NEWS AMD NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1909, Page 12

NEWS AMD NOTES.

\ THE NEW EEGIME IN TURKEY. I The telegrams from Constantinople t this week (says the Westminster Gazette of Ist May) have baen like a succession of scenes from the middle ages. Tho deposition of the old Sultan, the proclamation of the new, the Fetva of the Sheikh-ul-lslam, the emptying of the palace with its accumulated human contents — eunuchs, slaves, women of ths harem, spies, cooks, pages, parrots — havo. provided material for much picturesque writing. But in front of it all we place the commept in which the Daily News correspondent, Mr. Pears — that admirable servant of tho press, who first threw light on the dark places, and inspired Mr. Gladstone's Bulgarian pamphlets — records his emotions at the pass-t ing of Abdul Hamid :—"I: — "I find it impossible to describe the feelings with which I acquaint j'ou with this culmination of Turkey's wonderful revolution. It is only those of us. — and they are now very few — who have lived in this capital for thirty-five years, who have groaned and travailed over the iniquities of its government, who Kave watched Bulgarian massacres, foll&wed by Armenian massacres, and these by Macedonian massacres, .who have seen the blood of many innocent victims flowing at our feet, and know directly something of the worst spy system that an unha~npered despot has ever elaborated — it is only we who can fully appreciate this dramatic change and all it promises for a happier future. " That the "wonderful revolution" will fulfil its promise must now be the fervent; wish of all those who havo watched it with" sympathy ia this country. Abdul Hamid has gone, and system prevails. Howevor, the burden of the future will rest not upon him, but upon the men who have made the revolution, and who will now take full^ responsibility for the Government. Their task is stupendous, and they deserve-, all 1 forbearance and sympathy in its .execution. They are in effective possession of Constantinople^ and of the regions west of it to Salonica and Adrianople. The rest of the Turkish Empire presents a spectacle of confused chaos in which murder and anarchy have free play. While constitutionalists and Reactionaries have been fighting at Constantinople massacres of innocent peopls have gone 011 un checked iD the provinces. Three bodies were cremated in England in 1885. Last year the number was 795. It is said that within the past forty years only one man has ever made good his escape from Dartmoor. Automatic hooters, which all shriek protestingly the moment the vehicle exceeds a certain speed, are now to be fixed to all motor-cars, 'buses, and cabs in London. Chinamen wear five buttons only on their coats, in order that they may keep in sight something to remind them of the five principal moral virtues which Confvcius recommended. These are humanity, justice,, order, prudence, and rectitude. ~ I . An American exchange points out that the U.S. Fleet travelled 42,000 miles, the coal bill being over £100,000 ; yet it passed fewer merchantmen flying Stars and Stripes than the number of its own t-at-tlcships. ' Referring to Mr. Lloyd-George's finan cial Statement, the Spectator says :—: — "We never remember so conjectural 3, Budget It is necessarily very largely guesswork, and it would not surprise us if the total yield of the. new taxes was a million out either way." - House-boats, which are at. present practically unknown in Germany, writes a Berlin correspondent, are to be built for the first time there by a firm at Stralau, "after the English pattern." "We were using lamps of 100,000 candle power, and could not see the small police bull's eyes," said a motorist at Kingston-on-Thames, explaining why he did not stop when called apon to do so. Mr. William O'Brien has undergone a severe operation in a private nursing home in Venice, and is making fairly satisfactory- progress. v Mr. A. C. H. Connor, the son of a policeman at Chatham, and an exapprentice^ of Chatham Dockyard, has been appointed Professor at the Chilian Naval School for Marine Engineers at Valparaiso. , One of the Litest additions to the American Museum of Natural History is a mummified duck, estimated to be three million years old, which was found in a sandstone stratum in Wyoming. A pigeon-trainer in Brussels has made a number of experiments with swallows as letter-carriers, and declares that these can perform a iong-distance journey in about half the time required by pigeons. An eianct calf and some jackal cubs Have been horn in the London Zoo (saye the Natal Mercury), and the Zoological Society exults. South African farmers wish that all jackal cubs were born in the London Zoo. A queer^tradition is responsible for the annual disappearance oi thousands of French silver five-franc pieces. When the coins were first circulated, it is said Napoleon concealed in one, written on asbestos .paper, a cheque on the Bank of France for £4000, payable 10 bearer. The result of the myth is that many of the pieces are "broken in two. After recording the dramatic narrative of the late Sultan's downfall, the Spectator observes :—"lt: — "It would be invidious to criticise harshly a fallen man, and I nothing but "harsh criticism would servo ' in this case. The only thing that can be said for Abd-ul-Hamdi is that, like many of the worst criminals of the French revolution, he slew from terror rather than from any actual delight in bloodshed for its own sake. He was like one of those dpgs who bite rathpi because they are cowards than because they are naturally fierce. To talk of "liberty" and "constitutionalism " in the present circumstances in Turkey is, in tho opinion of the Saturday Review, so absui d as to mislead ho one. If the Young Turks (it says) have acted " constitutionally," then the dissolution of the Long Parliament and the 18 Brumaire were ordinary incidents of Parliamentary government. We ' are, in fact, lace to face with a new military revolution far more pronounced than either of the preceding-. All power is in the hands of tha army. Tho Parliament can only exist as its tool, and the new Sultan, both from his own antecedents nnd the circumstances attending his ncmination, can only be the puppet of the victors The first phase of the revolution saw a Sultan set on the throne who still retained the prestige of thirty years of unrestricted' power ; his successor has not the strength due to prestige or to tried ability. It would, therefore, be both rash and futile to attempt to forecast the future. An average orange-tree produces about 20,000 oranges, and a lemon tree 8000 lemons..'

Major Andrade, tho tGovernor-Ganeral of Mozambique, has been unanimously elected an honorary member of the (London Society of Architects, in recognition of his professional and administrative cervices to ■South Africa. Now that Egypt has turned her bean fields into cotton fields, Asia Minor is making money out of beans. Asia Minor exported 29,670 tons last year. Portugal, 9388 tons, was the best customer ; then came in this order, France, tho United Kingdom, Italy, Malta, and Germany. The financial statement of the London County Council shows that the income last year was £10,514,867, and the expenditure £10,829,984, including £5,615,114 on education. The surplus on the tramway account amounted to £44,557. ♦ Tho radium institute of Heidelberg ■will bo the first to commence actual work, as an endowment has been secured for it, and it is to be opened for work before the end of the year. Radio-ac-tive material is close at hand, as there are sedimentary deposits in the springs ml Kreuznaeh from which radium-con-taining substances can be obtained. Applicants to the Education Aid So-, ciety, founded to help talented young Jews or Jewesses whose lack of mean's prevents them entering the professions to -which they aspire, are considerably more numerous from those wishing to enter the musical profession than another, states the annual report. "I shall always be proud to have my name connected with, the colony which is always foremost in her loyal attachment to the Empire," said Lord Ranfurly on being presented with tho honorary freedom of the Patternmakers' Company at the Guildhall. Including coin in the banks as well as in the pockets of the"people jof the United Kingdom, the amount of gold currency for the year 1908 was about £100,000,000, of silver currency £24,500,000, and of bronze currency £3,000,.000, mailing a grand total of £127,500,000. \ A gramophone safe lock which will only open when ths owner repeats through the "keyhole" a plm.se that has pr^viouply been recorded from his own voice, has been placed on the market in America. Ingenious, but impracticable. Imagine the owner -with a bad cold! We imagine that he would not confine himself to the keyword. During the last eleven years £1,121,570 has passed into the rating account of, Leeds Corporation from the profits of the municipal tracing concerns. Tramways contributed £564,893, waterworks £314,882, gasworks £201,176, and electric lighting works £40,619. Rudyard Kipling writes to an American friend from Rome that tSe Wright Brothers have already accomplished in airships what his story, "With the Night Mail," describes as taking place m 2000 A.D. — Not quite. Wright Brothers do not yet carry timber cargoes through the air. Some time ago the Copenhagen zoological authorities introduced a boy as a playmate for their monkeys at the gardens, v with a view to educating the apes. The experiment, is it reported, is so far successful that the animals are able to ride cycles and dress like human beings. According to a Los Angeles despatch the remarkable fee of £10,000 has been paid to Dr. Trusworthy of .that city for his attendance on the late Mr. E. J. Baldwin, the Californiaxi millionaire, who was known as "Lucky" Baldwin, during his last illness. The doctor is said to have declared that if he was paid at the same rate as the -lawyers who are handling Mr. Baldwin's estate hb ought to receive double the amount. In order to circumvent the army of journalists and photographer*; which has followed ex-President Roosevelt from America, the Governor of Uganda has adopted the very unusual course of issuing a proclamation announcing that any one who attempts to follow the expedition will be "forcibly deported." It will be interesting to watch how the eutorprising Yankee journalists will meet this check. 'In a speech on "Greater South Africa," at the last meeting .of the Royal Colonial Institute, the. Hon. Sir Lewis Micheil said : — Even tho peace of Vereeniging might have proved but a truce had it not been for that signal act of policy whereby the victors sought to acquire, in that supreme moment, the confidence 'and esteem of the vanquished. It was a daring experiment, possible only to a' truly imperial people. In 6pite of our terrible losses and the resentment they naturally aroused, the British Parliament, backed by the Briish people, acting with a touch of genius and with a sure and swift decision not often met with in the rough annals of our island story, \ restored to ihe Dutch, but within the empire, the entire measure of self-government they had struggled for outside our rule. We impoied no galling conditions, made no tinv'd' leservatioo? Only the rilken tie of the Crown remained. Europe stood amazed. In Sonjh Africa there was a paus'j, a momenta -y silence^ a solemn hush, a communing, as it were, with the buried deatf. And theri, faint at first, but gradually growing in force, there came alike from Duich and English a cry foi closer i-mon. Out of this extraordinary, demonstration is, I venture ,to, say, about to arise that Greater South Africa which I have given as the. title of this paper. The making of buttons from milk is a new and nourishing industry in Hamburg. The milk is converted into a hard bony material resembling ivory^ tortoiseshell and celluloid, and known in commerce as "Galalith." The inventors of tho process have succeeded in obtaining an article which, unlike celluloid, does not readily burn, which is odourless, and which takes a high polish and any colour desired. It is made into toilet articles, buttons, dominoes, dice, chess figures, piano keys, electrical fixtures, etc. The Duke of Richmond's offer to give Port Gordon Harbour, in BanfFshire, to the inhabitants of the town has been declined. The town was polled, and all the men over eighteen years old voted, whether to take the gift or refuse it. [ At a crowded meeting the Tesujt of the ! poll was declared. By a majority of fifteen votes the Duke's offer was declined, and the result was received in dead silence. The harbour cost no less than £20,000, and it was the Duke's intention shortly to extend it. The first permanent station for airships to be opened in New York is to be built on the roof of the Hotel Astor,according to an announcement by William C. Muschenheim, proprietor of that hotel. Mr. Muschenheim said he was prepared to spend £5000 in devoting 60,000 square feet on the roof of the building to the airship station, which was to be in readiness for aeroplanes, dirigible balloons, and other oraft of the .air before the Ist of May,