CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11555, 16 April 1898, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

Tho women of New women and Zealand who aspired to obpabliambnt. taining tho Legislative

Council Chamber at Wellington for the session of their political Conference, and who have had to bo, content with Bellamy’s rooms, may consider themselves well treated in having been successful to that extent. The Speaker of the Legislative Council, in urging established usage as the ground of his refusal of the chamber sacred to our colonial "lords,” could have quoted largely from English practice to show how jealous Parliament has always been of its exclusive privileges, and how chary it has been of extending any rights to women. As a matter of fact, the House of Commons of to-day is not so open to ladies as spectators or auditors as it was over two centuries ago. It is on record that ladies were formerly admitted to the strangers’ gallery. On June 1, 1675, seme ladies were in the gallery peeping over the gentlemen’s shoulders. The Speaker spying them, cried out, “What borough do those ladies serve for?” to which Mr William Coventry replied,

'‘They serve for the Speaker's Chamber.'* Sir Thomas Littleton said, " The Speaker might mistake them for gentlemen with fine sleeves dressed like ladies.” The Speaker, however, said, “I am sure I.saw petticoats.” In 1778, on Feb. 2, a large number of ladies were present to hear a great debate on the state of the nation. We are told that they filled the .whole gallery and the seats under the front gallery. Captain Johnstone, a naval officer (commonly called Governor Johnstone), being angry that the House was cleared of all “ men strangers,” amongst whom were some friends he' had introduced, insisted that all strangers should withdraw, but so much opposition was shown by the fair audience that it took two hours to enforce the order. After this ladies were excluded from the House, and until 1834 could only obtain a glimpse of its proceedings hy peeping down the “lantern over the largest chandelier.” Even now, the accommodation provided for women visitors to ■ the House is very meagre, and the fair politicians are enclosed in a place that looks, with its iron bars, uncommonly like a wild beast’s cage. The feminine critics of legislation in New Zealand are much- better treated; but such is their interest in politics that on important occasions they would occupy the whole of the men’s gallery, as well as their own, if they were-ad-mitted to the former. It has on several occasions been found necessary to ask women to withdraw from the men’s gallery of the House at Wellington; but our political women are not so obstructive as their English prototypes proved in 1778.

The recent disaster on the Dyea route to Klondike has served to bring home to people the terrible daagers which men are ready to dare in their search for. gold. It is by that routethat the travellers go who cross the Chilcoot Pass, and an idea-of that part of the country may be oh-' tained from the experiences of a woman, Mrs Kelsey, from Boston, who crossed the pass by am aerial tram-line formed for the purpose of carrying goods. She was the. first woman to make the journey in that way, and in a letter she-describes her sen-, sations when she was “ swung in mid-air ■ from point to point overrrocky almost tossed from peak to peak.” She tells how she was pecked and strapped in a little box -' -about* two feet by three.nnd then; “ hoisted on W something like an overhead' trolley wire/* The rest may be told in her own.words,. “Straight up the mountain side and into the dark canon I went as if t were aV bird.' Higher and higher up from the ground the cahles catried me,-and I was afraid to look down, so kept my eyes fixed on the heights above and beyond. All at once, directly in front of me, loomed a. great, black cliff,.and I was dashed straight at it... I closed my eyes, and shrieked as I never " did in my life, when, 10. the cliff was gonej ; I had been whirled just round its edge, and then I felt the awfullest sensation. Per I was suspended over a great chasm hundreds of feet above a glacial torrent, and it appeared to be a mile from one side of the canon to the other, where the. spiderlike cable lines were suspended from towers. It seemed to me I hung for hours over that yawning chasm, but they told me afterwards it could not have been more than a minute and a half, for the span, as they caU it, at that point is only 1600 ft, ■ But mathematics don’t count in such a, situation; yon just have a horrible, sickenfear of such terrible heights and distances in mid-air. The rest of the way was straight up the rocky pass, covered with snow and never-melting glacial ice. The air was bitterly cold, as it came in a perfect gale down between the mountain walls, and it seemed as if the North Pole must be right ahead of me.' Then came the intense relief as the .summit of the pass was reached ; the threatening walls of rock flattened out into a hilly plain, and the car slowed up. It was the end of the line, and 'a group of rough, hut kindhearted, men cheered me as the car was . lowered to the ground, and I was nnstrapped.and taken out. I had crossed the dreadful Chilcoot Pass in an hour and* half, while the poor miners struggle for, days and weeks along its awful course.’* The mails to and from Klondyke are nowcarried by this tramway, and Mrs Kelsey’s letter from Dyea was delivered at Portland, Maine, nine daysmfter being posted.

BY AERIAL TRAMWAY TO KLONDYKE.

A Hamburg astronomer, , A new moon Dr Georg Waltemath, is.xediscovered, sponsible for the statement that he hasadisooverei evidence of the existence of a second moon circling about the earth, but with, such low reflective power thatit has hithertoiescaped observation even when in opposition.' . The author has ! perceived the desirability of making this, hypothetical moon do a useful , work in celestial mechanics by explaining that the difference between the observed and computed secular acceleration of, the moon's mean motion arises from the actionof the newly-discovered body. Therefore the mass must not be very great, and Dr, Waltemath assigns to the new body that he has discovered or deduced a mass of 1-80 of that of the moon, and a diameter of 700 kilometres. The distance is put at. rather more than one million kilometres, 267 times the distance of the moon, and this gives the sidereal period 119'207434 days. The mean daily motion is given te the ninth decimal of a degree. The anomalistic period, too, is given with; sufficient accuracy, so is the eccentricity and the longitude of the node; everything, in fact, to enable an astronomer to compute the position of our new satellite. The only drawback to the acceptance of the story is the fact that no one has been able to see ■ this second moon, though it ought to have been observed making a transit of the sun’s surface on Feb. 3; but as it is due for another transit on July 30, perhaps this - omission will be supplied. It is now a s generally accepted doctrine that there are darlqplanetary and stellar bodies in space; and w.hy not dark moons also? Naiurt, however,', is inclined to make merry ovef the Ham&urg doctor’s discovery, which it classes wr£b. Hubert’s declaration to King i John that "five moons were seen tonight: four -fixed, and the fifth did whirl about the other four in wondrous motion.” Another story about pale Luca which proved to be .all moonshine obtained a good deal .of credence in the early years of \the present century. This was a report; iconohed in scientific language, that Sir David Brewster and Sit. John Herschel had seenta lunar forest with trees resembling “ the yews grown in English' churchyards,” .and a “lunar, ocean breaking in large wimesbillows upon the strand; while the action,-, of very high tides was quite manifest upoa the face of the cliffs for more than a miles.” Th© second moon may be as mythical: as the “man” in the moon we-know; but there is nothing inherently ungacbable about the. statements of Dr Waitems.thi and they deserve to be investigated,-

A gift of thirty thousand the Balkan rifles from Eussia to Montepeninsula. negro may not in itself be very significant, for the

guns may be out of date; but when twenty-five million cartridges accompany the rifles, it looks as though shooting practice were going tobegin somewhere. As a matter of fact, the latest European newspapers show that serious trouble is brewing in the Balkan Peninsula, and that all the materials are ready for a tremendous storm. The dispute between Bulgaria and Servia has never been settled, and both Austria and Eussia have secret agents at work in every part of both countries. The state of affairs in Macedonia is very similar, and Eussian sympathy is altogether with the'Macedonians. In the beginning of March Eeuter’s Agency telegraphed from Constantinople that a proclamation had been issued in Macedonia calling upon the people to rise and help to liberate their oppressed" brethren in Macedonia. fl It purports,” the message runs, ** to have been issued by the Secret Macedonian Revolutionary Committee, but it bears the stamp of the Eussian Consulate, and although written in Bulgarian it is printed in Eussian type.” “M, Marcoff, the Bulgarian Diplomatic Agent at Constantinople,” says another message, “ does not hesitate to speak very plainly on the subject of the precarious state of affairs in

•Macedonia, and does not conceal the possi-

bility of a disturbance this spring. His , language to the Porto is energetic, and it maybe added that the relations between the Porte and the Bulgarian Government show a certain coolness since the presentation of the memorandum already mentioned. On the other hand, the relations between Servia and Bulgaria, since the accession of the present Servian Ministry, have undergone a change for the worse.” No one could suppose that the Turkish question was finally settled by the GrsecoTurkish war, but for the time public attention baa been directed to other and more' pressing international questions. The day must surely come, however, when Turkey shall no longer be numbered among European Powers. A direct attack ion the Saltan is at present impossible, but Eussia and Austria are already too deeply involved in Balkan affairs to withdraw. Most writers, however, agree that a war between Servia -and Bulgaria will be the inevitable preliminary to any settlement of the Turkish question.