4 EXPORT OF ART TREASURE.

North Otago Times, 24 October 1905, Page 1

4 EXPORT OF ART TREASURE.

; STOPPING THE PRACTICE,

The recent acquisition by ai I American collector of (our first folio J of Sliatsespeare's plays for the remark

able sum ot £IO,OOO has strengthens the demand for legislation in the mat

° tot* of the exportation of art treasures

The Amount spent by the Govermcn annually on pictures and other work; of art is as nothing when comparcc with the unlimited purses of Amcricar and it is therefore eviden that the only course that remains open if private literary and art treasures art to bo retained in Britain, is legislation Italy protects her art treasures by pro hibiting the exportation of any work of Italian origin whhout the permission of the"-Government, aiid it w;.s owing to this law that the attempted sale ol the Borghese Titian, Sacred and Profane Love, to America for an enorindus sum of money—by some said toibe £2oo,ooo—was prevented, Why, therefore, should not the British Government make a similar law? During 1 the past season many of the finest canvases have crossed the At. lantic, Of recent times the most notable instance is the sale to Mr A tman, of New York, of Hoppner's Lady Louisa Manners, sold at Christie's for i4,050g5, In fact, the high prices paid for many of the pictures sold under the hammer are undoubtedly caused by the unlimited commissions from America. The famous Titian Ariosto, purchased last year for £30,000 by the British nation, would in all probability have found a place in some American collection had not Mr Astor, Mr Beit, and a lew others generously subscribed ,£18,500 of the purchase-money, Our most valuable books are also leaving us, Of the seven Shakespeare quartos sold during the season for an aggregate of nearly ,£5,000, six have been ac quired on behalf of American collettors, Germany, too, is in the field, famous Peel Van Dycks, sold a few; years ago for ,£24,250, now hang upon the walls of the Berlin Museum. —London Daily Mail.j j i i

DIAMOND WORTH £180,000,000.

Everybody has heard or read of the enormous diamond discovered in the Premier Diamond Mine in South Africa, but not everybody knows the circumstances in which it was discovered by Mr Frederick Wells, the manager of the mine. One evening when making his round of inspection, . he saw something sparkling and glowing far up the side of the mine. With feverish haste he scrambled up the side and broke the blade of his knife in his eagerness to dig out what he knew was the biggest diamond the eye of man had ever beheld. Many smaller gems have been described as i.priceless," but even to the great Premier diamond it is possible to assign a value, says Cassell's Saturday Journal, Estimated by the rule which governs the value of diamonds, it is worth in round figures nearly - 000,000. The premium paid for insuring it is enormous. When the King recently wished to see it extra had to be paid before the insurers would allow it to leave the safe for three hours. A guard watched it even when it was in the King's band.

Ifa ' ■ ■ ■ ■ ! MISCELLANEOUS.

Captain Joshua Waller MacGeough ]3ond, D.L., of Drumsill, Armagh, who has just died in Paris in his seventyfourth year, was one of the survivors of the troopship Birkenhead. He is represented in the famous picture of that tragedy as a young officer placing women and children in a lifeboat. Captain MacGeough Bond, who was a gentleman of large landed property in county Armagh, sat in the Palmerstonian interest for the city of Armagh in the Parliament of 1859-65,^

The great brewing firm of Allsopp's, formed some years ago into a joint' stock company, has Men 011 evil days, and there is like lo be trouble over balance-sheets and reports. The capital of the company was over six millions, but it. reconstructed in 1903 and wrole off over a million, The shares stood at 182 in 1897, and now stand at 17, and no buyers, In 1899 the profits were over In 1905 they were The causes, whatever they are, do not affect the trade generally, as a rival company is dividing profits amounting to 20 per cent, per annum,

The belief of Sir James CrichtonErowne that brain-workers achieve their best work in later middle age is easily confirmed by glancing at the careers of a few of the grand old men who are still with us, many of whom are as busy as in their younger days, Lord Roberts, at 73, is still worth. a year to the nation as one of our Imperial defenders; Lord Kelvin, at Si, may startle us with further generalisations on the mysteries of science; Sir William Huggins, at the same age, still explores interstellar spaces; while the activity of the octo- ; genarian Duke of Rutland and Lord | Wemyss is as effective as ever in pre- ' serving the privileges, of our old ! nobility, I The standard time ol India has been [ altered, It is now hours in ad- ■ vance of Greenwich time, or nine 1 minutes in advance of the Madras late > time, In Burma it is hours ah?ad of Greenwich time.