TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 11656, 17 September 1901, Page 2

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[From Ovit Special Correspondent.] " LONDON. Augnst 2, 1901. ! REWARDS FOR " BOBS." In view of Lord Roberts's steady refusal to be banqueted and othenvise feted for his share in the South African campaign, many in I ho Old Country imagined that tie Gowtnnient would leave the question of his rev, ,;rd from tho nation till such time as the '.'ivafr little man saw fit to give a fair field io those cities, towns, and municipalities who il'.-sto to honor him with "freedoms." swords of honor, and that olla podrida of "compliments in caskets" which falls to (he lot of every successful warrior. But the Government, with an eye perhaps to ■ he demands they will'* have to make later on the patriotic taxpayers' purse in connection with Kitchener, French, and other successful men of the campaign, decided that there was no time like the present for making provision to enable Karl Roberts to display those outward and visible signs of opulence which his elevation to an earldom demands. So the King, primed by his Ministers, demanded that his reward should be supplemented by his faithful Commons with a. nice little dot. and His Majesty mentioned in a casual sort of way that £IOO,OOO would be about the right figure. The faithful Commons when in Supply on Wednesday considered the matter. Mr Balfour moved that the hero of Kandahar's services should be rewarded with the sum named by the King, and in doing so made one of the best speeches the House has had from him for many a day. He said it would not be necessary to waste many words in justifying the practice by which the House had rewarded those who upheld the glory of this country or the application of the practice to Lord Roberts. He spoke at length in eulogy of the military genius and the services of Lord Roberts, and detailed the causes that led up to " Bobs " being sent to Africa. What, he asked, was the situation when he arrived there? Three British forces were apparently helpless in face of the armed positions occupied by the Boers. No fewer than 11,000 of the best British troops were entangled at Ladysmith. Every engagement up till then had been fought on British soil. Not a single British soldier had crossed the frontier. Circumstances combined to make the Boer in South Africa one of the most formidable foes ihat any organised force had ever had to deal with. Proceeding, Mr Balfour detailed the military movements which Lord Roberts carried out with the utmost secrecy an 1 expedition which led to the relief o'f Ladysmith and Kimbericy, the conquest ofX'ronje. and the occupation of the Boer o<'ip:tals. In carrying out these operations Lord Roberts had, he said, conceived the !->•>• d but successful idea of abandoning the railway and marching across the inhospitable regions between the Modder River and Bloemfontein. If. in the course of that manoeuvre, Lord Roberts had been forced to letrcat he had no doubt that the retreat would have been carried out with the greatest skill and ability ; but it would undoubtedly have marked a most disastrous epoch in the history of South Africa. It «as because that operation was successful and the dangers and difficulties at which he had hinted were obviated that he asked the House of Commons to reward Lord Roberts. He would not ask if Lord Rocrts saved South Africa, nor would he put a limit to to the recuperative powers of this country, but he did say that had it not been for Lord Roberts, had it not been for the military movements which he conceived and successfully carried out, Kimberley and Mafeking would have fallen, and Ii.OOO British troops would have been .starved into surrender at Ladysmith, and he could not suggest the price which this country would have been obliged to pay before her position Mas recovered and her prestige restored. This country- asked her soldiers to fight her battles without regard to political considerations or to rights and wrongs, the justice or injustice of the policy of which i.hey formed part, and surely if they made such a demand they ought not to be divided < r to allow the prejudices of party to interlere with the rewards given to those soldiers who had so successfully served them. Ihat was only his opinion, and the course which he as an individual urged upon the House, hecausc it was only bv unanimity ihat ihe gratitude and thanks of the nation could be. properly expressed. But. though Sir Henry Camphell-Ban-ncrman joined the Conservative leader in Ins praise of "Bobs," and asked his party to join in "expressing the warmest gratitude to that gallant leader, the debate was marked by the delivery of speeches winch will certainly not render the nation's gift any the sweeter to the recipient. Mr Dillon, in opposing the vote, made a vicious attack on Lord Roberts, whose conduct of the campaign ho characterised as " inhuman, barbarous, and a dismal failure" -a pretty strong departure from the truth even for Mr Dillon. Several other Irish members followed in a milder strain, and Mr Übouchere, whilst avoiding an attack on " Bobs," expressed his disapproval of the amount of the vote by reminding the House ihat all the Germans voted Moitke after the Franco-Prussian war was £40,000 worth of trench loot, and he humorously suggested that Lr.rd Roberts's guerdon should be £IOO,OOO worth of Rand gold mining shares. >ir M'Neill attacked not onlv the Com-mander-in-Chief but nearly all the generals. His references to Lord Methuen were most ottensive. "Was," he asked, "this man "•ho had lost four great battles kept at the front because he was a shareholder in l.hodes's companies and a society pet?" ihe Nationalists cheered ostentatiously, and s:nie of them called out "titled booby." It was noticeable a little later that when Mr Bryn Roberts was protesting against tne vote on the gronnd that Lord Roberts had not observed the usages of civilised u Hi-fare, Sir William Hareourt turned round and cheered with emphasis. Mr Edmund Robertson, too, spoke against the motion. So that the front Opposition bench is still more or less in a state of mutiny, in spite of the meeting at the Reform Club. In the end the debate had to be closured. There was no help for it. Mr Tully bad been called on, and started a historical disquisition commencing with the battle 0 f Waterloo. He wa.s quite capable of talking for an hour. The closure having been carried tho vote was passed by 281 votes to To' fifty-five of the protestants being Irish mem' beis and the rest Radicals. NAPOLEON BRODRICK. Buonaparte and Brodrick both begin with B. hut the resemblance between the terror of Europe and the "'aughty young gent" who at present bosses the War Office, as far as "Bobs" will permit, does not go much farther. Mr BrodHck apparently fancies it does, and in an amateurish way he is proceeding on truly Napoleonic luies. He has, however, made a pretty blunder to start with for attempting to "nap" the Press, and the Press belongs to a particular genus of worm the main features of which are that it turns very readily on those who tread on it, and generally manages to bring the treader to grief. Hitherto the Press in England lias been differentiated from the Press on the Continent by its real independence of opinion. In most Continental countries the Press is tuned by the Government; even in France there are "semi-official" organs. In England we have now nothing oi the kind, although foreigners find it almost impossible to grasp the fact, and . persist in believing that what is said by hnghsh newspapers about foreign affairs is as much the opinion of the Government as would be the case if the German or Russian Press were concerned. Napoleon Brodrick is going to change all tins—'an' he can." I do not envy" him his task, and, somehow, I fancy it will prove rather a larger order than even the new dictator of Pall Mall can fulfil. Others great *e he—and some think much greater—have tried to do something of the sort in times past. The consequences were that the foolish statesman concerned wished heartily that he hadn't before one moon -had run its course. I ,ri V e Mr Brodrick just twenty-four hours "to come to the stool of repentance. He is not a, fool, and his folly will therefore end soon The sooner the better for himself and for Oie Cabinet of which he is a member. The comic futility of his first real attempt to put the fear of Brodrick into the Press is surely indicative of a sudden montal aberration, brought about, perhaps, by the recent heat wave. It will ie remembered that when the ' Daily Mail'

made known the truth about Vlakfontein, Lord Stanley, acting for Mr Brodrick, threatened the punishment of the correspondent, Mr Wallace. How far his threat has been carried out news from South Africa will presently show. At present it seems as if Mr Wallace's messages were being stopped. But War Office ingenuity did not *top short at muzzling Mr Wallace ; it actually conceived the idea of annoying the 'Daily Mail' by refusing it "official information," and we have the spectacle of a Secretary of State for War, who receives £5,000 a year from the country nominally for attending to ' its business, devoting his, time and energy to thinking out ways to annoy a newspaper because it has told tho truth when he, apparently, didn't want the truth to come out. The ' Daily Mail' recently described what was said to be Lord Kitchener's new scheme for ending the war. Mr Brodrick seized the opportunity of retaliating for the exposure of the' Vlakfontein murders by insinuating that the ' Mail' had obtained news from documents purloined from the War Office; stated that he would in consequence deprive the 'Daily Mail' of the daily list of the killed, wounded, and missing in the war, and other official news; and informed the 'Mail' in writing that he had warned those news agencies which have entered into contracts with the 'Daily Mail' not to supply those lists of the killed and wounded to this journal. Thereon the 'Mail' says:—"Mr Brodrick knows quite well, for we have informed him that the news he affects to complain of came from a well-known journalist. He knows that it appeared in many other newspapers." But these newspapers had not revealed the suppression of the Vlakfontein murders, and in consequence they are still unboycotted. The pretext is a clumsy one, and the attempt to deprive the 'Mail' readers of the news of the fate of their friends and relations at the front will of course fail. Foolish Mr Brodrick. A NORTH LONDON TRAGEDY. The good people of Stoke Ncwington were startled out of their wonted quietude last Friday by a startling murder in a street miscalled Green Lanes. A young woman named Lizzie Norbury was stabbed to death ; her mother was seriously injured, and Arthur Reed, a member of the London Salvage Corps, received two stabs just over the heart. A brother and sister named Dyer were arrested. The nrirl Dyer was formerly employed at Mr Lewis's draper}- shop in Green Lanes. About a month ago there was a fire on the premises, and tho girl went to live with Lizzie Norbury and her mother, who occupied rooms over a jeweller's shop a few doors away. Reed was placed in charge of the burnt premises, and the two girls are said to have made his acquaintance. The girls had a dispute—the nature of which is not known—and Dyer went to her home at Portsmouth. She was evidently in great distress of mind, and she and her brother came up to London, and went to Stoke Newington on Friday. They walked through the jewellers shop and went upstairs, it is said that the girl suddenly stabbed Miss Norbury .v.;d killed her instantly, and that the b'rolhor attacked Mrs Norbury with the butt end of a revolver, with which he struck her in the head. There were screams, and the brot v;r was secured by some laborers who heard the cries. Meantime his sister • ushed to Mr Lewis's shop. She knocked at the door, which was opened by Reed. She then, it is alleged, stabbed him twice ovei the heart with the dagger, which she afterwards threw away. She was held by passers-by, Reed was taken to a surgery, and subsequently the girl and her brother were locked up. At the preliminary Police Court proceedings. Dyer and his sister made no attemptto throw doubts upon the evidence tendered against them; indeed, they seemed to glory in their crime. The male prisoner (Ralph John Dyer), who is said to have lived for many years in Australia, talked of having done the deed to revenge his sister, who had. he alleged, been drugged and outraged. He demanded that his sister should be medically examined. The girl herself spoke of having committed the crime " for the outrage committed on me. lest the law should not reach them." Pre sumably, therefore, the prisoners believe that Reed seduced the girl whilst she was under the influence of a drug, and that Mrs Norbury and her daughter were accessories to the outrage. It is understood, however, that an examination of the female prisoner has disclosed no evidence of tho suggested outrage, and it seems highly probable that the girl at least is mentally deranged. THE MATTERHORN TRAGEDY.—A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE. In 1862 Professor Tyndall, writing to the late Sir Julius Von Haast, in New Zealand, said: " Of all the really difficult mountains the Matterhorn now alone remains, and the man who reaches its summit will, I think, perform a more difficult piece of work than any hitherto accomplished." ■ When three years later the Matterhorn was vanquished for the first time by a party of eight, only Mr Edward Whymper and two guides survived to tell the tale of that " one crowded hour of glorious life" spent by them on the summit. On the way down a terrible disaster occurred, which Mr Whymper thus relates: " The party had roped themselves together, and Michel Groz had laid a>ide his axe, and in order to give Mr Hadow greater security was taking hold of his legs and jratting his feet, one by one, into their proper positions. Croz was in the act of turning round to >zo down a step or two himself. At this moment Mr Hadow slipped, fell against him, and knocked him over. I heard one startled exclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr Hadow flying downwards. In another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps, and Lord F. Douglas immediately after him. Immediately we heard Croz's exclamation old Peter Taugwalder and I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit. The rope was taut between us, and the jerk came on us both as on one man. We held, but the rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate* companions sliding downwards on their backs, and spreading out their hands, endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from our sightuninjured, disappeared one by one, and. then fell from precipice to precipice on to the Matterhorn gletscher below, a distance of nearly 4,000 ft in height. From the moment the rope broke it was impossible to help them." Once again a terrible tragedy has occurred on the mountain side, involving the loss of two lives and the almost supernatural escape of two of the party. One of the victims was a Miss Mildred Bell, daughter of Mr Edward Bell, a member of George Bell and Sons, the firm of publishers. She was wit-bin a few weeks of her majority, and her mother was just on her way to choose a birthday present for her daughter when she received the news of her sad death. Miss Bell, although a good walker, had had no mountaineering experierce, and it seems folly that she shoul' have been allowed to make her first attempt on this dangerous and slippery peak. A party of seven set off on July 23 from the Hotel Mount Cervin at Breuil at 3 a-m. for their first excursion. The first detachment consisted of Miss Bell, Dr Robert Black (brother of Miss Clementina Black), and the guide Leonard Carrel. In the second was the guide Maquignaz, who had wisely refused to tie the whole party on one rope. They climbed successfully the Lion's Head, a difficult peak, separated from the Matterhorn up to the Italian Club hut. This is an exceptionally difficult ascent, owing to the outward slope of the ledges, the perpetual fail of stones, and the ice which glazes the rocks. But both parties achieved the ascent with ease. It was in the descent, always most trying to novice*, that the disaster occurred. They had reached tho rocks under the Lion's Head, and were traversing a slope of snow tind ice of the most, treacherous nature. What happened is best told in Can-el's own words: " I was in front cutting steps with my ice-axe. Second on the rope wus Miss Bell. ' Then came Miss Trow, and after that Dr Black. Thty were standing still. All of a sudden Miss Trow turned and said 'What a view.' As she said this she seemed to losp her nerve, and slipped. She dragged with her oh the rope Dr Black, and then Miss Bell. All three went sliding down on the treacherous sur-

face of the ice. I Lad just time to dig my ice-axe into the ice as the rope tightened. It came on me with a terrific jerk, and all but cut my body in two. I.looked round, and saw that we were all hanging over an abyss. For two minutes I kept my hold. You can judge how terrible the strain was, but it was to sheer life that I clung. Then at last my strength gaye way. ■* Instantly I was torn away and flung forty feet in the air. I felt nothing more." The party coming behind saw this terrible catastrophe at the closest quarters. The two gentlemen ran to give aid. forgetting they were on the rope. Maquignaz instantly threw the rope over a rock, which prevented a second catastrophe, as. the men would certainly have slipped on the place where they had fallen. When the relief party came up and began to search for the corpses they were surprised to hoar a shout from Carrel "We are not all killed," and to find him on his feet below the rocks, with his coat wrapped round his head. .He was partly stunned and unconscious. Another cry was heard close at hand. Then Miss Trow was found, barely injured. The two others were dead. Dr Black was at the foot of a small precipice, lying on his face, andstill fastened to the rope, and Miss Bell was upright, close to the body of Dr Black, and her remains were horribly mutilated. "The first fall," the 'Daily Mail's' correspondent goes on to say, " was down a height of 50ft. Then they slid down a less steep slope, after which" all fell with a terrific and ever-accelerating rapidity down a gully a thousand feet high. The cord broke between the guide and tha first lady. He fell further than the others, who stopped about 500 ft above him. Miss Trow, seeing that her two compauions wero dead, took a knife, cut the rope, and descended to the guide, and both took refuge under a rock, as stones were always falling down the gully. The Hotel Mount Gervin sent ten men in the morning, who at once brought down the living. A guide carried Miss Trow on his back. The guide Carrel did not wish to come down. 'I am perfectly well. This place suits me perfectly,' he said. He has apparently lost his reason for the time being." EXTENSION OF ELECTRTC TRACTION. MONO-RAIL BETWEEN MANCHESTER AND LIVERPOOL SANCTIONED. In the second year of Queen Victoria's reign the British public, habituated to stage-coach travelling, were astounded at. the sight of railway trains running at a speed of thirty-seven miles an hour. It seems probable that if not in the seeond, at all events in- the third year of her successor's reign electric trains will be running at a rate of 110 miles an hour, or three times as fast, and that we shall be taking it as a matter of course. At the end of last week the Select Committee of the House of Commons passed the preamble of the Bill for the construction of the Behr Mono Railway between Manchester and Liverpool, subject to conditions giving the Board of Trade a large power of supervision before construction. The line is to cost £2,800,000, and be finished in three years. The journey of thirty.five miles will be made in twenty minutes', the average speed being 110 miles an hour. There will be no stopping places, and with the brakes it will be possible to pull up a train travelfing at that speed within a distance of 500 yards. The chairman oJ the Committee explained that the proposal was regarded as rather in the nature of an experiment on a practical scale than as an ordinary railway Bill. Speaking at the meeting of the Maxim Electrical Company, Sir Hiram Maxim, in pointing out how well suited England was for electric traction, declared that with the appliances already at hand with only a slight change in the shape of the train so as to avoid atmospheric resistance, it would be quite practicable to run trains by electricity at a speed of 120 miles an hour, and passengers could be carried from London to Brighton at a very much less price than railroads were able to do at the present time. It might be possible to pay a large dividend, and take passengers to Brighton in a few minutes for half a crown. The Joint Select Committee has had before it a large number of tube schemes, and while certain schemes, including the Charing Cross and Hampstead, which is tho most needed of all the lines, have been referred to a parliamentary committee in the ordinary course, a through line from Hammersmith along Piccadilly to Piccadilly Circus and the City, with an extension from Piccadilly Circus to the Angel at Islington has been recommended.' In the next decade our traction and our method of living seem both likely to Le revolutionised. Instead of congregating together in fiats in the centre of London, the toilers of the metropolis will be living out in the fresh air and green fields of the country, and journeying by electric tube or tram to and from their work. It seemed a quartet of a century ago as if we bad almost reached the maximum of speed both for trains and steamers. To-day it seems as if we could set no limit to the rate at which we shall be able to travel by land and sea, and it may be by. air. Every increase of speed brings all* parts of the' Empire closer together, and makes Imperial federation more feasible, so hey! lor the electric tram, the tube, and the turbine. LAND SETTLEMENT IN OKLAHOMA. —BALLOT TAKES THE PLACE OF "HUSTLE." A few months ago I had a very interesting chat with a young Scot, who was in the big rush when" the land at Oklahoma was first opened to settlement. For days before the territory was declared open its boundaries were guarded by soldiers, who kept back the throngs of "people camped on the verges, on the tip-toe of expectation, waiting for the word "go" to be given. Nevertheless, so my Oklahoma friend told me, several slim Americans (called " Sooners," because they got on the land too soon) crawled on to the territory by night, and secreted themselves by the creeks among the scrub. The guard checkmated them by setting fire to the lonn- grass and bush'es, so that the lucky settlers, who got the best land, found when they arrived at their goal nothing but a blackened expanse of prairie, with the pastures and the sheltering trees all burnt. When the territory was declared open there was a mad stampede, in which the race was not always to the swift, for in manv cases those who got in first and pegged out their land had their claims jumped by hired ruffians, while the 'cute Yankee whose nominees were proving the truth of the maxim " Might is right" was quietly making his title secure by registering it at the Lands Office. There were all sorts of swindles and rows, some of which ended fatally, and an abundance of litigation as the result of this very barbaric, rough and ready method of land settlement. My Oklahoma friend then mentioned that another tract of waste land was shortly to be thrown open to the landless, and he thought the same system would be pursued. My view, based on Australian and New Zealand experience, was that this was as unfair and as unsatisfactory a method of settlement as could well be conceived, and that I couldn't understand why practical people like the Americans couldn't adopt the Antipodean system, where there were several applicants, of determining the right of selection by ballot. He thought this method wouldn't appeal to the Oklahomans. A telegram this week, however, shows that the people of that territory, wearied of the boom and bustle of the "urevious settlement, are drawing lots for their plots very much on the lines of the drawing of Tattersall's sweeps. In thg public square ten boys stand at the wheels ready to take the envelopes which bring sadness or joy to multitudes. At the first turn a mighty ! cheer comes from the crowd; all faces are j lighted with expectant hope. The note is read and the winning number proclaimed. The winner receives his fortune with de- ! monstrations of joy. For the rest of the "crowd the temporary disappointment gives way to renewed hope. The work goes on with alternating hope and fear, the multitude of the despairing over increasing as the prizes grow .fewer.