NEAR, AND FAR.

Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 8

NEAR, AND FAR.

r '-'T(ie big hats which have latterly had \ so much vogue among-the women of all nations are (the 'Daily Mail' states) to be classed as bicycle '■ wheels on the Swiss State Railways, and will have to be conveyed in the luggage vans. The Official notice is said to read as follows: hats more than 3H inches •hj diameter will, according to Article ■ll7 of the Railway Tariff adopted in February, 1906, henceforth be regarded xs wheels. Any lady wearing a hat of larger dimensions who desires to travel by a Swiss passenger train must either ride in the luggage van or deposit her hat with the luggage guard and enter the passengers' carriage bareheaded." v.. A powerfully-built man- of about forty-five years of age is causing some inxiety in the Poverty Bay district, lie has a strange mania for climbing lills and traversing mountainous cbuii;ry, "irrespective" (says a correspondent of the Auckland ' Herald') "of precipitous cliffs, rivers, gorges, and push." He is'possessed with the one :dea of seeing " beyond yonder range." He hung about Tiniroto for weeks, and is now said to have made for the Motu. jThpugh he is inoffensive, he will descend upon a homestead after a long iramp and ask for food, and he has been known to go foodless on an erratic tramp for days. His feet are reported to be raw with hard and (onstnnt travelling. When questioned, his mind appears to be a blank, and instructions are being issued for his apprehension. The latest strategy of the suffragettes was to send two of their members to Mr Asquith by post (states a London newspaper). Miss M'Clellaiid and Miss Solomon were taken to the West Strand Post Office, and offered to an astonished official as " express letters." The Post Office is equal to any emergency, from a breast-pin to an elephant. The letter form was made out, and the two " living letters " were handed over to a smart telegraph boy, who undertook the charge with an expression of official solemnity. The "letters," properly addressed (by label) to "The Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, 10 Downing street," were marched down Charing Cross and Whitehall, followed by an interested crowd. When the little pa;ty of throe made its appearance m Downing street al' the police constables iii the neighborhood were on the alert. But the te'jr-ph boy, as the representative of the Postmaster-General, pointed out that " letters," once entrusted to the care of the Post Office, may not be interfered with by anyone until they are formally handed over to the persons to whom they are addressed. It was a puzzling situation—the. privilege of the Post Office against the authority of the police; and the latter gave way. Letters must be delivered. Guarded on each hand by sonstables and detectives, the telegraph boy was allowed to lead his "letters" to the entrance of " No. 10." The butler declined to receive the " letters " or to sign the waybill for them. He politely suggested that they must go back as "dead letters." After some hesitation and resistance the ladies gave in. They yielded themselves once more to the guidance of the telegraph boy, who, in accordance with offle-al rules, escorted them back to Clement's Inn as "returned to senders." Mr W. F. Hamilton, K.C., treasurer of the Church Army, speaking at a meeting in the Inner Temple Hail on the result of the first year's working of the Probation of Offenders Act, related an incident which occurred in the workrooms of the Army. An ex-con-vict was so touched with the kindness and sympathy of a lady who inquired about his future plans that he took from his trouser-pocket a mouse which he had caught and trained in his cell, "and insisted on presenting it to her. She took the little creature in her hand and petted it and admired it, to the great delight of its owner. The lady of the story was Princess .Marie Louise Df Schleswig-Holstein, who was present at the meeting. A clever thief, with accomplices, profiting by the knowledge he had obtained that a clandestine gambling club was being run at Maisons-Lafntte, in Paris, dressed himself in the regulation frock coat and tall hat, and, with the tricolor scarf which is the badge of office of the police commissary, made a raid on the establishment. The "police official" and his assistants, proceeding with method and dignity, collected the money on the green tables, amounting to nearly £I,OOO, took the names and addresses of all present, vouchsafed the information that summonses would follow, and departed. Some of . the people,. not wishing a public scandal, a day or two later began to take steps so that the summonses should not be heard in the public courts. It was then.that they learned that the "commissary of police" was a fraud, and that they had been the victims of a clever gang of thieves. Mr Bateman Harcourt, of Palmerston House, Old Broad street, solicitor, who died in February, aged seventyfive, leaving estate of the value of £10,207, states in his will: "In order to prevent any misunderstanding with regard to. my business, I hereby declare there is none to dispose of, I having for some years past, for the sake of employment, carried it on at a small yearly loss from having declined to take new clients and my old ones having nearly all died." _The Military Court of Appeal at Poson has reduced the sentence of four months' imprisonment, followed by degradation, passed on Sergeant Romann, of the Forty-sixth Infantry Regiment, for cruelty to subordinates, to twentyeight days' imprisonment without degradation. Romann, who was entrusted with the task of drilling new recruits, meted out numerous blows to them. He boxed their ears regularly md pounded the napes of their necks irul chins with his fists. He compelled them to run till they were absolutely exhausted. Other more refined cruelties were also practised on recruits by his orders. The Military Court of Appeal held that Romann perpetrated the offences owing. to exaggerated zeal.