NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 88, 13 April 1912, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

[The following kerns of intelligence have been selected from files received by the latest mail.] Agricultural co-partnerships are slowly making headway in England. At the annual dinner of the labourers on Lord Rayleigh's estate 280 gueste were present. This estate, for some years past, has been worked on the co-partnership principle. The total amount of the bonus for the past year was stated to besomething like £600. Formerly the sums due to the men as bonuses were paid into accounts opened for them at the Post Office. The present plan is to pay them into co-partnership accounts with the estate. The men continue to have pass-books, and are as free as before to draw out their bonuses in all or ill part, if they are minded to do so. During the past year there were sixty-nine nevr depositors. One or two officials of the estate alone know ihe amounts of the investments. The lists show amounts ranging from a. few shillings to as high fis £300, those under £10 being probably a majority. The same principle has been introduced on Messrs. Strutt and Parker's Southminster estate, and it has transpired that forty men have a practical interest in the farms on which they work, represented by deposits oxTeeding £2000. A demonstration in wireless telephony was given lately at Cardiff. Mr. Grindell Matthews, the inventor of the aeroplane, who had bean engaged for a fortnight in conducting experiment* between Cardiff and Newport, twelve miles away, transmitted a message to the offices of the Western Mail, which had been placed at hie disposal as a receiving station. The message was a long one, and the speech was clear in spite of the passage of the voices through a network of wires in the towns. Mr Matthews will continue his tests with the aid of two motor-cars fitted with, the apparatus. Each motorcar will be a complete station, and will be sent to various parts of the country to give further demonstrations. During the hearing of a case in the Chancery Division, Dublin, in which Lieutenant-Colonel John Ct/ddington and Mr. Arthur T. Coddington sought an injunction to restrain Philip Tiernan, a farmer and storekeeper on the River Boyne, from breaking and entering their lands at Oldbridge, in the County Meath, some interesting facts were brought to light. It appeared that the land about which the action had been taken forms a portico, of the scene of the Battle of the Boyne, where the forces of King James the Second arid bis son-in-law, William the Third, had a desperate battle, and the ford -where King William crossed the river is in close proximity to it. An ancestor of the plaintiffs held a post on the staff of King William at the time, and the lands of Oldbridge have since been in the possession of the family. For the defendant, it was stated that since ihe Biver Boyne was made navigable under an Act of the Irish Parliament, he and bis predecessors have held the post of lock-keepers on the river. It may be mentioned that one of the Orangemen's 'most cherished ballads dates- from this scene. It thus begins : July the First in Oldbridge town, There was a grievous battle, When many a man lay On the ground, And cannons they did rattle. Mi. Justice Barton reserved Jus decision. At - the , Marlborough-atree'i/ Police Court, London, Redmayne and Co., Ltd., were summoned for exposing and selling at their premises, in New Bondstreet, a lady's coat, to which a false trade description, 'feilk, 1 ' was applied. Mr. Curtice Bennett, who appeared for the defence,' Mated that these imitation silk articles were never held out to be made of silk from the silkworm, and were sold at under .half the co6t of real silk,- so that* ladies would not be Heceived. The fabrics had been produced from wood fibre, and had been called "colonial silk" after consultation between the buyer for the firm and the agent who had sold the material, which was much heavier than real silk, and that would prevent those who understood something of silk from ■ being deceived. A tine of £20 was imposed for applying a fake description, and a further fine of £20 for celling the article, with £5 5s costs. A case, curiously illustrative of the intermingling of East and West in the South African Courts, was heard recently by the Native High Court. Mgidhlana, the son of the Zulu King Mpande, halfbrother of Cetewayo, the last Zulu King, appealed against the judgment of the Magistrate, who ordered him to repay fifteen head of cattle to his son-in-law, this being a portion of the "lobolo" paid to him on his daughter's marriage, owing to the fact that ehe died six months after the wedding. Mgidhlana admitted the general native law for repayment of "lobolo" in these circumstances, but claimed exemption as a member of the Royal House. The appeal was dismissed, the Judge remarking, however, that he agreed that the claim would not have been enforced in the old days, as the displeasure of a member of the Royal household meant death, "Primeval- Man" was the subject of the Hunterian lecture delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, on tlw 26th February, by Professor Arthur Keith, Conservator of the College, in connection with a recent discovery near Ipswich of the skeleton of a pre-boulder clay man. The lecturer expressed the opinion that in studying ancient man, perhaps too much attentipn had been directed to the skull. It was very pro. bable that the tibia, being so closely associated with the human manner of walking, would serve to distinguish various stages in man's .evolution. In many features the tibia of Neanderthal man recalled the same bone in the gorilla, but it was differentiated from the simian form by possessing a definitely marked anterior border, or shin. In other paleolithic races, and in all other human -races, the shin of the tibia was prominent and sharp. The shin of the Ipswich tibia was quite peculiar and unlike any form yet Been. In place of a sharp shin there was a flat Burface. The significance of this feature was not known; it certainly did not represent a pathological condition, but was evidently due to a peculiarity in the gait of t^e individual. It was likely to prove a sure character of the Ipswich race and represent a stage in evolution. A serio-comic incident, redolent of the "Duchess of Gerolstein, has arisen at Teheran, .tho Persian capital, in connection with the arrival of Emm Bey, the new Turkish Ambassador. A few days previously the Persian Government drew the attention of the Russian Minister to the fact that the Russian troops had seized the guns at Enzeli, which weie used for the customary salute given to all new Ambassadors on landing on Persian soil, and which were then required to welcome the Turkish Ambassador. Instructions were immediately telegraphed to the Russian Consul at Resht that tho guns mutt be restored. The Russians, however, refused to restore Ihe guns, and the Turkish Ambassador landed without any salute. He telegraphed to the Porte complaining of tho indignity put upon him, and refused to proceed to bis poet from Resht until reparation had been mads..

The United States Government has thousands of cats, which it employs at a cost of about 15dols a year each. The Government maintains in the Philippine Islands a small army of "cold storage" cat*. At the immense cold storage depot at Manila, where great quantities of provisions are kept, cats are most necessary, and at the establishment of the post there was sent there some of the famous cold storage breed. This breed originated in the great warehouses of a cold storage company, and has developed special qualifications for enduring extreme cold. These cold storage cats are short-tailed, chubby, with long and heavy fur. In the March number of the Metropolitan Magazine (New York) Mr. F. Cunliffe-Owen gives an interesting account of the growth in organisation and influence of the German-American movement. The German-American National Bund has nearly 4,000,000 members, each of whom, has a vote in the United States and a voice in the policy of the country; while the union of GermanAmerican veterans has its committees in innumerable cities, towns, and even villages. The National Bund, at ite annual meeting in Washington in October, 1911, passed a declaration of war against the' Administration at Washington in the event of it* continuing to endeavour to bring about an Arbitration Treaty with Great Britain, and has since worked to defeat the treaty. Is it an exaggeration, under the- circumstances, to assert that, unless measures are taken to prevent it, the day may yet come when the international relations of the Great Republic may receive, through its German-American citizens, its guidance from Potsdam." The Carnegie Hero Fund trustees j awarded £15 each to Alfred Jennings, of Edburton, West Sussex, and James Richards, of. Hassocks, Sussex, for endeavouring to rescue a man who was overcome by foul air in a well; £20 to John James Diamond, for assisting a superintendent of police during the strike riots in Liverpool in August, 1911; and £30 to Herbert Dobinson, in the employment of Curtis and Harvey, explosive manufacturers, London, for having extricated a fellow-workman from a perilous position in the Cliffe factory, Kent, in which an explosion had occurred. Lord Haldane received at the War Office M. Privat, the president of the International Institute of Esperanto at Geaeva, and obtained from him a "report upon the progress which the new auxUlary language was making all round the world. The Secretary of War was very sympathetic, and heard with interest M. Privat's report as to the extent to which foreign armit» were introducing the study of Esperanto into the service, with special reference to the ambulance work of the Red Cross. When asked if Esperanto could be introduced into the British vArmy, Lord Haldane said that tho^ British was the most conservative nation in the world, and he could make no promises. He, however, recognised its utility, especially as the use of Esperanto is spreading among the Chinese and Japanese. . Mr. Yung-sung writes to The Times from the Chinese Students' Union, in Bloomßbury-place, London, pointing out that religious liberty, in its true and best sense, is better known in. China ™J any other country, and that Yuan Bhjn-Kai's promise to remove all rehgious disabilities was that of an astute diplomat, in giving an existing right as a generous concession. Mr. Yungsung states that two or three years ago one of the secretaries in the Chinese Legation in London was a Protestant, and just before the revolution he was in the Foreign Office in Pekin. Among the Chinese student* in England there are several Christians who hold Government studentships on exactly the aame footing as the others, who are Freethinkers. Sun Vat-sen is himself a Protestant. The religious disabilities which have prevailed until a comparatively recent date in England are perfectly incomprehensible to the Chinese, who take it for granted that all citizens of one community must have equal rights and privilege*, no matter what their religious convictions may be. Mr. Muirhead, photographer of the London Daily Mirror, was on a mission to the cpast of Corunndj, •in Spain, when he found the steamer Salerno, trading between the Canary Islands and London, on the rocks. His tug, the Felisa, after reporting the circumstances to the marine authorities, proceeded to the wreck with a rocket apparatus. A cask was floated from the tug to th» wreck, and in this way a line communication between the two vessels was established. After four hours the whole crewj numbering twenty-one, were rescued. The men had been for eighteen hours on the bridge of the wrecked vessel, washed by heavy seas, before they were taken off. Lecturing in" Westminster Abbey on " Studies in English Puritanism," Canon Henaon said that 250 years had elapsed since the Nonconformist clergy had been ejected from their benefices by the Act of Uniformity, "Puritanism," like "Christian," "Huguenot," and "Quaker," is a nickname, originally devised as » term of abuse, and expressing general contempt, which in the course of time h.n- ; been made honourable by tho :i--c.\.- ! tione of virtue and heroism that liavo j gathered about it. From "Lolldidlsfn." l surviving as a tradition auiouy t ] c people, came the dynamic force ox re I'giouß conviction and the principle of ecclesiastical innovation. That principle was the necessity of Scriptural authority for all ecclesiastical arrangements. The Japanese Government has purchased No. 10, Gro6venor-6quar&, London, the largest house in the Square, at the corner of Duke-street, formerly the residence of Sir Samuel Wilson, the Australian squatter, owner of Ercildoune Station, neaa- Ballarat, Victoria, as well as several large New South Wales and i Queensland stations. The mansion possesses largo reception rooms, including a ball-room, and has nearly thirty bedrooms. It will be used by the Japanese Government as their Embassy in London. During a debate on English land purchase 1 in the House of Commons, Mr. Runciman said that when the Irish Pur- j chase Scheme was first submitted by Mr. . Wyndham, Chief Secretary, for IrelandMn the Balfour Cabinet, the House was told that the problem represented a capital of £100,000,000; but the amount rose to £120,000,000 in a short time, and when the finance of the Act was enquirved into four years ugo it was found that before the whole of 'the purchase schemes were more or less in sight £180,000,000 would have to be pledged. This meant a very big undertaking, and had it not been for the large increase in the bonus two years ago there was no doubt that land purchase would have come to a standstill in Ireland because of the financial difficulty. Twelve millions of bonus was the original amount set apart to induce Irish landlords to part readily with their properties, but the Government did not know what the ultimate sum would be. If the House was going to embark on £ similar scheme for England, the sum would not bo £12,000,000 oi- £18,000,000, but £120,000,000 or £130,000,000 of bonus. No State could contemplate the flouting of £1,200,000,000 of land stock for purchase of estates without wrecking the whole financial stability of ths country.