NEAR AND FAR.

Evening Star, Issue 15065, 23 December 1912, Page 1

NEAR AND FAR.

Under the will of Mr Thomas Bartlett, one of Liverpool's merchant princes, that city has just received some splendid benefactions, totalling £125.000. The Walker Art Gallery received £IO,OOO, the National Lifeboat' Society £5,000, the Homo for Epileptics.- the. Seamen's Orphanage, and the University £20.000 each,' the Merchants' Guild £40.000. the new Cathedral £7,500, and £40,000 was provided for the establishment and endowment of a. bed in each of Liverpool's five hospitals, in memory of the benefactor's family. Becker, who is under sentence of death for the murder of the gambler Rosenthal, lias been - chosen president of tho Death House Club at Sing .Sing Prison, that distinction having been conferred on him (wires the New York correspondent of the London 'Chronicle') by eleven of his fel-low-prisoners who have also received the death sentence. Becker thus succeeds an Italian murderer, who occupied this enviable post, and has jiiet paid the penalty of his crime in the electric chair. American prisoners are allowed considerable license, especially those lying under sentence of death, and the' "Death House Club" at King Sing has long been a popular institution of that prison. The prisoners are not allowed to see each other, but their cells are all in the same part of the prison, and they carry on debates, conversations, and games with each other by shouting from their cells. Owing to Becker's popularity among ■ the criminals, the eleven condemned men have each cut short their exercise time by a quarter of an hour, a.nd this extra timo has been credited to Becker, who thus receives several additional hours' exercise.

Sir Harry Johnston relates in the 'Scout' how a display of fireworks helped him out of a tight corner in South Africa, when a friendly chief was attacked by a tribe, called the Wa-kibosho, and asked the Englishman to help him. Sir Harry says: "I made all necessary preparations for a grand display of fireworks, and when it was quite dark I blazed forth on the astonished savages with Bengal lights, red me. Roman candles, serpent equibs, and, lastlv, a magnificent flight of rockets. The terrified Wa-kibosho-scarcely waited to see the end of the show. When the first rocket rushed shrieking into the air and broke in a masa of blue and crimson falling meteors, our astounded, foes fled in dismay."

Will the skyscraper of the future attain a height of 2,000 feet, divided into 200 stories? It is entirely within the bounds of possibility and practicability, according to Mr J- E. Rockhart, who, with Mr A. C. Gilbert, designed the Woolworth Building, New York. "There is no limit to the height of a building, provided it has sufficient ground area," said Mr Rockhart, as he stood on top of the colossal pile. He had gone there, says the 'Heraid,' with about 30 other members- of the Architectural 'League of New York to attend the first meeting of the organisation on the fftieth• floor. "The possibilities for the future office bu'ldhigs are unlimited,'* Mr Rockhart said.- "The only obstacles'-I can see in the way of a, building that would be a- giant even among the lofty structuies of the present time are the architects themselves. They "are averse to putting up such high buildings, as it is regarded as unsanitary to erect a skyscraper so high that .light and air are excluded from the lower floors." Another authority remarked that they had still to learn if steel was prooi against the destructive atmospheric agencies to which it was subject.

Salomone,. a notorious brigand, who has been, sentenced at Aquila, Italy, to 30 years' imprisonment for murder and attempted murder, has written several stories for newspapers, and haj also pub-