HERE AND THERE

Evening Star, Issue 11893, 22 May 1903, Page 7

HERE AND THERE

An American journalist has been confessing that nationally the Yankees are great at adopting and adapting ideas, but rather poor at originating them. Wireless telegraphy is a case in point. So, too, for that matter, is the telegraph. The tele?hone originated not here, but in England, t was a German who invented the telegraph. The steamboat which we ascribe to Pulton as we ascribe the telegraph to Morse, was due to an Englishman. The electric light glowed at the bidding of a Russian long before it dazzled Mr Edison. Antiseptio surgery we got from London, bloodless surgery from Vienna, and if Wells did not discover anesthetics it was through no fault of Sir Humphry Davy.— American exchange.

A decided novelty in the way of a school is shortly to be adopted by the State of Rhode Island, U.S.A. A crafUis being built, and will be Launched this month, which will be used as a floating school for boys. On the vessel, which is to be christened' " The Young America," the youths will be in daily touch with the sea, and will obtain a certain preparatory fitness for a naval life should they choose to follow such a career. The main purpose, however, is to prepare them for college and for business, and, by seeing the world at the same time, widen the education by actual contact with other people and other climes.

The passing of the telephone girl is only a matter of time, for we read that an invention which promises to do away with much profanity (expressed or implied) and any quantity of vexation of spirit is now being tried on a large scale at Chicago (U.S.). It is already satisfactorily at work in a dozen cities with a population of 25,000 and over, and its promoters are certain of its complete success in the largest' cities. It is the automatic, "secret service," girlless telephone. By means of the automatic switchboard the telephone girls at all central stations are absolutely done away with. When a number *is wanted in Chicago they simply t;urn a small dial, luce that which operates the combination of a vault, to the numerals which make up the required, number, in their successive order. Then they press a button, which rings the call-bell on the other telephone, and the connection is complete. The whole operation is automatic, and almost instantaneous. No one can break in and interrupt or overhear a conversation, and a person speaking cannot be cut off before he is finished. An invention that promises such desiderata will surely claim the attention of our progressive P.M.G.

The charm of the Kansas papers is their domesticity. They revel ia "heart-to heart" talks .and fireside editorials. . Nothing that touches the home is alien from them. It is not therefore surprising to find the editor of the Kansas City 'Journal ' heading an intimate crusade on behalf of fathers. He is tired, and says so frankly, of continually meeting in his . a^9u llbors ' houses inscriptions as 'What is home without a mother?" " God bless our home,">und so on. "What's the matter," he. "with 'God bless our dart .' Dad gets up early, lights the fire, boils an egg, grab* his dinner-pail, and wipes off the dew of the dawn with hiboots while many a mother is sleeping It is he who makes the weekly hand-out for the butcher, the grocer, the milkman, and the baker, and his little pile is badly worn oelore he has been home an hour' He stands off the bailiff, and keeps the rent paid up.

. One of the most striking proofs of the increase of hotel-dwellers in large cities is the movement which has been started to provide special chaplains for those who sojourn casually or permanently in tile big and little hosieries. I„ New York a Hotel Chaplains Society has been formed, which includes representatives of most forms of religious belief, as well as prominent hotelkeepers. The Rev. H. M. Warren, who has given up his church to devote himseli to the work, thus explains the methods of the Association : "No creed or church, you see, is concerned in the hotel chaplain movement. lam only one of them If a patron of the hotel be ill or need the ser"ces ° f a clergyman, I may be called first, but through me any other clergyman will come. I am glad to say that I "have lists of every creed, where men have said thev were willing to come. That there is a field for the work is proved by the fact that when I first started there was hardly one call for me a week. Now there are as many as three or four a day." It does not appear how the chaplain's salary is to be paid, but this notice has appeared in all the largo hotels: "Guests, patrons, and friends of this hotel wishing' the services of a clergyman are respectfully informed that they may call upon the Rev. H. M. Warren, the hotel chaplain. He will be pleased to render any kind of pastoral service, regardless of creed, nationality, or residence. Calls may be sent any hour of the day or night."

Quite a sensation has been created by the news that a member of a noble Irish family, celebrated for the bsauty of its women, "is about to put upon the market a famous complexion cream, to which, it is alleged, she. her sisters, and other ancestresses owe, or have owed, their matchless fairness and smoothness of skin. The recipe has been kept a secret for generations, and hitherto the family would neither sell nor give it away. On a recent occasion, however, thev were persuaded to allow some of the cream to be sold for a charity. Its success was so great that its owners have been requested on all sides to develop it into a serious bn'siness, though it is unlikely to be-sold under their own name.

"If I have sinned I have suffered," pleaded a prepossessing woman named Helen Coats, or Taylor, who stood in the dock at Glasgow, charged with bigamy. The story told the Court was that at the age of sixteen she was married to a lad of eighteen. After treating her cruelly for six months her husband left her, and she managed by charing to furnish a little house. He returned, and sold the furniture to buy drink. This was repeated on sixteen occasions. She separated from him, and five years later married a man named M'Quade. The latter, because she would hot join a #mg of coiners, informed the police of her bicramous marriage. The sheriff said she had wronged no one, and discharged her.

The Washington correspondent of the 'Pilot,' writing under date January 27, thus summarises the condition of the tariff question in the .United States: —"If evtry man in the United States was a manufacturer there would be no agitation in favor of lower tariff duties, but of the population of the United States (in round numbers 76,000,000), 29,000,000 are reported by the last census as being engaged in gainful operations, which means, of course, that those 29,000,000 persons have more interest in obtaining the necessaries of life cheap than thev have in seeing those necessities command a high price in the market. Wages in this country are at the present' time higher than they have been for many years, but they are not proportionately so high as the increased cost of living. In other words, although the mechanic and the artisan and the -man generally whose wages or income is fixed receives more money every week or month than he did a few years ago, the money goes no further than it did then: in fact it is doubtful whether he can get as much out of his money to-day as he got before the great wave of, prosperity 6wept over the country.. In many cases there has been no advance in wages. The great bulk of the salaried class are no better off now than they were, and every man finds that his living expenses have increased from 25 to 50 per cent.

For many years the sewage farm has been on its trial in England, and the curious part of the matter is that, whereas the great cities are spending many millions between them in forcing their sewage into the Thames, the Mersey, the Humber, and the Clyde, theorists maintain that sewage ought not to be a loss but an asset. The reply of urban councils Hitherto has bsen; "Let the theorists take the sewage and make their fortunes, then; we will not mak"e a' charge

for it." The report just issued by the Peterborough Municipal Council looks as though the problem had been solved by them. A sewage farm-in that borough has had eight years' trial, and in that period has made a net profit of £5,000, or rather over £6OO a year to the. good. The experiment needs time, but as the outlay has included interest on land purchase, cost of labor, sites, farm buildings, and repairs, the town of Peterborough seems not only to <have "ot rid of a nuisance, but to have made £6OO a year and at the same time to have created an asset. The salaries of the staff above the labor grade are not given, and it is jusfr possible that the ralaries of the highly-paid officials may absorb the entire profit; but even so, there is a decided ffa j n ' IOTl 0T fc k e mone y " k e Pt m tne P^ice and the town escapes the cost of getting rid of its sewage.

Dr O'Reily, Roman Catholic Bishop cf Arelaide, thinks that, as he began his musical studies at seven, and is still pursuing them at fifty-six, it is reasonable to suppose he has the power to give some assistance to learners of briefer study and younger years. In an interesting address to some students in Adelaide, who had won certificates at the Trinity College examinations, he related the following incident in his life:—" At the age of eighteen I entered the college of All Hallows, Dublin. Among other things rigidly tabooed to ns were musical instruments of all and every kind One evening at our after-supper recreation a fellow-student produced a score of the 'Soldiers' Chorus' in 'Faust,' and sang the opening bars for me as far as the basses and tenors sang in unison. I was young arid impressionable, perhaps heart-hungry for music. I was at once captivated with the air. Could I not sing what followed? I could not. I obtained possession of the score, and my struggles began. I had never before in my life, without help of instrument or guidance of teacher, sung a, song from printed notes. But Gounod's strains had thrown a spell around me, and I was nerved to an attempt. I sol-faed the phrases aloud in the moments permitted for recreation. I sol-faed them mentally when silence was enforced. In the dining hall, where 300 knives and forks were going; in the lecture hall, where the most interesting and lucid of professors were speaking; m the recreation ground, where 300 tongues chattered in the excitement of various games, I kept steadily to my purpose. I was ever and always singing up and down in the endeavor to measure the intervals on paper. Perseverance had its reward. At the end (if three weeks I was able to sing for my companion, to his very great surprise, the air of the whole chorus. My Rubicon had been passed. I had fought my Paardeberg, and the road ahead to my distant Komatipoort was clear. Within a period of moderate duration I was able to sing any music not overweighted by accidentals, abnorm;d in form or in number, after a few minutes' trial.

■uT^ ere " a e rnesome warning in a terwt , , tra jedy in the English and Welsh Press—an affair which shows that however certain by mere assumption death appears to have been, it is always well to make sure. Early in March a Liverpool woman threw herself and her three children over a cliff at Llandudno. Nine or ten days later a party went to the spot. By the aid of a long rope four men lowered Mr Short, of the Llandudno Gymnasium oyer the cliff, a distance of about 150 ft* where a fissure in the rock, about 12ft in depth, was discovered. Here the adventurous explorer unexpectedly found the body of one of the victims, a girl about five years of age. The deceased child -vis m a sitting posture, and the eyes were wide open. Not a bone of the body was broken though it was ■ .-lightly bruised! and it is supposed that when thrown by her mother over the doping cliff the girl had alighted on the edge of the crevice and had either rolled or crawled Ho its extreme corner, where she was lound. Tnc-e she had evidently died from the effects of starvation and exposure. Mr Short and his friends were surprised at the discovery for they had no idea that U;ey would find' anything save, perhaps, a hat or s.me remnant of clothing belonging to the deceased, which would s, rve to indicate the point at which they fill m'.o the sea. Ha., the descent been made v) en the trageay became known, a different skry would probably have been unfolded.

. Dr Spooner, who has just been appointed Warden of New College, Oxford, is said to enjoy a unique reputation at the University. He is frequently guilty of transposing the iirst letters of two or three words, and thus producing somewhat comical results. " Spoonerisms," as they are called, have become quite a recognised institution at Oxford. On one occasion Dr Spooner was inviting his adherents to pray for our dear Queen, but he actually said "our queer dean." On another occasion, in a somewhat eloquent passage, he intended to ask his hearers whether they had not often felt a half-formed wish in their hearts, but they were rather amazed when they were invited to say whether they had not often felt " a half-warmed fish " in their hearts! Again, he was telling his friends that, instead of buj-ing things at Oxford, he found it preferable to deal at the stores; what no actually said was " to steal at the doors." [That so well-known" a play upon words should have been renamed after a living man, and that at a great seat of learning, is rather remarkable. The transposition of initial sounds of adjacent words has been called "morowski," probably from moria-folly.]