NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 133, 12 June 1909, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

THE STRANGERS' GALLERY. A somewhat singular debate took places in the House of Commons on 20th April (writes the "Westminster Gazette;) in regard to tha admission of strangers to the 'House, which has been entirely suspended since the demonstration" of tho "suffragettes" last session. A Bill was beforo the House for applying penalties to strangers who brawl, on the recommendation of a, strong committee which has been considering the matter during the last few weeks. The committee recommended that the offending straDgers should bo remitted to the ordinary courts and made liable to imprisonment or fine. .Whereupon the •Hpuso of Commons saw a long vista of fearful consequences arising out of this procedure, including the hailing of the Speaker or the Sergeant-at-Arms before a. common tribunal, and their cross- | examination by bullying lawyers, and j declined indignantly to submit its high officials to such possibilites. Thus the •81l is withdrawn, and the galleries will remain closed. We confess it is a puzzle to us that the committee should have proposed this unpopular procedure, for, as several members pointed out, tha ■House of Commons already has the power, on the- warrant of the Speaker, to commit any offender to Newgate for the offence of brawling. That, however, is a detail. 'What strikes us as singular I in this debate is the assumption of most of the speakers that the public right of entiy to the House of Commons is of no importance, and that the relief from the importunity of strangers demanding admission to the galleries has been so blessed that tha House is quite entitled to study its own convenience and keep them out. venture to suggest that this is a view of the case which cannot prevail. It is impossible to contemplate the permanent exclusion of the public from the House of Commons on tha ground that it is a saving of trouble to the members. That exclusion is a serious loss and deprivation to the general public, and if it is prolonged beyond absolute necessity it will in subtle 'but very real ways affect the popular view of the House of Commons. The presence of the press is certainly a guarantee to the public that the words of Parliament shall be reported. But the words are not everything. There is the scene, the play of personalities, the < spectacle of government at the heart of the Empire, which no words can reproduce, and which, every citizen of the Empire naturally at one time or another desires to see for himself. Which of us would not desire his children to have the samo privilege? And when the colonist or the foreign visitor comes to see the mother of Parliaments, are we perpetually to say that she must remain veiled and conduct her operations behind this screen, because she can find no way of dealing with a, disorderly "suffragette?" Russians are said not to eat pigeons because in the Greek Church the Scripture dove is a- holy bird. Nothing better could be imagined (says the Westminster Gazette) than that each speculator who endeavours to "corner" wheat should be in turn crushed by the weight of the cargoes pouring in from all over the world. Type for printing in' one hundred and fifty languages is owned by the Oxford University Press, London. In 1236 the Danube river was frozen to the bottom, and remained so for a long time. The oldest Royal house in Europe is that of Mecklenburg. It traces its descent from Genseric, who sacked Rome in A.D. 455. Of British birds' eggs a complete set is worth about £200. Chloral was discovered by Liebig in 1831. B In Siam the flies are a plague, and every private soldier in the army must catch one thousand daily. Tho word "cocktail" is said to be derived from "octel," the Aztec drink. The world's oceans are estimated to contain seven million cubic miles of salt. Nine-tenths of Germany's population can be fed oy products of her own soil. Mr. Poster Fraser, the well-known author, is to leave England at an early date on a lecturing tour of Australasia. The heart of the oak begins to rot at about the age of 300 years. Of the holly it is said that there is a specimen 410 years old near Aschaffenburg, Germany. ; The historic bell which was captured at the Palace of Tippoo Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam in 1799, and presented to Warren Hastings lately fetched i! 6 10s by auction at Hawick. The British colony in Borneo issues its own coinage and notes. All accounts are kept in United States currency. Zinc coffins are largely usea in Vienna. The more expensive coffins are made of copper, costing from £500 to £1000. Recent additions to the French army's field equipment were several automobile refrigerators to transport fresh meat. It has been discovered that fifteen to twenty drops of oil will form a coating sufficient to prevent the evaporation o? ■water from fire-buckets. ' The wireless telegraphy station at the' Eiffel Tower in Paris has been for some weeks in regular communication with its kindred station at Glace Bay, in Canada. In a general way it is true of , the European conntries that those which have the lowest birth-rate have the lowest death-rate, and, conversely, where the most babie3 are born, there the most babies die. Lord Redesdale, who celebrated his seventy-second birthday the other day, is famous as a landscape gardener, and has been the King's chief adviser in all garden improvements at the Royal residences. The largest royal sturgeon ever landed on English shores was on view in London on 2nd March. It measured lift 4in in length, with a girth of sft 4in, and turned the scale at 7351b. If the proportion of Jews who are victims of tuberculosis is comparatively small (writes L'Univers Israelite, x-aris), the cause is that for two thousand years ihe Jews have been town dwellers. They havo become habituated to the town and its sedentary occupations. Vessels of the German navy have been erjuipppd with a novel liie-saving apparatus resembling a huge basket with its sides made of rope Jadders, lowered over the side. Several persons can climb it at the same time. According to a memorandum attached to the draft of« the Irish National Schools" (Heating and Cleansing Bill) there is no authority for heating National schools in Ireland, and each pupil is expected to bring an armful of turf for that purpose.

In some evidence given before the British Railway and Canal Commission, it was stated that the Midland Bailway, Company was the largest owner of wagons in the country, having 129,000; the London and North- Western being second, with 78,000 wagons ; and the Great Western third. The millionaire Duke of Westminster is said to possess a magnificent set of silver plate, which is declared by experts to be the finest in the world. But in the matter of quantity, his Grace of Cumberland is alleged to have as much as twelve tons ! The great aluminium works at Kinloehleven, Argyllshire, near the famous Pass of Glencoe, are now completed after five years' work. After a fall of six miles the water power turns great turbines in the centre of the newly-built town. At Guthrie, Oklahoma, a few days ago, the Osage Allotting Commission completed its work of dividing the Osage lands among the members of the tribe. There are now 2229 members Jiving, and each one receives 656 acres. At a fa^n valuation each Osage i£| worth £8000 in land and money received for other interests, such as town sites. Two or three "Eureka veterans" have passed away with in the last few weeks in Australia, and the fa/ct has been given all prominence. Occasionally we hear of one in New Zealand. The Bulletin is a little ' suspicious. It says that there were le&s than two hundred men in the stockade, and that quite two thousand deaths of that little company have been already recorded. At the quarterly meeting of the Cornwall Sea lusheries Committee it was reported that all round the coast dogfish are so numerous that in many instances drift fishing has been discontinued. The fishermen attribute the failure of the winter mackerel fishery to the prevalence of these voracious creatures. The utilisation of cotton stalks iD the manufacture of paper has long been recognised as a possibility, and report now comes from Atalanta, Georgia, that a mill is /to be put up in that vicinity for the application of the process on a commercial scale. It will cost about,£so,000, and will consume the stalks from cotton fields within a radius of twenty miles. Men prominent in the Southern Cotton Association are the promoters of the new enterprise. \ Siberia (says the Globe) has the coldest weather known anywhere in the world. At Verkhoyaonsk, Siberia, 90.4 degrees below zero was observed in January, 1888, which goes below anything ever recorded in the world before or since. At that point the average temperature for January is nearly 64 degrees below zero. This town is 330 feet above the level of the sea, and during the entire winter the weather is calm and clear. The motor-cai is to be used in the Italian colonies iv Africa to complete the imperfect railroad system, cars being run regularly over the route from Giumbo to Mogadisco. A survey is now being made for a short line of rail from Mogadisco to Afgoi, about twenty-five miles, and it is believed that with small expense the rest of the region can bo effectively connected by large motor-cais capable of carrying a considerable quantity of freight. Concerning ex-President Castro, the Sydney Bulletin says: — "The reject of Venezuela is at sea ; and there he has to stay owing to tie refusal of every civilised Power to allow him to land. The only place that hankers for him is Venezuela. But there are disadvantages about Venezuela from his view point. The Daily Allail prints this: — If Senor Castro should proceed to Carupano (Venezuela), he will land in charge of the port General Acosta, who spent eight years in. chains in the Maracaibo dungeons at his orders,. General Acosta is thirsting for revenge. And Castro's troublo is that he stands to find an Acosta at pretty well every port of his homeland." The • current' years is notable as one of centenaries of distinguished men in art, letters, and public affairs. To these must be added invention, for Cyrus Hall M'Cormick, inventor of the world-famed reaper, which has wrought a revolution in the culture of cereals, was born on 15th February, 1809 (the year ia which his father's mind was largely occupied with models of imper- j feet appliances for mechanical reaping). The father was of Scottish-Irish descent, and his son showed remarkable inventive genius before he was fifteen. Ml'Gormick the younger died on 13th May, 1884, and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin has just published a, centenary memorial volume with a portrait and brief biography. "An earthquake," writes Mr. Frank A. Perrett, formerly honorary assistant at the Royal Vesuvian Observatoiy, in an article on "The Messina Earthquake" in the April Century, '"is an undulating vibration of the ground resulting from some sudden movement of the underlying strata. This may be produced by a volcanic explosion, the breaking of a stratum of rock under strain, or the [ sudden intrusion of lava between the strata or into a fracture, the types respectively known as volcanic, tetonic, arid inter-volcanic. My own impression [ in experiencing these shocks was that of a rubbing together of masses under pressure, which throws the adjoining material into vibration. If you put a little water into a thin wide-mouthed goblet, wet the finger-tip, and rub it round the rim, a sound will be produced, and the water will be set in vibration, like the ground waves of an eaithquake. The perambulating restaurant (writes a Paris correspondent) is the latest novelty of the Paris streets. It owes its inception to a restaurateur in the Grenelle quarter, who observed that there are daily large numbers of clerks, artisans, and workmen hi the district who have no time to go out to lunch at a restaurant. The caterer has bought a mule and a small van, in which is fatted a kitchen range with several hot dishes all ready, and sends it out along the streets in charge of a cook. A horn announces the presence of the van to the people, who come out and are handed on hot plates a portion of roast meat' or other dish with vegetables, cheese, and dessert. The scheme is a great success, and the caterer is doing a large business. Sir Frank Crisp is one of the most popular residents of Henley, and his popularity is explained by incidents like the following : He received a great many telegrams at his country house, and when he was knighted he declared that he owed much of his success to the efficiency of the telegraph service at the local post office. He invited all the members of the staff to dinner to celebrate his knighthood, and during the dinner he learned that it is the rule that when a woman telegraphist leaves the service to be married &hs receives an allowance of ouo month's pay for every year she has served in tho post office. Sir Frank promptly announced that in future ho would doubly the allowance to every Henley woman telegraphist who married, and since then he has carried out his promise to the extent of £45 in one case, and £80 in /mother.