TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 12866, 16 July 1906, Page 7

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[Feoh Ous Special Correspondent. 1 LONDON, June L THE STUDIO MURDER The murder of the young artist. Archibald Wakley, at Westbourne Grove last sveek is one of the most sensational cases the London police have had to deal with for sometime The artist’s dead body, dreadfully battered about the bead, was found by a charwoman on Sunday morning in the passage outside his studio. A rug and some blankets had been brought from the sofa-bed in the studio and thrown over the corpse. The murderer had vanished, and apparently had left, nr trace of his identity. Such were the bare facts upon which the police had to set to work to reconstruct the crime, and, if possible, solve the mystery. Ihe first discovery was the instrument with which the deed was done. It was a small hammer which the artist used for hanging pictures, and _ the police found it behind a cheffonier in the studio. Inquiries into the movements of the artisl on the day preceding his death showed that he dined on the Saturday evening with his sisters, who live near Olympia"? He left them to return to the studii for the night, but later in the evening was seen at the Military Tournament at Olympia. A grocer’s assistant saw bin enter the studio late that night followed by a soldier “ belonging to one of the British cavalry regiments.” Accord mg to the police theory, what passed between the two men resulted in the soldier being seized with a fit of homicidal mama, a mad frenzy of remorse. Another clue which pointed to a soldier as thp murdnrer was a series of little punctures regularly and evenly made on' on. of the dead man’s thighs. The instru ment most likely to have made thes< marks, said the doctors, was a spur Acting on these slender clues, the police have searched every cavalry depot ir London, but without success A bands man of the Household Cavalry who had gone to his sister’s funeral at Manchester on the day of the mnrder was arrested on suspicion, a blood-stained handkerchief having been found in his kit when th. regiment’s baggage was searched by the police. But the suspect succeeded in satisfying the detectives that he was ab solutely innocent of all connection with the crime, and he was accordingly released. To get him out of the police sta tion without the knowledge of the small army of reporters waiting outside, the police adopted a clever ruse The bands man was dressed in a police uniform and marched out with the 2 a.m. beat. Ade tectjve had previously been given civi l ian’s clothes, and at a signal 'the bands man fell ont of the ranks, and went te the detective's house, where he slept. thM night. On his return to the regiment h< was publicly congratulated by the colonel on his honorable relea.v..

Meanwhile the police have had to look elsewhere for the murderer, and as the days by the difficulty of tracing him increases enormously. Six hundred troops engaged at the Military Tonma ment were paraded yesterday before a detective-inspector, but without result. A clue, which seems to point to a certain trooper stationed in London as the murderer, was followed with extraordinary keenness during the past three days, and an arrest was hourly expected ; but yesterday the police admitted that the case against the man in question had broken down, and that while they have no doubt that a trooper was the’ author of the crime, suspicion no longer attached to auy particular person. The general impression, both in the force and out of it, appears to be that the man who murdered Archibald VVakley will remain unknown, unless, of course, he gives himself up to the police. DEATH IN THE MEAT-CAN. The British public is taking a lively interest in the great American meat-pack-ing scandal, for Britain imports something like a million and a-quarter cases of American canned meats every year. The horrible revelations which the newspapers are now publishing with regard to the output of the great Chicago canning factories are calculated to send a cold: shudder down the spine of everyone who has lately eaten potted meat from America. The dealers in this country are endeavoring to reassure the public byinsisting on the rigorous tests applied to all imported meat. It is stated that every parcel of imported American tins is carefully tested, and 10 per cent, submitted to expert examination.. If any considerable fraction of that l 6 per cent, were rejected, the whole parcel would be' returned. “ Inquiries in Liverpool in the American Exchange, which is the largest centre in the kingdom, do not,” says a Central News telegram, “justify uneasiness as a result of the serious charges regarding the canning of putrid sad tohercolosos meat in Chicago, wit-*

ever may have come to the knowledge of the American authorities, there is- no doubt, according to Liverpool importers, that none of the goods sent to English markets contain any traces of any deleterious matter. Local supervision is in England very keen, .and if a tithe of the charges made against the Chicago canning trade were true,* British importers would very soon take action.” . Unfortunately, the American revelations disclose such tricks, of arresting decay and deodorising putrescent meat that the public mind remains uneasy in spite l of reassuring statements. There are chemfcal processes for "faking” foodproducts which can be detected neither by the expert who examines the tin nor by the consumer when tasting the food. It is only after the concoction has been swallowed that the mischief is discovered, and then perhaps it may be too late! And the disclosures, moreover, are inexpressibly revolting. If the tale told by Mr Upton Sinclair in his novel * The Jungle ’ be only half true, there has gone on For years a shameful traffic in decayed meats. The charges are made with painful cireiimstanticafity of detail, and behind them are the affidavits of employes and former inspectors. In the main they are supported by the Neil] and Reynolds report to the President. Putrefying hams were deodorised by chemical processes and pumped full of preservative fluids The bone was then removed, and the decaying meat seared with a white-hot iron to make it saleable. Hogs dying of cholera were sent to a remote plant to be rendered into grease. * Potted chicken ” is . fabricated from dyed tripe, pork fat, beef suet, and the waste ends of veal. Ranoid butter was oxidised by air-pressure, rechumed with skim milk, and sold in the cities. “ Devilled ham is made of the rejected ends of smoked beef and the trimmings of ham and corned beef, and “ flavored with spices to make it taste like something.” . Pickling brine was used and reused after it had become foul with impurities; cattle were butchered which had been fed on brewery refuse and were covered with boils; cows that had just calved, or were about to calve, the flesh of which is unfit for consumption, were slaughtered for meat. Sausages were preserved with embalming fluid. One witness, it is alleged, told President Roosevelt’s commissioners that he knew of a case in which two members of the same family had fallen into the lard vats and been partially rendered into lard. _“ In Armour’s,” says Mr Sinclair, where the spoiled hams are treated in a cellar by a man who pumps fluid into them with a fool pump, the stench of decayiug meat was unbearable. I was laughed at because I could not stand it. Tuberculosis in hogs is alleged to be so common as to excite no rejnark. Hogs dead from cholera or smothered to death in transit are shipped to Globe, Indiana, and there turned into hog grease, and some of this product is shipped to France, and is used in making fancy oil." Mr Sinclair, who has challenged the packers to contradict him in court, if possible, declares that no chickens are used in the Armour plant for potted chicken The flesh of unsaleable calves is far more profitable, and is used almost exclusively for that purpose. Thousands of pounds of chemicals are used to dj-c meat and retard decomposition. Old cows, so nearly dead that they have to be carted, are utilised for canned roast beef Fifty per cent, of them are with calf. Soup and beef extracts arc made from liquid drained from this boiled meat. Meat that is good for anything else is not canned. The Chicago newspapers knew of this state of things, and failed in their public duty by not exposing them FAITH CURES. In a recent letter mention was made of some curious West Country superstitions, bearing chiefly on the cure of ailments and diseases common to childhood,- such as whooping cough and measles. As showing how strongly some of the strange folk-lore and superstitious beliefs therein described still survive in the rural parts of Devon, the rector of Sutcomhe, a small village “ remote from everywhere.’’ describes a scene that took place at his parish church a few Sundays ago. A woman in the parish had -of late been a sufferer from epileptic fits, and at the persuasion of a neghbor, who nineteen years ago had done the same thing and had not suffered from fits since, sh© went round the parish and got thirtymarried men to promise to attend the parish church at the morning service. At the close of the service the rector desired tho selected m.n to pass out one by one, and as they passed through the porch they found the woman seated there, accompanied by the neighbor who had done the same thing nineteen years ago. Each man as he passed out put a penny in the woman’s lap, but when the thirtieth man came he took tho twenty-nine pennies and put in half a crown, which the woman is to wear, and it is to be hoped that the result will be as satisfactory in her case as it was on the previous occasion. In a small parish of less than 300 population it was not easy to find thirty married men, but all were willing to help—farmers, laborers, and tradesmen—and the whole incident passed off very quietly, and all was done with the utmost decorum. The woman took her seat in the porch when the preacher began his sermon, and from the Imre she leit her house until she returned she did not speak a word. This silence plays an important part in the ’’ cure,” it seems. A former rector of Bideford gives another illustration of th© faith that is in the Devonshire peasantry and their “betters also. A young farmer called on him and asked him to find out- what was contained in a bag which he had worn round his neck since infancy, and which a white witch had given his mother as a preventive against fits. After cutting op n several outer cases, well worn and sweat stained, the rector came upon the original inner one, which contained a number of pieces of paper, each bearing one word I‘iecirg them together, he found they formed the following sentences;- “Sinner, Jesus died for thee" (thrice repeat'd); “Therefore flee that sin." Af tlie man’s these pieces of paper were reinserted in their several bags and sewed up again, and he, replacing the charm round his neck, went on his way rejoicing, being now in a positon to tell a neighbor, whose child had fits, a certain cure for them. EARTH SHAPE AND EARTHQUAKES. “ The| earth is round, somewhat like an orange.’ Who does not reme.mber this sentence? It embodies the first geographical fact put into the heud of the youthful student, and probably sticks there longer than any other. But is it a fact? Most of us accepted it as such for centuries, but apparently there are good grounds for doubting its truth. Many years ago Gene ral Schulvert, a Russian, put forth the theory that the earth’s shape approximated that of a lemon, and now some savants declare it is more like a pear! Among them is Professor Jeans, of Trinity College. Cambridge, who considers that the pear shape is the one mosl likely to be assumed by the eartb as its crust cools and crumples unevenly under the uneven distribution of land and water. True. Mr Jeans’s conception of the earth’s figure can only be called “pear-shaped” by courtesy, since its. axis through the stalk is only one part in 7.000 longer than a line drawn through the narrowest section of the fruit, but “ there are pears and pears " Mr Jeans and the geodesists are not quite aereed as to where the stalk should be placed, but for the present it is assigned to some region in Central Africa; and on a circle round this “ stalk" region lie tho localities which are subject to great earth disturbances. San Francisco ana the West Indies lie upon this circle, and th re is,- indeed, no doubt about the volcanoes and earthquakes that devastate them: but the alarming fact to us is that the British Isles also lie upon the same circle of disturbance. We may find comfort in the fact, that in bistoi-ic limes these islands have never exp rienwd any serious earth quake; irdeect. we have been singularly ex- mpt. hut it would, perhaps, giv© us ii greater sense of security’if som savant came along to dernnnstrafe beyond d übt that the stalk of the earth pear is situated in some other quarter than that sel.-cted by Jeans and company.