NEWS AND NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 150, 26 June 1915, Page 16

NEWS AND NOTES

A." torpedo (writes an American exchange) costs from £700 to £1000 to make. The newer kinds attain a speed of 48 knots, and they can travel about seven miles without sensible deviation frOm their course. At the same time it is by no means easy ,to hit a moving ship from any but a short distance. The speed of the ship must be accurately estimated as well as the speed of the torpedo, and consequently the time that the torpedo will need to reach a given point; that is to say, the point that the ship will reach at the same moment. I The Clyde shipbuilding yards mostly 1 date fr.om the second quarter of the 19th century. Until the beginning of the 18th century the Clyde had practically no commerce, and Glasgow had small importancei Prosperity came with the opening up of American trade, but it was the Clyde Trust, created by Act of Parliament in 1858, which, by the expenditure of some 12 millions sterling, laid the foundation of the Clyde industries as they are to-day. Russia aaid Austria, unlike Britain, are heavily) provided, in peace time as well as war:, with homes for the children of unmarried mothera. In Austria this is necessary because' "a very large proportion of Austrian births aTe outside the lines of conventional legitimacy. Particularly^ is this the case in Hungary. Something like 35 per cent, of all the birthsi in the city of Budapest are irregular, and in the rural districts the ratio is even larg-er. The great proportion of the rank and file of ihe Hungarian army is recruited indirectly from the foundling institutions; and practically the same statement is true in relation to ordinary domestic service." One day a week the beggars of Costa Rica are privileged characters. That is, on Tuesday they are allowed to beg from shop to shop. It is the custom for business houses to prepare for the weekly visit of the mendicants, and to hand over to them small coins or articles of little value. In some instances, where merchandise is given away, the beggars peddle it about the poorer quarters and 60 earn a few cents apiece. ! Dr. Karl Hefferich, largely through whose genius Germany has raised two war loans exceeding £600,000,000, is one of Germany's most successful financiers, although only forty-three years old. He was director of the Deutche Bank, the largest in Germany, until the Kaiser selected him to handle the war finances. The effect of the tide on artesian wells is unusually pronounced in the Philippine Islands, and particularly in the Batangas province. It is stated that a well located at Bauan, 298 ft in depth, and flowing fifty gallons a minute at a height of 18in above the earth's surface at low tide, at high tide flows 250 gallons to the minute, indicating an increase of 400 per cent, over the flow at low tide. Mrs. Frances Willard Mtmds, a State Senator in Arizona, has been twice called to preside in the Senate since going to the Legislature. Mrs. Munds was born in. California and was reared in Nevada up to her thirteenth year, when she went to Maine, there taking a scientific course in the Maine Central Institute. Soon after graduating she went to Arizona. She taught school two years and then married John L.~ Munds, for many years engaged in the stock business and mining. Her husband was eight years sheriff of Yavapai County. The Italian soldier undergoes a more severe training in some respects than any friend or enemy in the armies of Europe. His day begins at 4.30 a.m., and drill and routine continue, with a two-hours' break of "compulsory repose," until 5 p.m. After that he has four hours' freedom, but must be back in barracks by 9 (or 8.30 in winter), and is supposed to be abed when, half an hour later, the bugles sound the "silenzio." Russian is already the dominant tongue of 170,000,000 people, and the statisticians declare that by 1950 it will be spoken by no less than 300,000,000. It is reported that " magnetic attraction is now being applied, more or less experimentally, to the detection of mines laid at sea. An electro-magnet, supported on a long arm extending forward from a ship's bow, can be made to signal the presence of a, mine. Could the current be made strong enough to deflect a torpedo, another terror of the deep would gradually disappear." The American idea of the conduct of war was expressed by General Bobert E. Lee in a notice issued to the forces of the Southern Confederacy in 1863, saying :—": — " No greater disgrace can befall the army and through it our whole J people than the perpetration of barbarous outrages upon the innocent and the defenceless. . . It must be remembered that we make war only on armed men." The nominal titles of the King of Italy include "King of England." And Italy's King is not the only monarch with a titular claim to sovereignty over British dominions. The King of Spain's nominal dignities includes " King of Gibraltar," "King of the West Indies,'' and "King of India." The last titlo also belongs to the ex-King of Portugal. China, on 9th May, informed Japan that she accepted all the demands made in tho latter's final Note, and the danger of war is consequently averted. An official statement made public, through the Japanese Embassy at Washington, discloses the very considerable concessions made to China by Japan in the form of the modification of the demands presented at the outset. "In fact," comments the World Wide, " tho feeling in Washington is that Japan yielded very substantially at the end because of the pressure of world opinion upon her." •**"If the poisonous gases can be used in warfare," says the New York Tribune, "the way is open to a general relapse to ancient methods of savagery. Germany, though boasting of her own superiority in civilisation — Kultur is the synonym used — bas taken the lead in this war in cutting loose from the salutary restraints which civilisation has put on military brutality." Mr. Sidney Whitman must have taken a side-glance at some of the war " despatches" when he wrote: — "Those who, by duty or acquired habit, make it a rule to read our- newspapers regularly are likely to take a deal of superfluous, oven of dangerous, cargo on board." " Human nature is the same the world over, and there never was an originally superior race or people. Some nations have founded powerful civilisations which lasted for a shorter or a. longer period, but it was never the racial force which caused it, but rather the irreeistiblo swing of circumstances." — Sheykh Achmed Abdullah. " There is nothing degenerate in these noble days ; there is no room for the degeneracy which is the noisorno growth of times whfii thing? go too avH) for i- -the flesh, but not for tha -Bpiril.' 1 — WftT*- ...1 1. - - * - a .** H-..-1 n .n