NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 72, 21 September 1912, Page 12

NEWS AND NOTES.

[The following items of intelligence have been selected from flies received by the latest mail.] A suggestion is made that there should be_ a London statue to Rhodes, and that it should, as Mr. Fikon Young says in the Saturday Review, "take the form of a replica of Tweed's statue in Bulawayo, so that future generations of Londoners and future generations of Rhodeeians may think of Rhodes in the same terms, and have some common conception of what he was like. Tweed knew Rhodes well, and had a deeply sympathetic _ understanding of his character and his ideals." A decision by Justice Parker with Tegard to those liable to come under the British National Insurance ( Act has an unexpected significance. His Honour has decided that Methodist ministers and curates are not liable because they have entered into a contract for, not of, service. That is to say, they are volunteers, and not hired or pressed men. They are not paid to serve, but are paid because they do serve. The decision to serve is their own. The ministerial contract for service does not come into the wage-earn-ing category. The Spectator, writing of the Le&der of the Opposition, says that Mr. Bonar Law, "though before he became the Leader of, the TJiuonistG he had not devoted special attention to Foreign Affaira, he has what is far more important than expert knowledge in detailthat can always be supplied to him — judgment, force of character, and good sense on the positive side. Further, he is not 'awed by rumour,' and his intellectual balance is not upset by panic." Lord Pahnerston— as recorded by Grant Duff in his ".Diary "—once summarised in a phrase the qualifications necessary in a Parliamentary Whip. "A good Whip," said he, "must be one who can say in a gentlemanly fashion the things no gentleman would say." Should animal life be sacred? "In the forest (writes the Observer), the right to live means principally the right ' to kill, with the attendant liability to be killed in turn. When man, with his eelf-scrutiny, intrudes upon that existence, by what *ule is he to measure his own conduct? He, too, must kill to live— the ox for , food, the wolf for safety, the insect for health. Shall we hesitate to add— the pheasant and the fish for skill, or the fox for" pleasure?" 1 The Archbishop of York, at the Representative Church Council, regretted that no representative of the wage-earning class was present. The council passed this resolution :■—" Believing that much of the spirit of unrest in the industrial life of England to-day is due to a right desire on the part of the wage-earners to secure greater stai bility of employment and fuller and richer human life, this council earnestly trusts that churchmen will actively cooperate with their fellow-citizens in furthering the fulfilment of this desire in whatever wajrs are consistent with industrial prosperity, Christian principles, and the welfare Of the whole community." Loch Docharfc Castle, built in 4he thirteenth century on an island In the loch, of the same name, and ' associated in tradition with many of the deeds of the famous Rob Roy, has now been taken in hand by the Scottish Historical Antiquarian Association, and is being renovated so as to ensure safety, and permanency. t The proprietor, Mr. William Christie, is givimg substantial financial assistance. The castle formerly belonged to the Campbells of Lochawe, and is said to have served Bruce for a retreat after the defeat by the Lord of Lome. A London paper records that a woman's courage averted a serious accident at Waltham Cross on Bth August. Two horses attached to a brewer's dray bolted along the High-road, narrowly missing two motor-cara and a group of people. Then Mrs. Barnes, wife of the local relieving officer, ran from her house to meet them, sprang at the t'eins, and, after being dragged a considerable distance, managed to stop the horses just when collision with a motorcar seemed inevitable. The Jewish Territorial Organisation, says the Jewish World, has sent Professor Gregory, Glasgow TMversity, and Dr. Martin, Director of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, to study the hygienic conditions of Angola and its suitability for white colonisation. The Portuguese Government of Angola are giving every facility. i The steam drifter, M. Thomson, of I Buckie, arrived at Fraser burgh W Bth August with 300 crans of herrings (in all a quarter of a million fish),-!«aught eleven miles off the jporfc. Tho crew made £450 in one night's work, this J being the largest sum ever obtained by any herring boat in the British L-les for one haul. Makers of Italian "Irish" laces, coarser in grade than' real Irish, divided about £25,000 between them for their work in 1911, says a consular report on the trade to Naples. There still appears to be a demand fo* superior kinds of imitation Irish. At Cape Breton recently the Gover-nor-General of Canada, the Duke of Connaught, watched Mr. Robs and his son land a monster tuna, weighing 5001b, and make an unsuccessful fight for another. The Duke hooked a tuna, and might have succeeded in landing it, but his line fouled in a salmon-net and the fish escaped, The dead body of Fraulein Kueblef, who disappeared during an excursion on the Ebnet Alp, was found at the foot of some rocks by a police dog belonging Jo the Lucerne Police. The victim, it is > stated, was accustomed to mountaineering, and when she failed to return home little notice was' at first taken of hei? disappearance. Afterwards, however, the worst was feared on account of the inclement weather which set in. The toll of the Alps has been extremely heavy this season. An accident occurred on 7th August at a military camp near Rhdms, Fravel, where a detachment of, the 22nd Dragoons were engaged in blowing up improvised bridges and railway lines. A dynamite cartridge exploded before the soldiers had time to retire, and about forty soldiers and three officers',' including Colonel de Dampierre, were more or less seriously injured by the debris. Fif teen of the injured «oldier« were taken to hospital. In capturing Crewe from th© Liberals, the Unionists were aided by the splitting of votes between Liberal and Labour candidates. For the latter 7779 votes were oast; for the successful Unionist (Mr. E. C. CraiH). 6260. "Crewe," writes the Daily Telegraph, "has been a strong citadel of Liberalism. The citadel has fallen. It is a double blow that they have received — one Bti'aighfc from the Unionist and the other straight from the Labour %lioulcler. Labour has swiftly tukuit Us full revenue for Hanle.v, and I the acerbity of Liberal and Labour reU-

Compared with 1910, there were I6,ii6b fewerr visitors at the British j Museum in 1911. This decrease, the official return points out, is more than accounted for by the excessive heat of July and August, 1911, which discouraged visitors and caused the attendance to fall by nearly 26,000. "It is better to make an occasional honest mist3ike i than to put everlasting crepe on yo«r initiative," says Frgnk G. Hancock. Some sufflragetteg once proposed to give up wearing hats as a protest against defeat of the Conciliation Bill, and a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies has now sent a contribution to the election fighting fund out of her "boot and shoe money." A herring 1 yawl recently landed at Scarborough a shark weighing about 16 stone. It destroyed six of the yawl's nets, of the value of nearly £70, and also damaged the boat. It took the combined efforts of six men to get it aboard. With the outbreak of war between Italy and tTurkey tariff-protected industries in Kaly, and notably at Naples, were at once affected. The textile industry is goffering, and should the war Cease at once, says a consular report, it will be sonne years before Italian industries can lKgain the ground now lost. When the late/ Dr. Griffith John, the doyen of tihe Chinese Missions, went to Shanghai m 1855, it was computed that in the Celestial Empire there were not more than 1000 Christians. "To-day," says the l)aily Telegraph, "there are known to be 47,000, with churches, hospitals, schools^ colleges, and asylums scattered over the land." "A great factor in Italian development, especially in Southern Italy," writes the British Cohsul'General at Naples, "has been the flow of emigration across the Atlantic. The savings sent home from abroad by Italian emigrants are very considerable. The greater part is sent home to be invested in lands and houses, to purchase tickets for relatives and friends of the sender, I or for aiding and supporting sick and i aged relatives who have remained behind in the- motherland." Not long ago a funeral patty at Roveieto was upset by the Austrian tariff. Two of the < chief mourners came from Italy, bringing a wreath to which silk ribbon bearing an inscription was attached. At the Austrian frontier a duty of £6 was demanded on thte. Vehement protests elicited the explanation that although flowers pay no duty silk pays a high one, and the amount asked for was assessed on the total weight of the wreath. After a prolonged discussion it was decided to dfecard the ribbon. "Then," eaid the Customs officer, "you mast go back to Italy. If the ribbon is thrown away here you are still liable for the duty." By the time the mourners had dropped the ribbon on Italian soil their train had gone, and they reached Hovereto three hours too late for the funeral. j The family of the Maeter of Elibank, who recently retired from the post of Chief Whip of the Liberal Party, is among the oldest in Scotland. One of his ancestors fought in the battle of Flodden, where he was killed. Another, General Murray, commanded ft brigade at the battle of Quebec, and was the first Governor of Canada (1763). One of the Master of Elibank's brothers is the Administrator of St. Vincent. Another, Captain Murray, is the Liberal member for KincaTdmeshire. One of his sisters married Mr.' Oswald Partington, formerly member for the High Peak Division. Another is the wife of Mr. George C. N. Nicholson, son of Mr. Charles No*ris Nicholson, the Liberal member for Doncaster. The late Mikado found Japan a feudal State, with the primitive tastes and institutions ( of Britain's Middle Ages, and a national exclußiveness as jealous and aloof as that of the Egypt of Herodotus. Within forty-fous years he made her not only an intensely modern State, bub one of the Great Powers, and the ally of the greatest Empire in the world. He bridged the gap from bows and arrows to the 13£ inch guns. The mind reels at the miraculous record. Mr. Isaac N. Ford, fo» seventeen years London correspondent of the New York Tribune, Mr; Whitelaw Reid's journal, and the doyen of American journalists in Britain ,died on Bth August at Kensington, at the age of 64. After cremation, his ashes were to be sent across the Atlantic for burial in the family vault at Buffalo. News recently reached Blackburn of the death of Mr. William Yates, grandson of the founder of Messrs. Yates and Thoin, a noted firm of English engineers. Mr. Yates created a sensation | at Covent Garden some years ago by scattering bank notes, gold, and silver among market porters, newsboys and hawkers, disposing of nearly £200 in this manner. It was stated that this was done foi a wager. Big European republics— France, Portugal, and Switzerland— vre can fairly [ well remember, but what about the little ones? Can you give their number and their names? Andorra and San Marino are mentioned in works of reference, but information about Soust in the Pyrenees (population 140 ; area 600 acres) and Tavolara, off Sardinia (population 60) Is not easily accessible. Then there used to be a republic called Morsenet, jjomewhere in the vicinity of Belgium, which mysteriously disappeared a fsw yeai* ago. It is supposed to have been quietly incorporated in the German Empire, as a result of a "deal" between Berlin and Brussels. m "'At this moment,' said Mr. Asquith, in the House of Commons recently, 'I have no vote fo* Oxford, although I hold an honorary degree and was Fellow of my College.' Tlw reason ia that Mr. Asquith 'starting life as a poor man,' did not waste £26 on an M.A. degree. 'Oh, yes,' he added, amid laughter, 'I did pass the examinations.' Lord Loreburn and Mr. Swinburne are other instances of voteless Oxonians, a fourth being 'my right hon. friend the Foreign Secretary, Who did not, I think, take a Bachelor's degree.' This revelation of Sir Edward Grey as a man who did not graduate caused quite a sensation," gays the Daily News. Mr. Henry Fawcett, the blind Post-master-General, was the first blind man ever elected to the House of Commons He made his maiden speech on 17th March, 1866. and from that moment his Parliamentary success was assured. The speech wa-a described by Mr. William White— at that time doorkeeper of the House of Commons— ln his Parliamentary journal. "When he began to speak," writes Mr. White, "there was a dead silence. Two circumstances compelled this silence— first, the infirmity of Mr. Fawcett, and, secondly, his reputation. All were curious to hear how the blind man would speak, and all anxious to learn whether he would justify the reputation which heralded him into the House. .... Well, Mr. Fawcett's debut was in every way a success. He not Only got the attention of the House, but held it firmly j and there is no greater proof of success than this."