An Uncanny Gift.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 266, 19 November 1901, Page 4

An Uncanny Gift.

English travellers on the West Coast of Africa soon become imbued with a genuine respect for the natives’ uncanny powers of gaining news of distant events and of. foretelling death and disaster. The “ wise women ” of the native villages say they know what they know, but they cannot explain their methods. A short time ago an English engineer who has recentlyreturned from the Ivory Coast met in the Strand a native who had been with his expedition. “ The Doc.’s dead,” said the colored man, alluding to a medical officer in the French hinterland. Though pressed, the native would say no more than that he was sure the doctor really had died. The Englishman was sufficiently impressed to make inquiries. A few days afterwards a cablegram was received saying that tho doctor had succumbed to blackwater fever.

The American ship Ersltine M. I’helps has made one of the most wonderrul runs in the history of American shipping, During flic voyage -from New York to Anjer Head she averaged 250 knots a day for 26 (lays. The best run was 300 knots, and the poorest 200 knots during the 2-1 hours.

There should be an application economical principles throughout the Administration, and a stop should at least be put to the creation of new departments and offices, which have expanded the public service to such cnor mous dimensions as to be fast becoming a burden.—Dunedin Star.

Mr Roosevelt was once asked this question : “ I£ you could speak cominandingly to the young men of our city, what would you say to them ?” The answer was direct and characteristic. “ I'd order them to work. I’d try to develop and ’ work out an ideal of mine—the theory of the duty of tho leisure class to the community. I have tried to do it by example, and it is what I have preached; first and foremost to be American, heart and soul, and to go in with any person, heedless of anything but that person’s qualifications.” Tho few years spent by female civil servants in the Government offices may teach them to keep the grocer’s or baker’s books correctly in after life, but it is unfitting her for woman’s highest mission.— Wellington Lance.