NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 73, 27 March 1909, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

REAL DEMOCRACY. It seems (says the Argonaut) that Europe can still furnish some examples of real democracy. A little while ago we had occasion to admire the attitude of the President of the Fiench Republic in his refusal to publish the details of his daughter's trousseau. He said that he was an average citizen who happened through the exigencies of politics to be raised iyto temporary prominence and that tire matrimonial affairs of his daughter were not of greater importance than those of any other girl. As a result the wedding of Miss Fallieres passed almost unnoticed amid other celebrations of a like nature. Now"' we have the election of Dr. Adolf Deucher to the presidency of, the Swiss Republic for the fifth time', although not consecutively. Dr. Deucher is seventyeight years of age, and as president of the republic he receives an annual salary of about eight thousand dollars. He is a man of wide education and culture, but his household is conducted along the lines of rigid simplicity approved by the Swiss people and sanctioned by custom. A fbrmej British minister relates that upon one occasion when he called upon the president the door was opened by the president's wife, who had been summoned by his ring from the family washfcub and who was still wiping the soapsuds from her arms. It is remembered, too, that in 1904 the son of the President of the Swiss Republic was an. hotel waiter, who was thus acquiring the practical experience necessary to his intended career as an hotel proprietor. Helen Keller, the famous blind, deafe and dumb scholar, is annoyed by a flooTT of visitors at her Rhode Island home, and has decided to move to a small farm near Brunswick, Maine, where she hopes to be able to devote more time to following her cligseu work. Colonel Sir Duncan A. Johnston, K.C.M.G., who received his knighthood in 1906 for services rendered on the South African Inquiry Committee, will be president of the geographical section of the British Association at Winnipeg from 25th August to Ist September. Prohibitionists in Georgia mean business. According to Wide World, they are prosecuting newspapers which print whisky advertisements, on the ground that the papers are hired agents and solicitors for whisky houses in violation of the State Prohibition Law. In Mr. Stevens's sale of natural history objects yesterday at his great rooms, King-street, Covent-garden (says the Times of 9th February) the principal lot was an egg of the great auk. From 1847 to 1865 it was in the collection of Mr. J. Hardy, of Dieppe, who bequeathed it to his son, to whose daughter it passed in turn, and she sent it to the sale room. This egg, therefore., does not increase the number of the seventyfour that are known. The ground colour is light, and the markings are thin,i f is blown at both ends and slightly cracked, so that it cannot be reckoned among the first-class specimens. It is, however, of very good shape. One one side is the inscription "Pingouin," the French name of the great auk in what is believed to be the handwriting of Dufresne, the keeper of the King's Cabinet at Paris. There is a similar inscription on an egg of the great auk in the Edinburgh Museum, undoubtedly obtained through Dufresne. The auctioneer alluded to the fact that several eggs had of late gone out of the country. Mr. Parkin, a well-known ornithologist, made the first offer of 150 guineas, and the bidding went up by advances of ten guineas to 180 guiTieas. After a short pause 185 guineas was bid, and at 190 guineas Mr. Fenton became the purchaser. In reply to a letter describing something of the work the Salvation Army is carrying on among- tlje very poor this winter (sa-ye The Times), General Booth has received the following letter, signed by D. M. Probyn, General, Keeper of H.M. Privy Purse : — I have submitted to the King your letter of tho sth February, and before his Majesty left London this morning I received his command to forward the enclosed cheque for one hundred guineas as a donation from his Majesty towards the great work in which you and your officers are, with such success, daily engaged, in relieving the necessities of the deserving poor, both in the metropolis and other parts of the kingdom. The King desired me to say how very glad he was to hear of the improved state of your health, and further to add his Majesty's sincere hope that you may long be spared to carry on the great work to which you have unceasingly and with such success devoted so many years of a long life. The largest electric power station in the world will shortly be erected within fourteen miles of Johannesbivrg under the terms of a contract officially announced, by which the Victoria Falls Power Company will supply electric power to practically all the mines in the great group. Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, who is visiting, America with his Ayife and daughter, is one of the wealthy Roman Catholic peers- of England, and lateljr bought the old abbey of Marmountier in Touraine, to save it frorp conversion into a factory. He was a member of the surveying party that laid out the route of the Northern Pacific railroad in the early 'seventies, and then took part with General Custer in skirmishes with the Sioux. Late Home exchanges report enormous catches of herrings off Exmouth. For several mornings in succession the Exmouth and Lympstone boats have come in laden with catches varying from four thousand to forty thousand, which have been soldi at from thiity to forty shillings a thousand. In one instance a boat had fully a hundred thousand in its nets, and was obliged to hand over Bixty thousand ot them to other boats. The heavy catch resulted in the de(struction of the nets, and it will cost more than the fish fetched to repair the damage. An apparatus patented by Colonel B. R. Diet?, of the 7th Dragoon Guards, is intended to displace the flag-waving method of signalling in which the signak are read almost ac easily by the enemy. The invention consists of a disk about one- foot in diameter, with a hollow metal handle. On tli6 disk is. a semicircular flap, working in a spindle operated by a bolt action, which, at the will of the operator, displays an entirely white or an entirely black disk. The longs and shorts of a Mor.=e code are thus made readable by changing ironi black to white and vico versa. The portion of tli6 apparatus directed towards the enemy if splashed with invisible colour. On a dull day a message can bo read with the naked eye at a distance of two thousand yards, and with the aid of glasses the s>igna) has beep read up to six thousand yards. Professor Robert W. Wood, of the Johns Hopkins University, has perfected an invention that may revolutionise the present costly end cumbersome methods of studying the stars and exploring the universe for new planets, suns, moons, and asteroids. In his new telebcopc there is no glass. The reflecting mirroi •is a bowl-shaped dish of mercury, revolved at a high speed and presenting a polished, even, concave surface that magnifies the images of objects above it in a \vonderful manner.

In connection with the extraordinary outrage at Tottenham, in which PoliceConstable Tyler was murdered, in the discharge of his -duty, the Daily Telegraph (sajys the Spectator) has done a useful scsrvice of quoting the official statistics of the injuries sustained by the metropolitan police in the execution of their cftaty. The total casualties for 1907 amounted to three thousand one hundred anscl eighty-four, two thousand one hundred and eighty-two coming under the head of "assaulted by prisoners or injured >vhen making arrests." The Atmtßalian blacks employ a kind of hypnotism in the capture of parrots. These birds, aTe easily pub off their balance by, any circular motion,- so selecting a tree with a number of parrots sitting in the branches, a black wilJ walk rovmdi and round it at a distance of from tea to fifteen feet from the trunk, and will keep this up monotonously for a long time. The Dirds look down and follow him with their eyes. Presently they grow dizzy and fall one after another to the ground', where they are easily captured. Messina fnrnished early in the nineteenth century a new word for the German language. It was from there (says the Argonaut) that oranges were first shipped to Germany, and the fruit was known for a long time after its advent, as "Apfel aus Messina" — apple from Messina. After many years "Apfel aus Messina" degenerated into "Apfel Messina," and finally it became "Apfelsine," the name by which oranges are still known among German-speaking people. The receiver of one of the traction companies in New York city is leading a movement against the so-called "ambulance chasers," or lawyers who make a business of promoting damage suits against railroads and street railways on the basis of contingent fees, which run from 20 to 50 per 'cent, of the amount of damages sought to/ be recovered. The plan is to have a law enacted making the attorney in such cases liable for the costs of the suit in case it goes against his client. Such, a law ought to prove effective as against the prosecution of fraudulent or baseless claims for clients who are financially irresponsible. The unemployed demonstrations arranged by the Social Democrats on the occasion of the Royal visit (writes The Times Berlin correspondent) led to disorderly scenes. • About six thousand persons attended the different meetings. The audience at one of them attempted to reach the' Town Hall, which is situated behind the Castle, but they were driven back by the police to the east, where they were reinforced by another meeting which was just dispersing. The crowd began to tear down the flags with which the horse and motor omnibuses were decorated in honour of the day. At the corner of the Kochstrasse, the crowd refusing to budge before a regiment of Riflemen of the Guard, the commander ordered the troops to march straight through. This they did, and succeeded in forcing a passage. The climax was reached in the Gensdarmenmarkt, in front of the Royal Theatre. The demonstrators there tore down every flag they could reach. A bookseller who resented this interference with his decorations was roughly handled. Finally a strong force of police came on the scene, and after a hard struggle, in which many of the demonstrators were cut and bruised, they divided and broke up the crowd. Several arrests were made. Mr. F. Vaughan, who for six and a half years held the position of Police Magistrate at Maryborough (says an Australian paper), has severed his connection with the public service, having reached the age limit. Mr. Vaughan was born in Wales in 1839, and educated at Madras College, St. Andrews, Scotland. He arrived in South Australia in 1855, the voyage occuping 137 days. He went to the south-east, and subsequently engaged in sheep farming near Penola'and Mount Gambier, where he was intimately associated with Adam Lindsay Gordon, then a trooper at Penola, and knew Adam Farsch, who made the famous ride from the disastrous wreck of the Admella at Cape Northumberland, fifty years ago, which deed Gordon immortalised in tho poem "The Ride from the Wreck." Mr. Vaughan was also at Illinawortina, at the head of the Flinders Range in central South Australia. It is being generally suggested, as a result of the Republic disaster (notes an American journal), that all ships carrying passengers hereafter be required to equip themselves with wireless telegraph apparatus. This is certainly one of the lessons taught by the saving performanfces of the new invention in the present case. It is further suggested that other vessels also be required to carry wireless equipment, to the end that all ships may keep themselves informed as to the proximity of other vessels when moving in a dense fog. A difficulty here is that distances could only bo told roughly by wireless communication, since ships in a fog easily lose their reckoning. But it would seem that this device could be used to establish a greater measure of safety than now exists for navigation in a fog. An eminent French architect od a recent visit to the United States made a detailed study of New York's architectural development, declaring as a result that a wonderful opportunity lay before its future builders by malting it a city of towers. He spoke both from the view of utility and of beauty. Mr. Ernest Flagg, the architect of the Singer building, and of at least two State capitols, in a recent contribution to one of the New York newspapers, showed how the fangs of the skyscraper might be drawn by a tower-style of construction. His theory is that for a certain numbei of stories the walls of a great building should be allowed to rise perpendicularly from the street line, as they do now. Above that point public authority should project in imagination a pyramid which would define building boundaries. The architect would then sketch out prisms so recessed from the original perpendicular wall as to bring them entirely within the pyramidal conception. The angle of inclination of these facet of the pyramid • would be decreed by public authority so as to insure the bathing by the sun of the surface of the streets. New York s sunless canons would not be extended. A writer in the Springfield Republican observes : — Japanese statesmen unswervingly proceed to carry out their policy of reducing military expenditures in spite of anti-Japanese agitation on our Pacific coast, but whether our jingoes will bo persuaded of Japan's (Sincerity is doubtful. Nothing could convince them, piobably, that tho Japanese are determined to have peace Short of absolute disarmament of the Mikado's army, the dismantling of his forts, and the sinking of his navy by Imperial order, in a day or two Baron Komura will deliver an important speech on Japanese foreigh policy, In which he will make another serious effort to reassure even the labour unions of San Francisco, but perhaps his effort will bo futile. Wherever the Hobsonian conception gets well rooted, it becomes an obsession ; and the most that can be done is to prevent its spread in the sane area of the p.afciio niina.