndicate was promoted in June, 1907, and 8., M., and Co. were asked to take control ; but as only £5242 of the £10,000 required was subscribed, the firm refused to go on. Sinca then A. E. Morgans, who previously resigned the management, has been directing affairs at this end. Latterly some good values have been met with in the north-west portion of the property, but the extent of the orebearing ground is not great, and the end of profitable mining app i - rs to be in .sight. Tho airship (says the Westminster Gazette) promises to add something to the comedy as well as to the Irasjrdy of life if the experience of tho Patna is to bo -repeated, as it was oldm_d anticipated with our own dirigible at the Crystal Palace. r lhe balloon broke away from the soldiers who were holding it, and swept across country ■with a gale behind it. It was seen in Wales, and it passed across into Ireland. There it hgs made several fitful ayptaranccs, and descended once to break oif some cf its parts, which gave it fresh buoyancy, and enabled if, to bound away a^nin, travelling this time in the direction of Norway. It may be that when the North Pole is at last reached there will be found thcio tho lematns of a modorn airship which has come drifting into the bolituiles never touched by tho foot of man. To ttartlo the e.\p!orer in thafc murmur would be a worthy end to a career that, luub been lull of surprise.