Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 1819, 15 June 1912, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

Caught on the Bench? ' Are you going to show your dog at the 'Winter Show at Palmerston? Have-you registered your dog? lake warning: The registrar discovered a number of unregistered canines at the Dunedin Dog Show last week — and prosecutions are to follow. There is some bite in that smart trick. Hoch der Kaiser Some Wlore! You need to bo at table with him, when lie has his hat off, to hear the Kaisermaniac talking through it. As the latest instance, Baron Ilafschall yon Bieberstein, the German Ambassador to Turkey, who is alsou"E to succeed Count Paul Wolff-Metternich at the Embassy in London, was entertained at a farewell banquet at Constantinople last week. In responding to the toast of his health, and referring to his new appointment, Yon Bieberstein said: "My path in England will be a steep and stony one, but I will be faithful to my Imperial, masters, to whose orders I will devote my whole strength." Now, why "steep and stony"? And will his path be a cobbled one because he is to wear boots ordered by the Kaiser just to make corns grow in England? He is no diplomat, that Yon Bibber. He'll have a steep time, alright! The Courage of Mr Ismay. Beulah Hood, wilting in the May issue of The Fra, takes the same line that w> took in tho Stah when American pressmen and some others wevu heaping contumely upon Mr Bruce Ismay for having taken advantage of au opportunity to escape from the Titanic. We wrote at the time that Mr Ismay's was probably the most valuable life, saved from the wreck, because through his experience seufaring would be made "safer in the future. Here is how liaulah Hood puts it: "A purpose above the scorn of men brought John Bruce Ismay safe to this (U.S.A.) unfriendly shore. Ho can help to make ocean travel safer as no senatorial investigation can. And he will. Ismay is no coward. He has chosen to fact what men call shame. Besides this, ho has forever with him, as the recurring theme of his life, the hopeless memory of that awful tragedy. It was absolutely necessary that a representative of the White Star Line should come back to tho day with knowledge of the disaster and intelligence which should aid in the prevention of such another. . . . no man ever owed more to' ihis business colleagues tlu.ii J. Bruce Ismay, and no man has ever paid his debt more fully. Life :*t this price can not be sweet to ln/n. , . . Ismay brought from the sea a greater burden than€ie had ever before carried. What he does with th.s burden will decide who of the human cargo on the sinking Titanic was fittest to survive." And, Beulah Hood, it will not be very long, either, before even that is answered.

The State as Good as ?, Father

Up to this moment quite a large quantity of people in New Zealand ivas not aware how paternal the State, really is to the men it employs. The Post and Telegraph Department has actually adapted" the American system of corrcspondencel school teaching ' in order to -.enable postmen and- telegraphists to study so as to pass the tests imposed by the department, and so quality for promotion. Correspondence classes have been held during the past two years for the instruction of officers in the subjects of the, Civil Service senior and junior aiM the sixth standard examinations. Tuition under this system has proved especially suitable for officers whose hours °ti i y were "" re g u lar, since it enabled them to study as their own convenience, and relieved them of the •necessity to take their lessons at any particular time or place. In the weekly paper set by tho instructor the, amount of matter was limited to tho capacity of the average student, and it has been found that the ;:nswermg of question on paper, by concentrating tho attention of the student on certain definite points, had induced closer reading, and led to the subject being more thoroughly assimilated. Corrected answer papors bearing necessary comments or instruction, were returned to the student. : A nominal sum of 10s 6d has ben fixed as the fee of each course and we have a Ministerial assurance that the response made by officers to Uie opportunities thus provided has been most encouraging