CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12158, 23 March 1900, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

Colonel Templar and his Aeronauts company of balloonists have and rendered valuable services tq photo- the British Army in Soufh ghapht. Africa, but probably the

most important work done by them is the demonstration, of the possibilities that lie before the aeronaut in times of peace and of war. A day or two ago jwe describe(S> how the telescope was used In conjunction with the camera to obtain

yiews of distant and inaccessible places. It is by means of this telephotography, as It is called, that the balloon is destined to Serve the scientist and the soldier. The jwar balloonist can how obtain a. panoramic knd bird’s-eye view, of the features of the dearth’s surface from a high altitude by the use of a camera which is virtually a telescope, fitted/with an apparatus through |which the image enlarged by the telescope Is thrown upon, a sensitised plate. No, Idoubt, it wast the opera glass that suggested the idea off the balloon camera, as the arrangement/of the lenses is similar, the ob-jject-glass '’being large enough to collect as buch light as practicable, and the concave lens corresponding to the eye-piece of a telescope. When a photograph is taken from a balloon, the ’method, as a rule, is to sweep the horizon. To do this, a number of plates are exposed. Each of them bpresenits a different section of the area ef sight, and’when they are placed together jfchey foAi a panoramic view of the whole circle. Recent experiments have proved that the balloon is much steadier than many Eieople imagined, and the telescopic camera 3by no means a crude instrument. It has Iready been brought to precision, but further improvement is, naturally, only a Question of time. It is probable that in the (campaigns of the future no skill or cunning jwill be able to conceal positions taken up by armed forces, and the telescopic camera In the war ballooii will he an eye to which nearly everything will be clear. The new camera is much keener in its search of the iaudscape than is the .human, eye that looks through an ordinary telescope- Indeed, hfter telephotographac pictures have been developed and examined under a strong bagnifying glass, objects have been discovered that had'been overlooked by the f (human eye. It ;is said that in some cases the magnifying/glass has even shown pictures of groups of armed men, whose presence had not been suspected by those who took the photograph from the balloon. [There is no doubt that the new camera has before it possibilities that were undreamt jof a few years ago.

LORD j eoberts’s ! , STAFF.

Lord it appears, spared no pains in surrounding himself with the best men be could lay bis bands

[ on. A more experienced or Itnore able staff has never been put in the Ifield. He drew Sir William Nicholson from India, where the Adjutant-General was practically discharging all the functions of Commander-in-Chief during Sir William [Lockhart’s illness, A man of strong characIter and undoubted ability, Nicholson first (came under his chief’s eye in the Afghan campaigns. He was with Wblseley in* the Soudan, saw service in Burma, and was Jchief-of-staff in the Tirah aflfair. If Lord iKitchener has actually assvnned an executive command in the field,Nicholson will Undoubtedly be acting as cbief-of-staff. {Major-General Tucker, who has gone 'to the front at the head of'the Seventh Division, is junior to Lord Methuen, but he ’{Las probably taken up the acstiv-e command Iwhile Methuen attends to administrative •work at Kimberley. He belongs to the Flankers school, one of whose.most prominent Characteristics is a perfect command of 'elegant and fluent vituperation. Tucker Vent through the. Zulu war, gaining a reputation for the manner in which he treated his regiment during its exile. On the way back to Pretroia Lard Wolseley asked for b small escort of twenty-five steady, sober |»nen. “Haven’t got ’em .at this moment,” 'replied Tucker. A few miles from Pretoria he halted .the regiment, and gave the men three days of what they considered uninterrupted enjoyment. When they had Spent all their money Tucker marched them |nto Pretoria, the soberest, steadiest, and jfeet-behayed regiment tha£ evorjentered the

town. Colonel Grierson, who was military attache at Berlin for a number of years, will have charge of the foreijgn officers, American, French, German, Austrian, and Italian, who will watch the progress of events from the British side. Another wellknown member of Lord Roberts’s staff is Colonel Henderson, who has gained a high reputation as a scientific (student of war. His special duty will he to advise his commander on strategical points, for which class of work no better man could have been obtained in Great Britain.

MISS SUSAN hi ANTHONY. il

Miss Susan Anthony, who las taken a prominent part in many great philanthropic

movements in America, celebrated her eightieth birthday last month by starting an endowment fund, with which to aid the fight for womanhood suffrage. Although Miss Anthony has endured many hardships, she is as active at eighty as many other women are at fifty. She lives in a dingy brick house in Rochester, New York, and 'for the last ten years the daily routine of her life has had little variation. Forty years ago, however, the brick house saw some exciting -scenes. Miss Anthony was a strong abolitionist, and her house was the resort of people of all classes, including advocates of women suffrage, beggars, and ex-slaves. Residents of Rochester can re- , call the days elf the underground railroad, when Miss Anthony, together with “ Aunt” Amy Post, furnished the brains, as well as the money, to send negro refugees over to Canada. Their cottage sometimes contained a dozen negroes at a time, and it was 'there that they arranged ingenious plans for sending the refugees out of the city. On more than one occasion, it is stated, Miss Anthony herself took the party to the mouth of the river and saw all members of it safely on board a vessel- Once when Miss Anthony was giving a lecture in eastern New Yqrk, a crowd of roughs broke into the hall, put out the lights, smashed the furniture, and drove out the audience. Her meetings in other places were often interrupted in the same way, but during her sixty years of public life she never suffered bodily injury, although she has had to suffer much from neglecting her health. In her early days, it was a common thing for her to travel by waggon in the middle of winter fifteen or twenty miles to some country town, to speak in a large hall. She has probably travelled more over the United States, and has given more lectures in the country, than has any other woman, but she is femd of her home, and is content to end her career by starting a fund for the advance of franchise reform. Most of her titae during the day is taken up with attending to her correspondence. Sometimes in the afternoon she receives a few visitors, while in the evening she generally finishes her corresponding work, and posts her own letters, waiting down the street a few blocks to do so. By faith she is a Quaker, but she has spoken from the pulpits of many of the Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist Churches in the United States, and has been heartily supported in her work by members of all denominations.