NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 71, 23 March 1912, Page 14

NEWS AND NOTES.

[The following items of intelligence have been selected from files received by the latest mail.] Router's Agency understands that in connection -with the operations in (the Abor Country two British officers, ona belonging to the Survey of India, witfr an escort, have been despatched for the Surpose of locating the great falls of the rahmaputra. These falls, according to tumour, are situated about half way between the northern bend of the river and the plains of Assam. In the unexplored section of 130 miles there is a fall in altitude of soinethiilg like 7000 f- Many attempts have been made by. the natives of India and others to locate the falls, but without success. The distance to J^e explored is not great, but, as the lie of the Brahmaputra is at tight angles to and' through the greatest range of mountains in the world, the difficulties to be encountered will be of the' severest description. The fixing and measuring ofj these falls is regarded as among the chief unsolved problems of geographical science. At the recent Norwich Aeeizes an action was brought by Mies Maud Stimpson, a dressmaker, to recover damages from Miss Antonia Birkbeck, a lady residing at Thorpe, Norwich, for the detention and conversion of a violin, The plaintiff's >cas» was that the defendant;,, a. customer/ was allowed to take ffie violin, which was thought to' be an old and valuable one, for the purpose of ' showing it to a friend to ascertain its value, and that the instrument tile defendant returned was not the . one she had been entrusted with, and that its value was only ss. Defendant said that the friend to whom she submitted the violin could not say what its value was unless' it -was cleaned, and accordingly she sent it to a xepaixer with instructions to do what' was necessary to the amount of 10k: The repairer swore that he put. a new; finger-boaigl on the instru-v ment- and replaced other fittings, but that* he returned the identical' violin he received. After a number of witnesses had been examined on either 1 side, the jury found for the plaintiff, with £50 damages, and judgment was entered accordingly. On the afternoon of Ist February a dock tower in course of completion on, new premises being erected for a draper s firm in York collapsed. It broke through three floors of the building, which is liome 60ft high, into the basement, carrying with it a number of workmen employed on the premises and burying them under the debris. When they were extricated one of them was found to be dead. He was lying under an iron beam which had pinned him down in a sitting position. Three other workmen were seriously and four slightly injured. It is supposed that the cause of the collapse of the tower was the giving way of one of of the concrete beams on which it rested. The mansion bouse of Donibrbtk, near Aberdour, Fife, one of the seats of the Earl of Moray, which has stood a roofless building sine* the last fire in 1858, is, according to the Scotsman, to be restored. Workmen are engaged demolishing the blackened walls, which will take about two months to level with the ground. Lord Moray is taking a personal interest in the work, and fired the charge which brought down the tall gable of the old bouse. He is residing in one of the existing wings, which are a little apart from the mansion and at a lower level, being joined to it, and to each other by underground passages, which are to be preserved. The ornamental gateway, close to the Forth, through which the approach is made, is> Van object of interest to the tourist, being of fine hammered ironwork, the present "of Queen Anne; of Denmark two centuries ago to the then Lady Moray. The first Earl of Moray was Regent of Scotland from 1567 till his assassination is The second Earl, "the Bonnie Earl of Moray" of the song, -was" murdered at Donibristle in 1591 by the Marquis of Huntly. Speaking at Bradford a few weeks ago, the Master of the -Bolls {Sir H. Cozens-Hardy) said that the legal pro.fession held a position to-day that it had never held before. In England the Cabinet was almost stuffed full of lawyers. They .could not have a Prime Minister or a War Minister without going to the Bar, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a solicitor. In France Ministers seemed to be almost entirely lawyers. On the other side of the Atlantic the President was a lawyer, while in the Congress and the Senate members were to an almost unreasonable — some might say undesirable — extent members of the legal profession. The political situation in Crete is becoming more and more entangled (states a recent message from Candia), and evidently the Powers will have to intervene to put an end to the intolerable state of affairs. The insurrectionary Assembly, representing the whole of the Christian population, decided last month to send Cretan deputies to the next session of the Greek Chamber in Athens. The Cretan Government Committee took an oath of allegiance to the Greek Constitution. No part in the agitation has been taken by the Mohammedan representatives, who si© waiting to see what action the Powers will take. Mrs. Elizabeth King died on 29th January at Charlton, near Woolwich, at the age of ninety-three years. Three 'days later her husband, James Pedlar "King, an old naval pensioner, also passed away. King was older than his wife, but hut exact age was not known. ,When Mrs. King died the husband said ,he would not live any longer, and refused to take nourishment. It was stated by his family that the old man had a dream jußt before his death, in which he saw the grave for himserf and hi* wifo being dug. The Dickens centenary was celebrated last month by the Ipswich Literary Society by a supper in the Great White Horse Hotel, Ipswich. The Mayor ot .the town presided, and among the speakers were the Mayors of Sudbury and Bury St. Edmunds. The fare included chops and tomato sauce from Mrs. Baidell'ft own recipe, the Fat Boy"s mince pies, and Welsh rarebits "a la Tom Sawyer." At Rochester, a fancy dress ball was held in the Pickwickian ball room at the Bull Hotel, where Mr. Jingle was so insistent upon the passing of the wine while the guests were arriving for the ball. It was in the assembly room here that 1 Tracy Tupman and the Widow Budger danced their quadrille, "bouncing bodily." An invitation on the part of the United States to foreign Governments to participate in an International Commission upon the increased cost of living was' foreshadowed in the composite Presidential Message upon the Department of the Interior and other matters lately transmitted to Congress. President Taft strongly recommended Congress to appropriate enough lnvnvy to allow the Commission to meet in Washington. The idea of the Commission was originated by Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale University, and was broached at the recent gathering* of economists at the American' capital. It has met with considerable ' favour, and the 'President pointed out j that an international exchange of expert i views would enhance the value of the re- j suit* of the enquiries into high prices which are being made by other countries. i

According to a Tokio message, dated Bth Febrnary, at a secret session' of the Budget Commission, Baron Saito, Minister of Marine, declared that the irreducible minimum of naval expansion was eight battleships of the superDreadnought class, and eight armoured cruisers: of the same class, which must be completed ' by 1920,' construction being begun in* 1913. The > cost is estimated at £35,000.000. It is officially stated that the Kongo and her eistet ships are ' being armed with 14in guns. The Fuso will shortly havo her keel laid at Kure. Her displacement will be 30,000 tons. So hard-pressed for food hi the frostc bound , conditions of London were the seagulls that- hover over Blackfriars Bridge, and the Embankment on sth February that, noticing a broad-van laden with loaves, some of them exposed to view, they made ■&. descent on it in large numbers. . It was most amusing to witness their attempts to peck at the bread. They followed the vans for a short distance down Blackfriais-road, but soon returned to pick up the crumbs that pedestrians . crossing' the bridge threw to them. Two Scotland Yard detectives had an exciting experience one afternoon last month when taking two prisoners to the Grays-inn-road Poiice Station. Shortly before the Holborn branch of tho National Provincial Bank closed for the day two men presented a cheque. for about ,£SO. As they were, leaving 'the building witb the money they were arrested by two detectives. While being 1 conveyed to the station tho two men made a determined effort to escape. They violently attacked the officers, and in the encounter that ensued one of the detectives received a violent blow on the hoad. The strange spectacle of four well-dressed men engaged in a struggle in a London thoroughfanu attracted a large crowd, but it was not until tho officers made known" their identity that assistance was given. The prisoners were safely, lodged .in the police cells. At Bostock's Jungle, {Nottingham, a few weeks ago, during a performance by M&e. Morfaili with a troupe of leopards and jaguars, two leopards began to fight in the arena. Mme. Morelli belaboured .the animals with a ,wnip and prongs. Suddenly one leapt up the' iron, bare, climbed to the top, scrambled over and bounded among the audience. The people were panic-stricken, and rushed belter skelter over chairs and barriers, to the doors. Luckily the leap into the arena partially stunned the leopard, and the attendants, with pistole and prongs, drove it from the spectators. In view of the success which attended the aerial post last summer between Windsor and Hendon, a suggestion has been put forward that a much more j elaborate scheme should be attempted this year. This is, nothing less than an aerial rout round Great Britain, starting from London and proceeding by stages up the East Coast to Aberdeen and invernessj and returning down the west coast, taking in Wales and the south, and so back to the Metropolis. The plane for this ambitious venture are by no means complete, and. many experts doubt, owing to the great oifficulties which have to be overcome, whether the enterprise can be put on a practicable basis. The suggestion at present is that( the profits of the undertaking should be divided amongst the charities of each town visited en route. ' ■ It is reported that early last month Dom Manuel, ex-King of Portugal, and Dom Miguel, Pretender to the Throne, met at the' Lord Warden Hotel, Dover. This meeting marked tha end of a family feud which has lasted since 1822, and, as a result, Dom Miguel has renounced his claims, and ha* spontaneously offered to help in every way the restoration of . King . Manuel. •It is further suggested that, in addition to the reconciliation of the two branches of the house of Braganza, the meeting between the ex-King and the Pretender may lead to a matrimonial a.lliap.m .between King Manuel and one of Dom Miguel's daughters. . The eeyere weather, last month caused a good deal of disturbance of traffic on the railways and waterways of Germany. Reports ' from Kiel stated that on the night of 4th ult. 9.4deg. below zero (Fahrenheit)., were registered, and that numbers of steamers had been for three days ioe-bound in the canal. The tributaries of the Rhine in the neighbourhood of Cologne were completely frozen over, and on the Rhine itself navigation was very difficult. The service of ' trams, particularly in the north, was considerably disorganised. As the Abbe P«ll»»grin was saying Mass in the Church of Les .CabanSßs, in the Department of Arieze, France, on 2nd 'February, a rock overßanging tho building, and known as the Ttocher de la Vierge, fell without warning and crashed through the roof, causing the walls to collapse. The priest was killed at the moment of the elevation of the Host, and the chorister who was assisting had a leg broken, besides receiving ' other injuries. After the rock fell a hot sulphur spring issued with conr siderable force from the ground, and the gradual action of the water behind the rock is supposed to have been the -cause of the accident. Monsignor Duchesne, whose groat work "The Ancient History of the Church" was recently placed upon the list of prohibited books by the Vatican authorities, has addressed a letter to Cardinal della. Volpe, Prefect of the Congregation of the Index-, declaring in brief terms his submission as a, faithful son of the Church to tho decree of the Index relating to his book. An official announcement should follow shortly in the i customary formula '" laudabiliter se subjecit," and then, so far as the Church authorities are concerned, the author will have no more trouble. Should, however, MoiMignor Duchesne or hie publisher contemplate any further edition of the work, corrections will have to be made of all the matter incriminated by the Index. The Hornsey Education Committee last month considered the case of Miss Francis Creaton, a teacher, who in November last took part in v suffragette disturbance, and afterwards appeared before the Bow-street Magistrate. Iv consequence of this she absented herself from school without le&ve from 22nd to 27th November. The Education Committee decided to suspend her, without payment, till the end of the year, to withhold her annual increment of £5 for that year, and, on the resumption of her duties, to remove her to another school. Sho was stated to have agreed to these terms at the time of her suspension, but shortly after she resumed her duties the committee ' received a letter from her solicitors, asking for, payment of salary "for- the period sho was < uuder suspension. In theso circumstances tho schools staffs sub-committee recommended that the teacher should be paid the sum of £14 14s 8d through her solicitor, and that she should be given a uionth's notice of termination of her engagement. The recommendation was adopted, an amendment to. refer- tht> matter back to the sub-committee finding only two supporters. Labour is contesting every one "of. the ( seventy-two seats in ' the Queensland 1 State Assembly. The elections are fixed for 27th April next; ' In the expiring Parliament Labour hab * following of twexity-fiix members.