OUR MAIL BAG.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 943, 10 September 1901, Page 4

OUR MAIL BAG.

NEWS FROM EVERYWHERE. THE TEUOTOSCOI'E. The fairy with the wonder-working wand, the alchemist with his strange secrets, and all that class of people, must now take a back seat and let tbe scientist show us a trick that really means something. Tbe teloptoscope, for which the patents arc now pending, will, it is said, make it possible to transmit pictures in color by wire, all the tints being properly reproduced. If it is desired to photograph the view reproduced, all that is necessary is the placing of a dry plate on the receiver. By this means photographs may be taken in any part of the world of objects in any part. Now that a man can have his picture taken by telegraph, it will soon be possible, no doubt, for him to receive a haircut, a shave, and a new necktie by telephone.

L'DNISUINO A REFRACTORY HOKUAND. A novel mode of punishing refractory husbands was explained to tbe justices at the Adelaide Police Court recently, when Mrs O'Brien sued her husband for maintenance and separation. She related a harrowing tale of suffering, but the intemperate habits of her spouse were his chief faults. Once while drunk, said the good wife, he dropped a bottle of beer, and taxed her with having relieved him of it, and a dispu'.e ensued. Thinking it a good opportunity of exercising her authority, she adopted a course of punishment which will not soon be forgotten by the victim. The method consisting in strapping him upside down to a verandah post. " Upside down ?" asked the Court. " Yes," replied the woman. "He was not up very high," she added, " only about four feet." She said it was her intention to keep him there, but the police arrived soon afterwards and rescued the man from his uucomfortablc if not perilous position.

UNLUCKY rUDUCA.NS. The Governor of Eastern Siberia stopped at a small hotel for an hour's rest (says tho ' Anglo-Russian' of July). On a table near him lay an account book, and as he glanced through it he noticed several items which he could not understand. Summoning tbe proprietor, he asked him what tbey meant. After much hesitation, the man said that they represented the various amounts which he had been obliged to spciid from time to time in providing food and lodging forolliciuls who honored him by becoming guests at his hotel. The surprised Governor asked him if these officials did not pay their bills. The hotelkeeper reluctantly admitted that they never dreamed of doing such a thing. The Governor that evening issued an order that no hotelkeeper " should give food, drink, or lodging to any official without money. A few days later an Ispravnik, or Chief of Police, was making his rounds, and, when he entered an hotel, the proprietor, as usual, placed some food and brandy before him. The Ispravnik asked him sternly : " What do you mean ? Haven't you read the new order, which forbids you to givo food and drink to any official without money ?" The tone in which he uttered the last two words gave the poor hotelkeeper his cue. He placed some roubles beside the brandy. The Ispravnik condescended to take his meal.

Ur-TO*J>ATIJ ];UKOLAHS. A healthy little suburb of New York, called New Kochelle, is to be credited with the latest and most ingenious method devised to make burglarious entries into the homes of the inhabitants. Gentlemen of the marauding persuasion enter ordinary telephone pay stations, and call up the house of some wealthy citizen. If the calls are answered, the callers state that they have made a mistake us to the numbers and ring oIT. When no answers are given the predatory gang conclude the houses called up are empty, and immediately go round and start operations. Numbers of burglaries huvo been perpetrated in this way, and the police seem helpless in the mutter, the only information at their command being that tho thieves are well-dressed and gentlemanly in appearance.

SCIIOOLIIOV ENGLISH. What a lurid view boys take of politics. A schoolmaster gives some examples in ' Chambers' Journal.' Asked to explain the cause of the Boer disturbances, ft boy of 10 wrote this: —" Kruger and Kannerbullism is one. Ho is a man of blud. Mr Chamberlain has wrote to him sayin' come out and iite or else give up the blud of the English you have took. He is a broaddutehman and a wicked heethin. Lord Kitchener has sent for his gory blud and to bring back his scanderlous head drad or alive." And another boy's essay describes Mr Gladstone as having " luvd everybody. He lovd publicun.s and cinners and irishmen, he wanted the irish to come to England and have home rool, but Mr Chamberlain says no, no. So alars he got his blud up and killed Mr Pacnell. Mr Gladstone died with great rispeet, and is burrid in Westminster with peaceful ashes." Compared with these visions of modern history, the following on Queen Elizabeth is faithful: —■' Queen Elizabeth was a virgin queen, and she was never niarrid, she was so fond of dresses that she was never seen without one on. She was beautiful and clever, with a red hed and freckles."

HONEST TOIL. A certain number of students (writes the New York correspondent of the Sydney ' Herald') get their board by serving as waiters and doing other work about the university, but many more serve also as waiters in the hotels and restaurants of the town, the bureau keeping a special list of those willing to accept such work. The gas company employs students to take the records of the meters ; the water company uses them as inspectors to report upon waste of water cases ; six students have constant employment as pall-bearers for an undertaker ; one is a private detective ; and many others do all sorts of casual work as it oilers itself at the bureau—night watchman, lawn-mowing, typewriting, book-keeping, theatre usher, butler for ft special party, delivering papers, debtcollecting, directory-making. These are all actual jobs that have been recently accepted ; and there is no delicacy felt anywhere in Kewhaven in applying for a student to do any conceivable task, and there is just as little false pride felt about saying, " Yes, thanks," to the oiler. But European visitors seem unable to believe that such facts are perfectly natural incidents ; and it is also quite true that two generations ago old-world prejudices against such incongruities were very potent even here. But the dcmocratisation of the country, which began at the revolution, or even before, has been steadily progressive, and has now almost reached the end. But wasn't Andrew Carnegie a common fireman od the locomotive that drew the l'rince of Wales's train, and John 1). Rockefeller a coachman at lodol a week ?

TBEAsUItfc) TKOVt. A young student was recently looking over an old manuscript in the library at Vienna, when suddenly his eyes fell on a passage which startled him considerably. Over and oyer again he read it, and family lie took out his note-book and copied it word for word. In this passage the writer of the manuscript, who was apparently an old monk, said thai a large treasure of gold and silver had been hidden in a convent in Galicia. He described trie location of the convent, and told in what pait of it the treasure had been concealed. fie wrote, indeed, as though he himself had been an eye-witness of the occurrence. Confident that the old monk had not told a fairy tale, but the actual truth, the young student went at once to the Cardinal Archbishop of Lcmberg and asked him if he would be legally entitled to half of the treasure in case he should be so fortunate as to find it. The Cardinal replied that he would, and that evening the young man started for Galicia. In due time he arrived at the convent, and af'.ei a brief ssaicb he found tho treasure. It consisted of a large pile of gold and silver, and it is said to b« worth at least 2,500,000 francs, or £101,107. Half of it, it is claimed, belongs by riuht to the church, but the other half will surely be awarded to the lucky student.