NEWS AND NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 41, 18 February 1911, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES

[The following items of iatelligena have been selected from files received by the latest mail.] Apropos of the traffic in arms from the French Bed Sea port 01 Jibuti tc Muscat at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, the Paris correspondent of The Times reports that the conviction is spreading that Great Britain and France must settle this question b> some quid pro quo to the latter for the surrender of her rights at Muscat. As for the small group in the French Chamber which is interested in the maintenance of this nefarious traffic, they could be isolated or conciliated if the French Government could come before Parliament and say it had Teceived something A-om England in Exchange for the privilege i -which enables French citizens to prosecute the traffic in arms to the Persian Gulf. The Toronto' correspondent of The Times notes that, for the first time since the cession of Quebec to Great Britain a French-Canadian has been appointed commanding officer of the forces in that province. Colonel Roy, who has been the principal^ staff officer for some time, received his official appointment on New Year's Day. Later at various rsginfentai headquarters he was warmly congratulated by his Brother officers. At the Armoury oi the 65th Carabiniers the band played "Vive la Canadienne," and sharp at noon the British National Anthem. The day was marked by a sympathetic reunion of .French and English' officers, and by signal evidences of th© loyalty which binds both races to the Throne. Referring to the Houndsditch affair, the German National Zeitung observed : "A half-burnt house, two dead Anarchists, 14 wounded policemen, the fire brigade, and soldiers, a whole district in a state of blockade, London, Great Britain, and the rest of Europe in feverish excitement and amazed confusion — such is the Tesult of ths three days' battle between, anarchy and the power of the State in the great capital of London, the metropolis of the "land of freedom/ which grants admittance to every conspirator and criminal with an excess of careless hospitality. It will not be Pharisaic arrogance on our part if wesay that such a tragl-comedy as this in London, in which the power of the /Stare plays so inglorious a part, would not be possible with us." The pay of the British Army officers and their enforced expenditure may be gauged by the case of a lieutenant in the Army Service Corps, recently prosecuted, according to the Times, by a firm of naval outfitters, of Devonport, for failure to make montnly payments ot indebtedness, as agreed upon. In the course of his evidence the lieutenant, said he was receiving 10s a daj^, or £15 -per month of 30 days. _ Out of that theminimum amount he was compelled to pay per month was as follows • — Subscription mess and actual messing, £8 10s ; servant and groom, £1; washing, 15s; oil, cleaning materials, etc., 10s; sundry expenses, 30s, leaving a balance of not more than £2 15s lor clothing and personal expenses. Sir James Whitney, Premier of Ontario, says The Times, has sent a letter to Colonel Sir Henry Pellatt, Commandant of the Queen's Own Eifles of Canada, asking him to accept, on behall' of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the regiment, four bound volumes of press cuttings relating to the recent visit of the regiment to England. Sir James Whitney; in his letter, states that, in asking the acceptance of this "very creditable record" of the regiment's visit to England, the Ontario Provincial Government is expressing which it believes to be the feeling of the people of the province with reference to Sir H. Pellatt's "undoubted patriotism and self-sacrifice," and that of every member of the "splendid military organisation" of which he is the head. Th© British Medical Journal says that an' International congress for -the organisation of measures for the suppression of the opium traffic will be held at The Hague on 30th May. Among the nations which ay ill take part are Great Britain, the. United States, France, Germany, Itah 7 , and the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Japan, China, and Siam. Great Britain will propose that morphine and cocaine* shall be included together with opium in the prohibitive enactment, and this proposal will, it is 6aid, be supported by the United States. With reference to the fighting in Southern Nigeria between a small British force and some cannibal tribes in the Awo country, Eeuter says that a detachment under the command of Lieutenant Hay Thorburn, Scottish Eifles, Southern Nigerian Eegiment, W.A.F.F., was escorting Mr. Syer, the British Commissioner at Onitsha, when the chief of the town of Awo began hostilities by a treacherous attack. The fighting went on from day to day for six days, und reinforcements were being sent to Lieutenant Thorburn, as other towns besides Awo were joining in the fray. The Awos are a very degraded tribe of cannibals, armed with percussion cap guns and some Sniders. They barricade the roads with logs, while spikes of hard wood, sharpened and poisoned, are concealed under the grass and leaves of the paths. The case of the four English engineers, Cowan, Burton, Hagarth, and Eobinson, who were charged before the Correctional Tribunal at Antwerp with having taken, copied, and delivered secrets relating to the manufacture of the Bell telephone, which they had discovered while in a factory of the Telephono Company at Antwerp, and were acquitted, came before the Coilrt of Appeal at Brussels subsequently. The special correspondent of The Times reports that on this occasion the AdvocateGeneral withdrew from the case, as the documents kept by defendants were of no value. _ Professor Rosen, who gave expert evidence, testified that an engineer has a right to preserve estimates, calculations, and notes of work in which he is engaged. The court coufirmed .the previous judgment, and the men are now bringing an action against the company for substantial damages. A doctor insists that spirituous liquors are most dangerous to a people which has had short experience with them. For example, the introduction of European spirts into Polynesia wrought havoc. . On the other hand, the majority of the Creeks, Italians, and French, who have been using liquors for centuries, do not commit excesses. The theory is that if a race drinks too much it will kill itself off and consequently only the races which achieve moderation aa'e in a. way to survive. This theory does not grant that a nation of abstainers is possible. , According to The Times, a boy of 13 was called to give evidence recently at the St. Paneras Coroner's Court in reference to the death of his father. In the witness-box he was asked if he knew the nature of an oath, and replied in the negative. Asked if he knew the Bible he said no, and gave a similar reply when osked if he knew what it was to speak the truth. The coroner declined to take the evidence of one who appeared not to know the diiference "jetween right and wrong. The police said the boy's father was ?ii atheibt, and had not brought up his children to any religion;.

A German who spends ten years outside the limits of the German Empire without registering his name at tho German Consulate in the conntry where he resides forfeits his nationality. Hitherto a fee of three shillings has been charged at the Consulate in London for this registration. The fee has just been abolished. As a matter of fact, says The Times, very few Germans in this country take the trouble to put their names on the register. Moet of those who have taken 'up residence permanently have become naturalised British citizens, and very few of the remainder spend ten years here without paying a single visit 'home. The Times r-eports that the British vessels of the Fourth Cruiser Squadron, which was at Eio Janeiro svhen the recent naval mutiny on the Brazilian men-of-war took place, had an '-exciting experience. The squadron occupied berths between the Brazilian Dreadnought battleships Minas Geraes and San Paulo. When the bombardment of Cobras Island opened it was replied to in a very erratic manner by the land batteries, and before the gunners ashore had got the range many of the shells went over the British ships, which were anchored about a mile from the island. Later the Minas Geraes took up a position between the visiting squadron and the island, and when iiring was resumed, bullets from Maxim guns in the forts fell round and struck the British ships, the searchlight of ths flagship being smashed, and the captain ol H.M.S. Essex narrowly escaping being struck by a bullet which exploded near where lie was standing. An "Oxford Veteran" (the Eev. Hereford B. George, Senior Fellow of New College), writing in The Times's Educa-1 tional Supplement on the evils of overteaching, remarks:— After all, the acquisition of knowledge is only a part of education. Though in point of time it is the first part ... it is on the whole the least important part. Roughly speaking guidance must Be gradually substituted for actual instruction, if the pupil is ever to be able to learn new things for himself. A man who possesses that power, which, like every other gift, needs to be cultivated in the right way, can do in life what circumstances require of him. Princess August Wilhelm, wife of the Kaiser's fourth son, has set herself the task of reviving one of German's oldest customs, that according to which newlywedded couples immediately after the j marriage ceremony plant a couple of oak saplings side by side in a park or by a roadside of their native town. The town of Mulchausen, in Thuringia, is i the first to respond to the princess's'appeal. The municipal official appears at the wedding, and invites the bride and bridegroom to drive with him in a carriage to a new road near the town and there plant oak saplings. The treeplanting idea was started by a former Elector of Brandenburg with the object of repairing the ravages caused by the Thirty Years' War. The Elector forbade young persons to marjry until' they had planted a number of young fruit trees. Until recently the exploration of the Sudan wae impossible, owing to the attitude of the natives, but last year the excavation of Meroe, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, was commenced. Perhaps the most important result of the early work will be the addition of Ethiopian •to our knowledge of languages which have ceased to exist. A large number of inscriptions in hieroglyphic and cursive writing have been founfl, and it has been discovered that the unknown language is based on" an alphabetical system — a circumstance which will make the deciphering of the inscriptions much easier than was tTie case with the Hittite language, which has occupied Professor Sayce thirty years. Afc a conierence of teachers, arranged by the London Counoy Council, the chairman in the course of his address said that throughout London the parents — even those living in the slum districts — were beginning to understand and appreciate the work of the schools. Ihe Education Committee recognised the necessity of bringing their work into closor touch with the great industries and the commerce of the country, x^ere was rpom for a great improvement. In commerce and industry there was not the initiative and enterprise which there ought to be, and there was a want of close co-operation between scientinc education and the practical needs of commerce and industry. A concrete statue of the famous Indian chief I3lackhawk hae been erected above Eagle's Nest, across th© river from Oregon, Illinois. It has been in process of making three yea'is. The statue's great size, forty-eight feet, without counting either the artificial base or the natural rock foundation, 250 feet high, upon which it is placed, puts it on a scale with the Goddtss of Liberty in New York. The third and greatest claim to fame is that it is built to be permanent. According to the Cement Age, it is believed that iv will outlast the ephinx, the pyramids, and even stones of the Druids. The sculptor was Lorado Taft. Mr. Taft had noted/ the remarkable time-proof qualities of concrete in ancient European structures, and there came to him his great idea for the means of making an enduring statue. A writer in the Spectator on the subject of a' war on rate in view of plague contagion, and th? enormous expense involved, says : — -It is not to be supposed that civilisation has said its last word as to the means of combating one of the greatest pests of the human race. We can make buildings rat-proof; is it beyond imagination to create a street, a rat-proof town, even a port? It is difficult, doubtless, in the highest degree. But it is unthinkable that the rai, pest is outside the "each of science. The plain fact is that we have never troubled ourselves to try to find out what science could do to fight it, and that it is time for as to begin.' l There has been a little war in the High School at Stockton, California. Principal Williams objects to fads in dre&s, regarding them as distractions and tending to vanity. He issued an order that girl students should not weai curls. But despite the order the curls persisted. Mr. Williams might as well have, tried to prevent the girls from breathing. After a week or ten day*, of hot warfare not particularly creditable to either party to the controversy, Principal Williams withdrew his restrictive order, admitting that he had been routed. None the less, says the Argonaut, the principal of Mr. Williams's protest against over-adornment of school children is a sound one. The notion that women, if given a ballot, would wipe out the liquor traffic has received a shock an the result of tho voting in the State ol Washington recently. At Anacortes there was a fierce fight on the " wet " or " dry " proposition, in which the women duly participated. In ;i poll of 936, ol which onethird the votes -vvtt-e cast, by women, the ticket^ representing the " wets " were victorious by a majority of uowards of 200. Charleston, the local town of tho Port Orchard Navy Yord. voted " wet," women participating freely in the election. Broadly speaking,, the issue was ignored by the women, who voted for their party candidates precisely like tho men. Taking the local elections through, only about two-thirds of the women entitled to legislation availed themselves §1 th« E?hP e £%