OTHER LANDS.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 20, 18 December 1906, Page 8

OTHER LANDS.

The New Zealand Government has provided for castaway crews by establishing depots where food and clothing may be obtained on several islands off the coast. Some time ago a French crew, shipwrecked and cast upon the Auckland Islands, were sustained for a considerable period by this thoughtful provision. At most of the islands a boat is left also, and finger posts point out the way to the depots. The Government steamer visits most of the islands twice a year, and no island is visited Ness than once a year. When Heligoland was handed over to the Kaiser, in return for certain advantages in Africa of a kind not altogether unsubstantial, there was a very loud outcry against British diplomacy. Now it appears that Heligoland is disappearing from the surface of the waters ; Poseidon has some use for it underneath, where it can be of little or no use to Germany. The Kaiser’s engineers can’t keep the island out of the water, and it is now seen that, unless the unexpected happens, Heligoland will be less than the shadow of a name by the end of the present century. Since the year 1890 about a quarter of the island has disappeared. One class of people, the ornithologists, of whatever nationality, will be very sorry, for Heligoland is a great junction for migrating birds, and offers greater opportunity for studying their habits than any other place of the same size. We owe a lot of our present knowledge to the little island that seems doomed to end its career under the sea.

A realistic reproduction of all the universe is shown in the foyer of the American Museum of Natural History. The sun, the moon, and the planets, the Poles of the earth, the Signs of the Zodiac, the worlds upon worlds and constellations without end may be seen, all in the course of a short walk. It forces on the spectator a comprehensive idea of all creation which the naked eye may see. The Signs of the Zodiac are distributed about Sol in a grand circle. Although they are rather out of proportion with the remainder of the Solar System, the polar regions of the earth which have struggled up through the floor of the foyer afford an excellent idea of the progress of exploration.

It is not often that ancient Oriental manuscripts of undoubted authenticity figure among the miscellaneous "plla podrida" of a police auction of recovered but unclaimed plunder ; but this rare spectacle is to be witnessed in Paris, the manuscripts all being Persian. One dates back to 1647 of our era. It is a volume of verse by the poet Mizliami, with many strange marginal notes. The title is "Makhazen el Asrar." There is also a mathematical treatise, and, among others, several didactic moral essays. All are written on fine silky parchment giving off the odour of camel’s milk, and the bindings are in old leather, with tooled indentings and gold or silver ornament in gilt. Most are contained in specially made little cases. Nobody knows the origin of this odd treasure-trove.

The French authorities have founded a musical society at Noumea, in New Caledonia, the members of which are all convicts condemned to hard labour for life. The leader of the band is a notorious murderer, the cornet killed his master with a hammer, the saxophone strangled a man in the streets of Paris, the bugle is a dangerous "Apache," or Hooligan, the cymbal-player murdered a fellow convict, and the assis-tant-conductor cut his wife to pieces. This is, perhaps, the most extraordinary band in the world, but, as its members are all transported for life, there is no chance of their ever appearing in Europe.

According to Lady Violet Greville the expenses of a fashionable wedding are always increasing. She gives the following figures In proof of her assertion : Trousseau, £1,000; jewels, £SOO ; floral decorations and bouquets, £l9O ; champagne, £l2O ; refreshments, £IOO ; church expenses £SO ; bridesmaids’ presents, £4O ; sundries, £SO ; total, £2,050. On the other hand, the presents received are more valuable than they used to be. Bridegrooms get motor-cars, sable coats, and rich plate, instead of the pins and umbrellas of former days, while well-known brides obtain enough gems to stock a jeweller’s shop and sufficient articles to furnish a large house. Long engagements are unfashionable in our world of hurry and bustle. A month is quite an ordinary period of duration for the engagement, and a girl is en.gaged and married off almost before her friends have become cognisant of the fact. With the curtailing of the wedding feast has come also the curtailing of the honeymoon ; a week is the maximum, two days the ipinimum.