NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9839, 6 June 1895, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The case of a prisoner with a foreign name who was sentenced at the Supreme Court on a charge of horse-stealing and attempt' ing to obtain money by false pretences, affords a striking illustration of the readiness with which, a plausible glib-tongued rascal can impose upon the credulity of country settlers. In the town there ii always a disposition to regard an impecunious stranger with suspicion, more especially if he shows a desire to borrow money, or acquire possession of someone else'* property in the shape of horses or buggies or an overcoat. In the country the rural mind is apparently freer from suspicion, and easily prone to take a fair-spoken adventurer travelling on his wits for what he gives himself out to be, however improbable his story may sound. Ib ha» always been thus. When Alexander of Abonotichus — who was as great io rascaldom as his namesake of Macedon in war and politics — resolved to set up as the greatest impostor of the second century it was the country he preferred to begin his operations in. Cocconas, his partner, was for Chalcedon, but the shrewder Alexander knew it was too much in the light. Ib was a busy town, almost as full of merchants as Byzantium ; and traders' wits were sharpened with business, and they might be unpleasantly curious. The simple inhabitants of the interior would be an. easier prey. At his own Abonotichus, a small coast town on the south shore of the Black Sea, he told Cocconas that a man had only to appear with a fife and drum before him, and clash* ing a pair of cymbals, and the whole population would be on their knees before him. If country settlers were a little readier to spell a man backwards they would nob b« so often fleeced and defrauded. Vigorous as was the business done in London last) year in the formation of new mining companies to exploit Australia, it has been even more so this year. From a detailed list of the companies registered in January, February, and March last, we gather that in all there were 78 companies, with a total capital of £6,087,700, of which 66, with a capital of £5,031,700, were West Australian companies; six New Zealand, with a capital of £470,000 ; two Queensland, capital £325,000 ; one Tasmanian, £150,000 ; one Victorian, £20,000; and two Mew South Wales companies, with a capital of £91,000, comprising the Mascotte Gold and Silver, £6000, and the Tamworth Gold, £85,000. Except two or three of the Western Australian companies, floated for trading and land buying, the companies generally were formed to mine for gold, and in two or three instances for silver and copper. They do not manage everything better in America, and ib is satisfactory to know that Australia can teach that go-ahead country something about even electric lighting on railways, a subject on which one wouldhavesupposed Americans had nothing to learn. In the course of an interview with a reporter in Melbourne, Major Pangborn, presidenb of the World's Transportation Commission, from America, remarked; — "On the South Australian railways they have gob a system of electric lighting that is better than anything we have seen anywhere else in the world. They have succeeded in working their electric lighting on the cars by means of a dynamo run from the axle. We in America do ib by a dynamo run from the engine and worked by steam. Bub our plan, you see, takes steam from the engine, and bo lessens its power for actual work. In South Australia this is ' avoided, and the motive power of the revolving: axles, which would otherwise be lost,, is employed to work the dynamo. Ib ie simply splendid. ; And that is nob all we learned about electric lighting on trains in South Australia. It is a wonderful system of electric accumulation they have there. On the train from Adelaide to Broken Hill, for instance,-the journey ' being at night» the electrio light* are on all the time. Well, on the .way •. . 4 . - • - , .. . , '' . - • ',

back from Broken Hill to Adelaide, this journey being in the day, electrical energy is being stored up, and enough is stored to light the train on its return journey from Adelaide to Broken Hill, withoub any electrician being in attendance to look after it, eo that! they sate the expense of an electrician every journey they make Lighting by electricity on this system is actually lees expensive than kerosene, and the light they get is the best light I ever saw on a car."

The reported discovery of the North Pole, which was given to the world by the Deutech Australische Post, a German newspaper published in Sydney, was a journalistic hoax, modelled on the famous discovery of Noah's Ark, which an ingenious and imaginative writer in our own columns once upon a time evolved from his inner consciousness. The Post's narrative purported to be taken from the Berliner Tageblatb, and was to the effect that Dr. Shoenlank, a wealthy man, and well-known in scientific circles, and a Mr. Swend Foyen, who died recently, fitted out a whaler called the Aegir for' a voyage of discovery to the North Pole, and placed her in charge of Captain Harrald Harfagr, a Norwegian. The vessel carried a captive balloon for making observations, and an aluminium boat fitted on wheels, so that it could be hauled over land or ice. The expedition set out on the 6th May, 1894, skirted Norway and Lapland, and crossed over to Nova Zambia. The Gulf Stream luckily took them north, and then they reached Franz Joseph's Land. They were able to proceed at first by a passage, bub on being blocked took an observation from the balloon, and saw in the direction in which they wished to go ice plateaus, with an open sea beyond. They then took to their aluminium boat, and on return despatched from Vardohuus, in Norway, a telegram to Dr. Shoenlank, according to which they reached the North Pole, and thus accomplished the task in attempting which so many brave mariners had lost their lives.

To give artistia vraisetsblance to this somewhat bald and unconvincing story, the author of the hoax concocted the following telegram, purporting to come from the hardy Arctic explorer, Captain Harr&ld JHarfagr—Harold with the beautiful hair, which readers of Norwegian history will remember was the name of the King who, in the ninth century, made Norway into one kingdom:—"After a long and painful voyage, we have reached the North Pole by the aid of a boat made of aluminium and on wheels, and wo have found an open sea there. We saw some rocky masses slightly elevated, formed of a porous substance and peopled with myriads of sea birds. The direction of this rocky island is east and west, and ib is traversed by a sorb of narrow canal between elevated rocks, the inner walla of which join ab the summit. Our eyes were struck by phosphorescent flashes or electric lights of great intensity, and the flashes were accompanied by violent detonations. Ab the exit) from the canal we discovered anew the open sea. The temperature i» regularly uniform at 2d eg. above zero. The open sea is peopled with innumerable shoals of fish of all sorts, which would cause one to believe that he was in the presence of the great reservoir which provisioned all the seas of the globe. We are returning all well.—(Signed) Harrald Harfaor." We are afraid that the wit of the author of this hoax is about as brilliant as Sir Andrew Aguecheek's.

The Armenian question promises to assume a serious phase fraught with possibilities of an alarming nature. The reply - of the Sultan to the demands of the Powers ; for reforms in Armenia takes exception to Beveral conditions stipulated by the Powers. The latter, however, are apparently deter'mined to insist on their demands even should ib be necessary to resort to force. England, France, and Russia are understood to have agreed upon joinb action, and the position is regarded in Constantinople as critical. Time brings about many surprising changes, bub nobody dreamt forty years ago that the day would come when Turkey's allies in tho Crimean War would be found acting against her in concert with her hereditary enemy. In the face of so formidable a combination it is nob likely that the Sultan will persist in his refusal to carry out the wishes of the Powers. The Japanese have captured Keolung. Serious forest fires aro raging in North Pennsylvania. Millions of dollars' worth of property has been destroyed. It is feared that many lives have been lost. An ex-Italian Minister, Signor Ferrare, has been mortally wounded by Socialists. Russia is reported to be sending a force to the Qhitral frontier. The Governor of Madrid, while holding a reception, was shot at and wounded by an Army captain who entertained a grudge against him, owing to his refusal, so it seems, to allow him to commit bigamy. The would-be assassin was arrested, and condemned to be shot. The Bank of New Zealand Estates Company's debentures have been over-subscribed. It is reported that Oscar Wilde has become insane. This happened, it is said, when his head was shorn of its glossy locks. The " convict crop" was too much for the disgraced apostle of aesthetic culture, and he forthwith went out of his mind, and had to be confined in a padded room. It is just possible, however, that there may be method in his madness. To be treated as a lunatic is no doubb preferable from his point of view to being compelled to perform hard labour.