THE WIDE WORLD.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2090, 31 January 1896, Page 3

THE WIDE WORLD.

While in this country (says the "London Daily Telegraph") a few persons are strenuously endeavoring to popularise small-pox by reprobating vaccination, Russia, which suffers greatly from the scourge, is gradually finding iu Jenner's discovery the means of abating the dreaded disease, and is correspondingly thankful. Ir is announced by the Russian National Health Society that next year it is intended to commemorate the centenary of Jenner's first experiments in a special way. It proposes (1) to offer four prizes for the best works upon vaccination; (2) to collect and publish materials for a. history of the practice of vaccination in Russia and a short history of the same in Western Europe;(o> to publish a Russian translation of Jenner's works, accompanied by his biography and portrait; (4) to organise an exhibition of objects connected with vaccination, and to hold a commemorative meeting on the day of the centenary.

An old inhabitant of Coventry, the head centre of the cycle manufacturiu;: industry, has just been interviewed, and his reminiscences says our London correspondent, are very instructive as showing the enormous strides that wheeling has made during recent years. Eight years ago there w ere only a dozen cycle factories in Coventry; now there are thirty-five. The trade has practically trebled during the past ten years. It was the introduction of the safety type of machine that gave the fresh impetus to cycling, and wrought a revolution in tiie conditions of wheeling. Coventry has a population of ,">5,000, and no less than <>ooo of them are engaged iu the actual business of cycle-manufactur-ing. In addition to this main business, there are twenty district branches of trade kept going by the cycle industry. It is only within the last two years that ladies have taken to cycling, and that department is also rapidly on the increase. The bloomer dress for female cyclists is quite unnecessary. A skirt coming down to the ankles, and not in any way interfering with the working of the machine, is considered the correct tiling in Coventry.

Some rt musing l evidence was given lately in a case at Church, near Accrington, in which fifty persons were charged with shebeening and gaming at a club house. The police who raided the place stated that they were secreted in a loft and watched the proceedings through holes in the ceiling for ten hours. They seized a great quantity of beer and spirits, and discovered various gaming accessories and sporting papers, as well as a card bearing the inscription "No Gambling- Allowed," and a book issued by the Society for the Promotion of Christian knowledge. There were some remarkable entries in the minute book produced. One appointed a certain member as waiter and policeman, and added that he must stop the tap of anybody he thought had had enough. Another entry forbade the use of pintpots in the concert room, and fixed the price of spirits at 2d per "squib." besides giving the chairman liberty to allow drinks to any singer he thought fit. The police also found a chalking-up book, in which the secretary was debited with £1 17s and the president had "strapped" to the tune of 9s 9d. One man had chalked up eight pints in one night. Another book showed that 1500 visitors had been to the club in nine months.

"The allegation that a thorough knowledge of Latin is essential to a proper pharmaceutical education is but another striking illustration of the remarkable power of rooted habit contrary to reason," says the Bulletin of Pharmacy, an American monthly journal, and it goes on to aver that very few of the Latinic names of drugs, chemicals, and preparations in the pharmacopoeas or out of them are reaMy Latin; that the most intimate knowledge of the Latin language and literature affords no material aid to their proper interpretation; that less than one-third of all the Latinic titles in our pharmacopoea are of Latin derivation; and that a great majority of those that are, cannot be understood from any knowledge of the meaning of the words from which they are derived. The journal further remarks; "Prospective students of pharmacy should know that a reading acquaintance with German will be of far greater service to them than any Latin, because our most valuable reference works in chemistry,pharmacy, and pharmacognosy are in the German language. They should know, further, that the study of English, German, and mathematics will afford as thorough preparation for the special courses in pharmacy, chemistry, and materia medica as can be derived from the study of Latin, and that the correct use of the Latinic terms employed in pharmaceutical nomenclature can be easily mastered in a very short time without any previous knowledge of the Latin language or grammar, for all there is of Latin in these terms consists of their terminations, which are Latinic in form, and declined accordingly."

Having made a clean breast of his colossal fraud, the Tiehborue cl&imaut, says our London correspondent, has now settled down for the rest of his days as a respectable Loudon tradesman. Any inquisitive colonial visitor who cares to travel on a penny 'bus up to Charlton place. Upper street, Islington, will sec a small shop with a sign intimating to all whom it may concern, that Arthur Orton carries on business there as a tobacconist. The erstwhile Wagga Wagga butcher also supplements his income from the sale of the fragrant weed by giving an occasional lecture on his variegated experiences, in some suburban hall. This week lie has come before the London public in a new character, as prosecutor in a police court case. A costermonger went into nis shop to get a supply of tobacco, and apparently, owing to a sudden temptation, he reached across the counter, grabbed the claimant's gold watch and chain, and darted down the street. The claimant, although not so fat as he once was. is still a heavy weight and not much of a runuer. But lie got to the door and raised a hullabaloo, which attracted the attention of a passing detective, who chased the coster thief and captured him. Arthur recovered his watch and chain, and the coster is now doing six months' hard labor.

Can this bo taken seriously ? A telephone newspaper, called " The Telephono Herald." has been workiup successfully for two years at Pestli (Huntwo cents, and issues 28 editions daily. A special wire. 108 miles long, connects I it with its subscribers, in whose houses Ions; flexible wires permit the receivers to be carried from room to room. At the office of the journal two men. with stroug voices, take turns in talking the news into the telephones. This modern journal {rives its subscribers all the telegraphic news, duly and carefully edited, the local news, articles on various subjects, and whatever other newspapers have. If this really happens. Pestli must be the fiuest plaes for illiterate, blind, bedridden, and incurably lazy people in the world. Lt would not appear, however, that a telephone newspaper is any less devastating to the faculties than a modern journal which distributes its news in the ordinary way.