Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 2879, 25 February 1916, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

Coals from Newcastle

At -its latent meeting, the Hoard of Agriculture had before it a lengthy and comprehensive statement trout Professor l>. 11. Bailey, ol Cornell University, New York.»seliing out the lines on which he considers rural education could best be conducted in New Zealand. The report adds that the ISoard decided to write thanking the Professor for his report, ■'although il is unlikely that mueii use can be made of it until after the war." Our experience has been thai New Zealandparticularly the Wanganui districtcould teach America the, lines along which rural education could best be conducted. We wonder whether Wnngauiii was remembered Avhile the Hoard was reading tho CornellianV eoninitinieation V

The Bcrnstorff Boom

For the n1 It limn. Count .John Hernstorff, Genua tiy'.s Ambassador lo I'.-S.A., has made good Avith .President Wilson. The Washington correspondent of the London Times severely discounts the rumours tha.t Count Herustorff is likely to be handed his ■passports owiiifjf to indiscreet stale merits in the newspapers. The "i nil is eretiou' , referred to was only a statr-r merit made by the Ambassador to tho press that the "Wilson Cabinet had again submitted to Germany's statements regarding the Lusitania negotiations, and that JMr Lansing (who had apparently objected to this verdict) was re-.siynin , :. like Mr Rtyan (his predecessor), the portfolio of .Secretary of Style. The very Aveek in wliich Ambassador Tlern&t-orff mad , . , those two untrue statements lie was the special guest of honour at an official dinner given by Mr Lansing. And fhu.s American statesmen honour instead of rejecting the chief plotter against their commonwealth!

Charlie Chaplin Or.ize

Some , of our contemporaries are chuckling and some are concerned over reports that Charlie Chaplin's popularity is Availing last iv Australia, because the people arc tired of him.

"As a draw he now belongs to Ihe past. ,, A wrib-r in Munsey's Magazine gives the Charlie Chaplin craze another year of life, and by that time he reckons -."Chaplin will be as dead t lieatricaly as last year's leaves." There is nothing to lament over in these luciibrjit ions. Charlie Chaplin has been a phase anil a craze that has contributed to the gaiety of nations. lie has been the on* 1 poseur that has stood the strain of popularity I'or years. 11 is to his credit thai C. Chap'in tired of his comicalities before his patrons did. and he has born trying lor some lime to persuade hi.-; employers to drop him out of farces and allow him , (o use his undoubted talents in serious photoplays. YVhilst this iti but natural - -for the humorist has ever boon a serious fellow at

heart- it has to be admitted ihu there are mighty if\v optimists of the C. Chaplin calibre at largo.