NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11150, 24 August 1899, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

M. Ci.f.mknteau, iii an article in the Aurora, accuses M. Lebon, formerly Minister for the Colonies, of having sent the order that Captain Dreyfus should be put in irons every night. He writes:—The torturer Lebon will drag down through history a dishonoured name for liavinir. sweating from fear, added his last turn of the rack to the agonised prisoner. Du Patv de C'lam had concocted the Weyler forgery in til.; hope, which watj not mistaken, of rendering more rigorouij the treatment of Dreyfus. Fur Du Pat; do Clam, like the others, had need of It death of the condemned man. The Lib] ' Parole indulged in menaces and spoke attempts at escape. Lebon, terrified, wish • to avert the attacks of the Anti-Semites it gave orders to put Dreyfus in irons. W!> the telegram was received the little fc e of the lie du Diablo was lighted, and t)' undertook to manufacture as well as ey could the instruments of torture. Otfhe very first day the ankles, swollen bjthe pressure of the iron, became laceratei A sore formed, sanious, putrid, and surro>d® u by a circle of inflammation. Was itecessary for so little to cease the torture' The idea did not occur to anyone. I! sufferer, stoical, not complaining, but lending to the executioners his torturf legs, asked to be told at least the reason ol this new torture. No reply. For M whole months every morning the irons stained with blood, were taken off to lean exposed the terrible wounds. Then the ires were dressed, to form the beginning the scab which it was proposed to destroy I the evening. And so, indeed, it was. When the sun had set 'the irons were mce again screwed to the bleeding flesh, ltd the scab formed during the day servedonly by its cracks to render all the keener t£ pain which banished sleep. Meanwhile A. Lebon, delighted, watched every nrmiig the Christian Anti-Semitic sheets ant noted with joy that he was not atackid. Such at the end of the 19th centuif is vliat has taken place in the French Repiblic, and there are some of Christ's tender Jmbs who are asking to begin again. A writer in Pearson'ilagnzine points out that, statistics prove tl|t there are annually removed from the /streets of London 1,500,000 tons (in roi/d numbers) of mud, while on the other had only 108,000 tons of earth, stone, and travel are distributed in streets by the r<|d menders. Where dees this enormous .Uantity of mud come from? This is a hystery, which ought to attract the specif attention of scientific men, for the reasoi/that if it were solved we should nnderstajl how it happened that so many ancient (ties have been literally buried under the yud. The average level of the present struts of Rome is 18ft above the level of the sfeets of Rome in the days of Augustus, fjiat is to say, in a period of about 2000 yetfs Rome has buried herself 18ft deep in mill- Where it came from is the mystery, md a similar mystery confronts the good people of London to-day, whenever it rails. Let us examine (lie says) this mygevy in a careful and unprejudiced way Take a rainy day in London between tie Marble Arch and Regentstreet. We .Till suppose that it has rained for four consicutive hours. Before it began to rain lie asphalt pavement was thoroughly clear. At the end of the four hours of rain we find the pavement covered with about an inch and a-half of mud. This mud does rpt consist of fragments of asphalt. as ihemical analysis will readily prove. It vas not brought in from the country, for it would be impossible foi carts, loaded with such a quantity of mud, to dump it into a crowded street without attracting notice. We are, therefore, compelled to decide that the mud was brought by the rain. We may assume in explanation of this phenomenon that- the mud, prior to its becoming visible, was held in solution by the rain, and that it was precipitated in the shape of visible mud as soon as the rain touched the cold pavement. As to its remote origin, the probabilities are that its component parts consist of the dust of the interstellar spaces. This dust, when it reaches the atmosphere, is held in solution by aqueous vapour until it is precipitated as mud. This tremendously scientific hypothesis fully accounts for the mud of the city streets, and ought to give us a renewed interest in that phenomenon.

When we think that after every shower tread on mud that has come from a distal

of countless millions of miles, we shal more than ever filled with awe in the. sence of the wonders of the universe. The Windsor Magazine contains an/ view with Signor Marconi, who on hi, his experiments in 1895 on the fieT his father's estate, near Bologna, at j menced collaborating with Mr. Preo . electrician of the British postal so. . 1896. The results of the inventoiT" ments are given in much detail, / ?®. e are already familiar to the publ ?, will be more interested in Signo con ! S own estimate of what may be f" e future by wireless telegraphy. F * a the limit for directed messages / 0 a ' be that for the heliograph, abr 01 u . miles, while for undirected me? * 161618 practically no limit at all. TV ave een sent over 100 miles already, nraum " cation might any day be st e ' WIVI J the sky-scraping buildings of mc , Philadelphia, and that is o/ n "' It is simply a question of [ 8 °j 0 stations, as the law lias now 1 esta ' ) '' s ' let ' that the range of distancrff asiis as " le square of the mast's heigr''' rom a mast 1280 ft high a messar ' )e sen ' ; miles. Marconi is now f ed ,' n P lom '" ing experiments in " synl/ w ' lic '' ma be described as the electricnP® of a l )!uticu " lar transmitter to a ps i " ar recever so that the pair will respi' ier and to no other pair, thus / 8 private communication, The gref development in the near future is likff steering of ships from a distair' 1 ' 0 ' 1 '" revolutionise the use of tr° and rac " tically render naval/ are "° disastrous as to be impossible. / a realisation of Lytton's dream of "V ' n ''' 3 nove " ■" ie Coming Race." / A precedetiuf/ for t! ' e Dreyfus case has been disenve/" En « criminal annals bv a Lo/ contemporary. Few | people, it rcmarP 11 remember the shocking experience /^ r- ar her, nn English solicitor of th(? hest respectability,! who was found gui° for ey' and sentenced to a long per Penal servitude in Van Piemen's La/ Ho was P ut to the most degrading lap un(ler a P line of ex " ceptional sey' eal ' 3 ro " ' )Ut at length a day' vcd w ' ien ie was sl,mmoned before the ip rnor to he informed that a man had sed 011 '" death-bed that he was guilt/ t ' le crme or "hieb Berber was cond(f d - and that fle Governor was directed t" OTm Barber that he was a free man i ease was brought before the House commons, which was so greatly moved * the unfortunate solicitor was granted liir sum °f money.

The ™ °f President Kruger's latest prop 0 the settlement of the Transvaal diflicii ' lftve leaked out. He proposes a ve ys' retrospective franchise, which is a |] oalfred Milner claimed, but to this tl ie isident attaches a condition, which is rent 'y a clumsy attempt to draw Mr. QljJerlain into an agreement which may

be id in future to support the contention thjßritain has no right of suzerainty in th/ Transvaal, the condition being that " te shall be no further interference with tpiternal affairs of the Transvaal." Presiit Kruger has been informed by Portuthat the stoppage of the landing of arms jbelagoa Bay was due to Britain calling lention to the matter, and that the Trans-al-Portugnese treaty must be upheld. The ■esident is dissatisfied with the reply. All /ie militiamen in Jamaica have volunteered or service in the Transvaal. A Blue Boole in Transvaal affairs has just been issued, rom which it appears that Mr. Chamberain has distinctly refused to admit the :laim of the Transvaal for absolute self[overnment, and declined to continue a discission on the subject. The Dreyfus trial .1 proceeding, M. Labori having resumed lis place as counsel for the defence. A lew gun, which carries its shot 15 miles, las been tested in England.