LONDON GOSSIP. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 115, 17 May 1909, Page 2

LONDON GOSSIP. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) HITTING BELOW THE BELT. The little disagreement between Lord Charles Beresford and Admiral Sir Percy Scott over the order to paint ship for the German Emperor, was recalled in a rather unpleasant manner at the dinner of the Association of Municipal Corporations the other night. Sir Percy Scott was one of the speakers, and considering that Lord Charles has just been retired, it was rather bad form on his part to say, to laughter and cheers : "Good results (in shooting)- are only obtained when tJie necessary gun training has been recognised as 01 more importance than some other things that we sometimes give attention to." It will bo remembered that when the speaker ' said something similar in a signal to his captains he was ordered to expunge it from the records. THE PLAGUE OF 1666. Workmen who are excavating in Southwark Bridge-road in connection with tho extension of the headquarters of the London Fire Brigade, discovered on Saturday a box about 6ft. long and 18in. deep and wide, which, on being opened, was found to contain human remains. Examination s.howed that there were 17 human skulls and bones to correspond. Tho box \vas very old and, was pitch-tarred. It is surmised that the excavations are talcing place near one of the old plague pits. NEW ZEALAJVDERS IN WEST AFRICA. Miss Decima Moore, tho. popular actress, is now the wife of Major Guggisberg) R.E., and she has collaborated with her husband in a ..book describing their adventures when she accompanied Major Guggisbers; on a boundary de marcation expedition in West Africa. It is an interesting book for the general reader, and has some passages of special interest to New Zealand, dealing with the work of New Zealand and Queensland surveyors on the coast since 1900. Of the difficulties of this work through dense tropical forests, without any landmarks, Miss Moore gives & vivid and sympathetic account : — "The reader can imagine what wearisome work this must have been, especially if a surveyor lost his assistant and had no white man to talk to. The monotonous slogging away at. the 'bush,' the minute eye-wearing work with the instruments, the endless calculations, the close hoc-house atmosphere, the eternal gloom, the lonely evenings, the heavy sweating sleep in the still damp of {ihe nights. Small wonder that the 'Coaster' gives a whoop of joy on seeing the smoke of his homeward-bound ship on the horizon." THE CHILDREN ACT. The Children Act, 1908, came into force yesterday. It effects important changes in the law with respect to infant life protection, the prevention of cruelty, juvenile smoking, reformatory and industrial schools, and yoxithful offenders. COLONIAL EMIGRATION IN 1908. The report of tho Emigrants' Information Office for 1908 shows that on the whole there was a marked falling off last year in th 9 number of people leaving these shores for the colonies and the States. There was a striking decrease in the numbers proceeding to North America, and this was only partly compensated for by the increased numbers going to Australia and New Zealand. South Africa induced little fresh emigration, but other parts of the Continent, such as "East and West Africa, ' Uganda, and Nyasaland, .formed the subject of enquiries pointing to a growing interest in those dependencies. The office received 16,500 letters, as against 18,900 in 1907, and despatched 79,100 communications as compared with 67,900. BRITISH DOMINION OP THE AIR. Dr. Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who is taking a piominent part in ihe promotion, of aeronautics, delivered an address on Saturday before the Canadian Club at Ottawa on the successful flights of Mr. Douglas M'Curdy and Mr. Baldwin at Baddeck, Nova. Scotia. He appealed to the Government to assist the young Canadians to continue their experiments, and Mr. Fielding, Minister of Finance, intimated that an effort would be made to retain their services for the Empire. Earl Grey said he was confident that England would be as supreme in the air as on the 6ea, and he • was satisfied that Canada should have the honour of giving the Empire the machine which would enable her to maintain that supremacy. MOTOR 'BUSES TOO HEAVY. The Commissioner of Police, after very careful investigation, has come to the conclusion that the motor 'buses at present plying in and about London are too heavy and make an excessive noise. He has decided that 'buses applying for licenses in the future must not weigh more than 3£ tons, a limit which he is assured will permit of the accommodation of 26 passengers. The noise is believed to be duo largely to the defective condition of the machinery, and when this is exposed it will be regarded as evidence of negligence. The motor 'buses licensed in London during the last few years were as follow :—: — 1903 13 1904 , 31 1905 241 1906 -. 783 1907 ... 1205 1903 shows a diminution. TASMANIAN TIMBER FOR CHINA Arrangements have- been made for the shipment of a very large cargo of Tasmanian sleepers for the Chinese railways. The steamer Scottish Monarch, now en route from Nova Scotia to Sydney, will load the cargo in the Huon next month, and will discharge at either Whampoa or Hongkong. The shipment will consist of 84,000 sleepers, equivalent to 2,520,000 ft. This will be the largest cargo of limber that has left Tasmania in one bottom. FATXING AMERICAN BIRTH-<RATE. The 'birth-rate in America is falling rapidly. In New York and the five New (England States the rate is as low as that of ißVance. A New York correspondent quotes the declaration of 'Mr. IRossiter, chief clerk of the Census Bureau, that "the people of the United States are concluded to be only half as weD able to rear -children, at any rate without personal sacrifice, under the ■conditions now prevailing, as their predecessors proved themselves to be in 1790." He attributes tho fall of the birth-rate, which is responsible for the restriction of the normal growth of the native-born population, 'by the appalling total of 20,000,000, to the movement citywards and to the tendency to live in flats. "THE HAWK IWAS KILLED." A cable message from Johannesburg stales that recently a. hawk flew against the wires conveying electric current from the Victoria. ' Fulls power-station at Brakpan, with tar-reaching results. Tho binl created a short circuit. One wirewas burned off, ynd the line was earthed. This set up a surge, which punctured the insulation at both turbines at the elation. Tho effect was to put the sluWon out oi action, and 100 stamps $mt

of 300 on the Simmer Deep were hung up. The tube milk at the (Simmer and Jack and Knights Deep were stopped, and one-third of the supply, which is xisually given to tho C.S.A.R., was cut off,, and several mines had to do with less current. It will bo a week before both turbines are again at work. Tho cable concludes with the announcement that "the hawk was killed." MINERAL DISCOVERY AT THE CAPE. The Cape Times reports that a discovery of manganese has just br«n made on the Devil's Peak, the deposits, which aro believed to be rich, covering an extent of about 1000 acres. 'Mr. H. Evans, of the firm of Petersen and Co., chemists, on behalf of some financial firms interested in the matter, has made an inspection of the site. He states that from his observations he is satisfied that there is a very big deposit of manganese, stretching from the first peak of the Devil's Peak, on the Capetown side right through to the side above Groot Schuur. STIRLING CASE APPEALS. Reclaiming notes were yesterday lodged in the Court of Session, 'Edinburgh, by the unsuccessful parties in the Stirling divorce case. 'Both Mrs. Stirling and Lord Northland have reclaimed against Lord Guthrie's decision.