NEWS AND NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 144, 19 June 1915, Page 13

NEWS AND NOTES

"You ask me what will result from this slaying oE the Dragon — how its death will affect the world of art," writes Mr. Basil Qotto, the well-known sculptor, in the Evening News. "Life in the days to come will be taken .more seriously, and death more lightly. In realisation of these emotions the truth that art is long and life is short will be impressed. England was never decadent, but- accepted he decadent ideas of other countries ; >-day those alien extravagances are interned. When the weeds are cut down, the unobtrusive grain gets a chance." The loan expenditure in the Commonwealth in the last financial year reached £22,892,548, according to official records, and including the Common wealth outlay, raa-y be stated at £9 8s 8d per head in West Australia. £6 14s 4d in South Australia, £5 8s 6d in New South Wales, £3 15s 2d in Queensland, £2 18s 3d in Tasmania, and £2 15s 3d per -"head in Victoria. Victoria, howeve>\ charges water supply, tramways, and various other works to separate funds. A great scheme is now in _ process of application throughout Russia for substituting for vodka shops people's palaces and eimiJar buildings, where people can meet and be entertained. The vastness of the undertaking can best be shown by the fact that in the Government of Poltava alone no fewer than three hundred such buildings have been opened or are projected. They include reading rooms and halls, where lectures and such lighter entertainments as concerts and cinematograph exhibitions can be given. "This Territorial, or tribal, organisation has been popular since the dawn of history," says the Times military correspondent. "Well spoke Ulysses when he said in the 'Council of the Greeks : — 'Hear, 0 King ! I shall suggest a course not trivial. Agamemnon, sort the Greeks by districts and by tribes, that tribe may tribe support, and each his fellow. This performed, and with consent of all, thou shalt discern with ease, what chief, what private man deserts, and who performs his part.' " According to Mr. Knibbs, tlie Commonwealth Statistician, the population of Australia showed an increase of 68,-j 893 during 1914, as compared with 138,700 in 1913, with 164,652 in 1912, and with 143,624 in 1911. Australia shipped off some few tens of thousands to the war, but the contraction in the increase was largely due to a stoppage of immigration. In 1911 the net immigration was 69,300; in 1912 it was 83,741; and in 1913 it was 54,775 ; while last year there was a net exodus, including troops, of 17,370, "Our gratitude," says Mr. Balfour, "should not only go to those distinguished soldiers whose names will go down in history as the leaders of our troops in this great fight; let it also go to those unnumbered, and to us, nameless heroes on whose work ultimately depends the efficiency of everything we do in this country, the efficiency of everything which is done by the Headquarters Staff, in France or in Flanders, and to whom, in truth and reality, we shall owe, when the time comes, our freedom from the military nightmare under which Europe and the world is at present groaning." In anticipation of next season's wheat harvest in New South Wales being a bountiful one — the Government already estimates the amount at 60,000,000 bushels — the Railway Commissioners are laying in good supplies of coal at their various depots, while the traffic on the railways is comparatively slack. Their supplies for the western and south-west-ern lines and branches are drawn principally from the Lithgow collieries, and the trade has in consequence become so brisk that some of the mines are experiencing considerable difficulty in procuring sufficient competent miners in the district. An employers' pledge has been initiated by the London Daily Telegraph and has been signed by many firms, by the terms of which all employers accepting it declare that, "when filling up positions after the war, we intend to give preference to those who have served their country under arms, or in making munitions of war." It has been heartily approved by the King. "Those who are now devoting their lives for our safety and honour number such a host as no man ever dreamed of seeing raised among us by voluntary enlistment," says the Telegraph "The man who has fought for his country will never again in our time be a comparatively rare sort of Briton. He will be everywhere, and there will fortunately be no forgetting him henceforward. We shall be kept in mind of our obligation ; and what an obligation! In remembering the soldier, never let ua forget what it meant to be a soldier in the Great War." The Newcastle (N.S. W. ) coal exporttrade for the month of May, shows a big falling off, as compared with the corresponding month of last year. The decrease of 192,956 tons can be attributed almost entirely to the slump in the foreign trade, owing to the scarcity of tonnage, which is engaged elsewhere, as a result of the war. The amount sent to places beyond the State during May was 296,727 tons, of which 221,912 tor.s went to Commonwealth and New Zealand ports, as follows : —Victoria, 99,555 tons; South Australia, 50,957: New Zealand, 36,570; West Australia, 16,610 ; Tasmania, 10,760; Queensland, 5680; Rabaul, 1800. "Cases are conutantly occurring in which officers and soldiers aye reported to have refused to take off their caps in police courts and other courts of record. The Army regulation is perfectly clear, and covers all such cases completely," says The Times. "Its text is as follows :—'ln: — 'In a civil court an officer or soldier will remove hig head-dress while the Judge or Magistrate is present, except when the officer or soldier is on duty under arms with a party or escort, inside the court. In theae latter circumstances the prisoner or prisoners alone are uncovered." Mr. John Henderson Noble died recently at his home, Cedar Vale, Bellingen, New South Wales, from heart f&iJnre, at the age of 82. He was one 'of the oldest identities of the Bellinger River. A native of the north of Ireland, Mr. Noble came to Australia in 1854, and wan afterwards manager of various country stations, subsequently settling on his Cedar Vale property. He married 1876 a daughter ol the late Dr. M'lnfi tyie. His wife and four children survive him. Deceased was ft 'lescendnnt of the fp.mous loyalist, Sir Robert Hamilton, who received from James I. o gruat land giant for services to the British Crown on the plantation of Uldiei 1 . Each year for many years past the annual report of the Victorian Department of Education alleges that, in Glippsland particularly, dairy farmers &o overwork their children that they are unfitted when they reach the Statu school, for the day's tuition. The report for last year, just presented to Parliament, is no exception. It give.? instances, presumably furnished by inspectors, of backwardness in children, ond of a lack of receptivity, and these are attributed to a practice of rising tfcry early to milk cows, and of going to bed Me after milking hi tho aveuing,

Mr. William A. Law, President of tho American Bankers' Association, was born on a. cotton plantation in South Carolina, where his father was a country minister. Saving a little money, Mr. La.w secured the co-operation of some friends in organising the Spartanburg Savings Bank in 1891, and two years later toook charge of the Central National Bank of that city. His work attracted outeide attention, and he went to Philadelphia in 1905 as assistant cashier -. i the Merchants' National Bank of Philadelphia. The Rev. E. L. Watson, aai Army chaplain, speaking at the Baptist Union, said that during the bombardment of Neuve Chapelle eeveral men were seen to be crying. When asked why, thoy eaid that during the lulls of the bombardment the birds could be heard singing. Over one trencli hung a tree, and on a bough were two birds preening each other's feathers and twittering. Notwithstanding the depressing effects on trade of war and drought, large numbers of motors are being purchased in New South Wales. During the four weeks ended 26th May, 241 new motorcars and 23 new motor-lorries were registered. The official report states :—: — "These figures indicate the growing demand for this class of vehicle, and, that, notwithstanding the war and the drought, the necessary funds for purchases appear to be still available." One of the most singular views on drinking ever recorded occurs in a letter from Sir Henry Ingelby on 2ist August, 1661, printed in " "Pryings Among Private Papers." "Sir William is so ill," wrote the baionet: "one of his doctors told me yesterday there was no manner of hope. ... I have been taught that Jupiter allows every man who comes into the worW a different proportion of drink, which, when he has despatched, there remains nothing for him but to die, and that the proportion and expedition makes great difference in men's ages."' "Dispatch" or "Despatch"? Sir Harry Poland, writing in The Times, declares the former correct and the latter a corruption due to a misprint in Johnson's Dictionary. "For ourselves," says the Pall Mall, "we are content to adhere to the convenient practice of spelling a word which has acquired two separate meanings according as the one or other is intended. Thus we would write of Sir John's French despatch, and of the Invincible as being sent to the Falklands^ Islands ' with utmost dispatch.' It may be illiterate, but it is handy." Mr. F. J. Goodwin, of Luddesdown, Rochester, has nine sons serving in the Services : — Frederick, in the Australian Transport Corps; AVilliam, Royal Marines ; George, Royal Navy ; Jesse, Artillery ; Charles, Army Service Corps ; John, Canadian Artillery ; Horace, Royal Field Artillery ; Herbert, Boyal Marines ; and WaJter, Royal Marines. William was at Antwerp and is now in the Dardanelles; 'Charles was in the South African war and was at the retreat from Mons; and Herbert is attached to the Royal Naval flying School. Indian reports state that a dacoity was committed at Datunia, a village about 12 miles off Danton, on the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. The dacoits broke into the house of one Babu Gaurhari Nanda, a wealthy landholder, tied him down with a rope, branded his wife with burning torches, broke open the safe, and decamped' with cash and ornaments to the amount of about 3000 rupees. Warfare (says a Daily Chronicle writer) is still making new speech. The news from India of the defeat and dispersal of a Mohmand lashkar recalls the origin of one of the most cosmopolitan, of words. A lashkar in its first meaning was simply an army, and a lashkari was a camp follower, and thence a soldier of inferior rank. From the military to the naval was not a far step, and in due course a lashkar was a native Indian sailor. And now you will find lascars, who are not Europeans but need not necessarily be Indians, in every port in the world. The New Zealand liner Ruahine reached Plymouth with sixty recruits from the Argentine. They are all British-born, and went Home for active service, i It is high time that the Government decided what course it intends to pursue with regard to those two prime necessities of life — corn and coal," says the London Star. " The price of both has been scandalously forced up by the action of those concerned in their sale. The control of the railways will enable it to organise the coal supply, and the mastery of the seas will settle the corn question." An article contributed by Mr. Crozier Long to the Fortnightly describes incidentally a visit to General Radko Dimitrieff (the Bulgarian General commanding a Russian Army.), who declared that the condition of his army was in. every way good, the sickness rate being only 3 per cent. ; that is, lower than in peace time. Tlie General praised the Austrian staff work and equipment, but criticised the bad "moral " of the Austrian army, aa shown by the soldiers' readiness to surrender, and, after having done so, to give information. "The cause of surrender," he aaid. "is not personal cowardice, but lack of interest in the war, lack of that sense of race responsibility and race solidarity which make the Germans so formidable." M. Pierre Loti, in l'Tllustration, nar fates the circumstances of a visit to the Queen of the Belgians. He says : "Re collecting that the young Martyr Queel was formerly a Bavarian Princess, I realised that the Bavarian seqtion of the German Army is uneasy over the persecution of this Belgian Queen, who is of their race, and highly indignant at the idea that the Minister who leads their revels 4 tried to find her children so as to sprinkle them with grape shot. The Queen, however, raising her hand, which rested on the silken meshes of her robe, made a gesture eloquent of some thing irremediably final, and in a low voice uttered this phrase, which fell on the silence with the solemnity of a decree from which there could be no appeal * ' Between them and myself all is over. A curtain of steel has fallen between us for all time.' " The London Evening News recently stated: "Sir Stanley Buckmaster, the Solicitor-General and Director of the War Press Bureau, who has gone to Scotland for salmon-fishing, landed a 101b fish one rlay this week." Punch comments: "Tho Press Bureau has no objection lo the publication of the above statement, but take 3no responsibiliy for its accuracy." j The position of Switzerland and her neutrality is a little difficult in view of the fact that German-speaking Switzerland sides mainly with the Germans, French Switzerland with the Allies. In a large somewhat cosmopolitan town of French Switzerland discussion has become so heated on the war that it is now forbidden in cafes, public places, and public vechicles. -J Chlorine, which in its liquid form the Germans are said to be using in their poison bombs, owes its discovery as an element, as well as its name, to a British scientist, Humphry Davy. It was in 1810 that he found the mysterious gas to ba undccomnosablo into othee elemeni*.

M. M. L. Sainean has written a letter to Le Temps explaining the origin of the word Boche, now universally applied to Germans in the fighting line. It is a clipped form of caboche, a low Latin word for noddle (caput, head). In 1866 it appeared in a slang dictionary as mauvais snjet. It next seemed to take on (perhaps prophetically) the meaning of numskull or bungler. About the time of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 it was applied to German workmen in Frencl? workshops. Alboche is a sort of compound of Allemand and boche. Bosche is incorrect. "The King is dead, long live the King !" You will (writes Mr. James Milne) find a new and touching version of that in Paris ]ust now. There Edouard Sept, as the Parisians always call him, is a living presence. "He, being dead, yet speaketh." Not only that, but his personality is tho medium in which Paris thinks of London amid the tumult of Armageddon. His memory illumines us to the French people, and for him they give us their hearts. He is a pledge of which they are as proud as ourselves, for did he not understand the French and love France? It wins them to be understood, it conquers them to have affection. It is only natural (writes an exchange) that the hardening effect of war upon the nerves should not be general. For instance, I have come across many apparently case hardened colonials who have faced death in many forms, who have been afraid to cross a London street without a policeman's aid. The nerves become hardened on particular occupations in accordance with the old maxim, '"Use is second nature." You would not think that an undertaker would almost faint at the sight of blood. But one confessed to me recently that although he could deal with the most gruesome of dead subjects with complete callousness, yet the sight of a cut finger of a living person sent a nervous tremor through his body. A Bombay message says that the short sojourn of Dr. Shoji, commercial expert, sent out by the Japanese Government to Bombay some time ago, is having a very decided effect. Numerous enquiries regarding commercial possibilities are being made in Japan by Bombay merchants, some of whom hav^ thought it better to proceed to Japan to secure agencies. Professor C. J. Hamilton has left Calcutta for Japan, where he proposes to investigate recent industrial developments, and more particularly to enquire into the methods adopted by the Japanese Government for the encouragement of manufacture. A vigorous campaign for the banishment of all foreign languages by the police has begun in Germany. The police go about Berlin removing advertisements or signs with any but German words on them. A meeting was held the other day of German advertising agents, who passed unanimously a resolution pointing out that trade names andi signs have acommercial value, and urging the practice of moderation.