NEWS AND NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 138, 7 December 1912, Page 16

NEWS AND NOTES

[The following items of intelligence have been selected from files received by the latest mail.] Losses occasioned by the more important shipping disasters during the first nine months of this' year amounted to about £6,000,000. The Japanese typhoon of September did damage to the extent of £454,000. Speaking at Lincoln on l§th October, the British Postmaster-General, Mr. Herbert Samuel, said Sir Edward Carson with hife wooden cannon aM his toy rifled receiving a fflilitaty salutl feminded him of nothing so much as the cuetorn of the Japanese warriors of the old da\e, who used to put on hideous masks before a battle and dance along the front of their line in order to frighten their enemies. Tho Government was not going to be frightened by,' antics such as these. The Kais*sr, Mr. Edward Legge etatee, was an unguarded and feckless critic of King Edward's private life and associates, and "in the presence of witnesses . . . wae foolish enough to vaunt his own immaculate record and to contrast it with that of his uncle." At tho time of the "baccarat scandal" he wrote to the 'Prince' of Wales, "protesting against anyone 'holding the position of a colonel of Prussian hussars embroiling himself in ft gambling squabble, and playing with men young enough to be his sons.' " Advice from Vienna states that it is rumoured in political circles that the King of Italy will shortly assume the title of Roman Emperor. This project, it is said, has been fostered by certain Italian statesmen ever since the opening of the Tripoli campaign, and it wae to have been realised so soon as a great Italian victory was recorded. The Italian Government believe that the international prestige of Italy will be increased by this change, because the Imperial dignity will be restored and the Italian Sovereign will bear a title analogous to that of hie two allies. Colonel Mark Sykes, a member, of the House of Commons, has given a' scenic rifte range, his oWn invention, to theDriffield Territorials. In place of the usual bull's-eye target, a landscape is represented, with buildings such at, farmhouses, churches, cornstacks, etc., every object being drawn to scale, including figures of cavalry, infantry, and guns. . . At San Stephano (comments an Eng. hsh writer), Turkey as a Sovereign State had, after a disastrous war, ceded her rights over these Macedonian provinces. When, a f&w months later, Europe, alias Great Britain, had succeeded in restoring to Turkey the lost territories,* that Power undertook to grant the betrayed populations those same administrative privileges which now form the contents of the Allied Note. That Article 23 was Turkey's promissory note for goods received, and the other great Powers endorsed the' Note as guarantors. For 34 years the debtor has been dishonouring his obligations, and cmlised Europe has been" acting the part of his accomplice. Estate of the value of £874 gross has been left by the late Mr. Samuel Coleridge Taylor, the famous composer of "Hiawatha" and other notable works, who died in London on Ist September. The British boot trade is prosperous. During September, says the "Boot and Shoe Retailer," the export trade shows an increase over the same months last, year of 21,249 dozen pairs, valued at £67,622, while 24,990 dozen pairs valued at £91,338 represent the increase over the same month in 1910. For the nine months of the present year the increase ih exports over the corresponding period last year was 177,745 dozen pairs, representing a value of £456,429, while in two years the exports for the same period were augmented by 227,002 dozen pairs, valued at £686,496. A sale of small holdings, on 24th October' on the Sutton estate at Brant Broughton, by order of Captain Faber, M.P., is thus reported by a London paper: "Sixteen lots of small holdings, varying in size from 26 to three acres, were put up and fetched £7815, averaging £37 per acre. One lot of 16 acres realised £54 per acre, another £46, and the highest £60 per acre. Several cottages ytete also sold. The total amount realised for the day was £10,737, the two days' sale aggregating £72,997. The bidding was brisk, and the prices were regarded as high. A few lots re« mained unsold." Mr. Barrett, chairman of the Perfumery Manufacturing Section of the London Chamber of Commerce, giving evidence a before the Dominion Royal Commission, said the trade wanted alternative sources of production of th 6 plants from which they derived raw materials. At present the sources were so limited that speculators cornered products and made the trade pay famine prices. He thought production could be developed in the Colonies, and he was sure they could not supply them with too much. There Was a fortune for the man who could find a source within the Empire for the production of bergamot, which is at present obtained from Calabria. An Athens correspondent thus describes the receipt in Greece of the news of a Turkish atrocity :— ■ Curious to state, no one seems impressed by the massacre of seventy defenceless inhabi-tants-—a fact now officially confirmed— by the Turks just after they evacuated Serfidje. "It is only natural." they say. "Such is the custom of the Turk." One of the Ministers told me that the Turks were not given time to complete their bloody task, for the orders issued were to massacre the whole of the Christian population. The timely arrival of the Greek division at the Aliakmon Bridge saved the rest from the fate of their seventy fellow-citizens. The Bishop of Birmingham believes that the day is not far distant when useful mental and moral teaching will be given by means of the- kinematogfaph in mission halls and other buildings on Sunday. • ** "™* *"" ""* On© of the earliest reforms (writes Christina Walshe in the Daily Herald) that I am hoping will take place under a. really roptesentative Government is that men who marry will, aa compensation for depriving w6men of attothe^ occupation, be obliged to pay their wives n regular wage, equivalent to what they were receiving or what they would have feceived at the time of their marriage, the sum to be agreed upon before marriage, and to be increased according to tho number of children born. Kin? Edward was Hie reverse of a frigid personality, but he was swift to check and febtike attempts at undue familiarity. At Marl borough House one night in the 'eighties tho Prince and some of his guests were playing billiards. His Royal Highness was not in particularly good form, antl. after a Hither bad shot, 'one of the younger men. shouted, to the amazement and disguat of the others : "I say, Wales, pull yourself together !" The Prince made no reply, but, beckoning to a servant, said : "Call Mr.——'* carriage. '-'

A great Social Democratic demonstration was held on 20th October in Berlin. Ten platforms had been erected from which a number of Reichstag deputies and members of the Prussian Diet and officials of the Social Democratic Party inveighed against war, the increasing cost of living, and the Prussian electoral law. A resolution was passed in accordance with the sense of the speeches. Complete order prevailed, but owing to j the crush ten people fainted. The condition of American over-sea, shipping would be amusing were it not so pathetic, writes The Public (Chicago). Our exports to Brazil for the year ending 3Oth Julie, 1011. amounted to 26,431,85? dollars, oi which English ships carried 19.473,856 dollars, and American ships, 136 dollars — one hundred and thirty'six dollars. / We did better with Argentina, where 577,954 dollars was carried in American bottoms and 39,120,509 dollars in British. Of our imports from Brazil for that year 93,191,117 dollars came to Us in British ships, and 620 dollars—six hundred and twenty dollars— came in American. How the British iship owners must smile when they pee us raving ovor the Monroe doctrine ! There is at least one Tory M.P. who is in no hurry for Tariff Reform. Addressing his West Dorset constituents Colonel R. Williams eaid he did not agree with hie friends who thought Tariff Reform the most important plank in their platform. Tariff Reform could easily wait. They had ftot yet converted the manufacturers or the wives of the workers. If Tariff Reform had to wait three or four years longer it did not matter. Besides, if their Radical .friends asked them what Tariff Reform meant vefy few could give them a 'definite answer. In the Atlantic Monthly, Earl Barnes remarks that the whole question of payment for services is in a chaotic condition. Those who serve mankind most faithfully are rewarded On the principle, "From each according to his ability" ; but nowhere is the remainder of the principle, "To each according to his needs," recognised. Hence our greatest servants must still beg support from our cleverest exploiters j and we must look to Mr, Carnegie or to Mr. Ptockefeller to endow research. An, American paper rejoices that the Australian baby bonus does not exclude unmarried mothers : — "The unmarried woman with a baby usually needs help more than the married one, and if laws of this kind must be passed at all they should give according to need and not according to necessity. There are more illegitimate babies born in wedlock than out of it, and if this seems to be a paradox it is not actually so. None the lees this Aew Australian law will create a caste, since the woman who does not apply for the official grant will look down upon the woman who does. And she will say bo, too." The centenary' of the Rev. Henry Martyn, who died in Persia ih 1812, afteT brilliant Work as a missionary, induces a correspondent of the Evening News to recall Punch's famous joke, in 1879. It was in that year that British troops, armed with the new Martini-Henry rifles, . were sent out- to fight the Zulus, and tills ia how the humorist put it :— "Britain's Messengers to the Heathen— 1809— Henry Martyfi. 1879— Martini-Henry." Last year 115 persons were killed by horse-drawn velucles in the London Metropolitan Police district, and 16 persons by bicycles other than motor bicycles. The numbers of persons killed by varknts mechanically propelled Vehicles last year were as follow:— By taxi-cabs 31, by light motor cars 86, by heavy motor cars SO, by motor cycles 7. "Why trouble about \ the drama?" \ras the question debated at a meeting of the Playgoers' Club, Cranboum* street, London. Mr. John Galsworthy presided, and Miss Hottiihian pleaded tor the encouragement of English drama. What was the use (she asked) of writing the greatest plays in thp world if people did not hear them, or if people did, no^ try to understand them? What was needed was a more sympathetic public to help and encourage tho best Engli&h ■ drama. I Once in a Court at Cork, .Lord Morris sentenced a man who had been convicted of a violent assault on the police. As the man left the dock he shouted at the top oi his voice, " God save Ireland." Tne Judge ordered him to be brought j back before him. The man thought ! then that the term of his imprisonment would be increased, and began to I tremble. All the Judge said was, "My friend, you are just one of those persons who make it impossible for God to save Ireland. Remove the pris6ner." "Probably the master mind which has wrought out of difficult material the powerful consolidation of the Balkan States is that of Ferdiitand, The Tsar of Bulgaria," says the Daily Telegraph. "Long ago, when lie accepted the crown of the Bulgar State, Bismarck gave him half-ironical advice which till now he has consistently followed. 'Let yourself be driven gently by the stream,' said the great' German statesman, 'but keep yourself above water. Your greatest ally is time.' Time has assuredly worked on behalf of Bulgaria, and lias done much to strengthen this Benjamin of the European family. But ttbw Tsar Ferdinand ,sees his chance." On nine charges of snatching money from errand boys whom he had asked for change, Heflry Nelson, 26, engineer, was at Middlesex sessions on 19th October sent to penal servitude for four years. It was said that since 1901 accused had made, a practice of this form of fraud in many parts of the country, including Glasgow, Manchester^ Bristol, and Edinburgh, obtaining as much as £6 a week. People of the West speak earnestly of the right to liberate the mind on the part of women the world over. The words themselves (writes Pierre Loti, in the New York Times), move one to abstract assent, no doubt. But it is, nevertheless, as in the case of the Turkisk women, a crime to disturb the conscience of people who do not ask for it and who, after it is disturbed, are left without moral help. Gottfried Fischer, aged 63, of Zoffingjen,. in the canton of Argovie, Switzerland, died on 9th October, at his home, after carrying a bullet in his heart thirty years. During the pursuit of a criminal, Fischer was shot in the heart, and was taken to hospital, apparently dying. To the amazement of the doctors, however, he recovered, and in a few weeks' he was able to rejoin the police force, Fischer was not molested' by the doctors, and continued his duties. He died of a chill on the lutlgfl. When leaving the public hall at Preston, Lancashire, after a ball on the night of 15th October, a young lady attendant in tho dressing-room saw a policeman struggling on the ground with a violent prisoner, and surrounded by a hostile crowdi Returning to the hall, the jottng lady placed a. bulldog on a leash, and. facing the crowd, "called to the officer, "You look after the prisoner and I'll attend to the crowd." She kept the crowd at bay until the officer overcame the prisoner and rtmovod him iv custody.