NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11582, 21 February 1901, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Already, it seems as if the steam locomotive had seen its most triumphant days. We think less of its excellences and more of its limitations. In the United Kingdom there are roughly (says a writer in Blackwood's Magazine) 20,000 locomotives, each provided with an isolated and comparatively puny source of heat. It would tend to economy if we lit fewer and larger fires in electric power-stations. Again, each little separate flame has constantly to be extinguished and rekindled, so that much of its transient life is spent in heating a cold engine or lying out an the ground so that a warm engine may cool. Even when steam is up, it is wastefully harnessed, for every second that an engine stands idle, whether at a platform, signal, or siding,-its pent-up power is being dissipated. Even when the machine is in motion, it is only by the most skilful manipulation that the best can be got out of the coal. Granted this careful firing, the continual exposure to the elements of something that must be kept warm, coupled with the necessary introduction into the fire-box of bitterly cold air, tends to lower the locomotive's* net efficiency. We must also recollect that the engine is burdened with the weight of its own fuel, which falls not on the driv-ing-wheels, where it might prevent skiddingf but upon the wheels of the tender. It is exactly as if the engine had to drag an extra carriage or two. An electric locomotive carries no coal and no water, nor has it to maintain a furnace. There is no " getting up steam " to add to the cost of fuel as well as to wages. There is no ruthless scattering of white-hot embers at the close of the day. When energy is required, the locomotive gathers it in its iron hand from a third rail at side. When the machine is stationary, or running at half-speed or down hill, there is no waste of power, for the current, for which there is no use at the moment, flows on and helps a locomotive somewhere else. By the adoption of electric traction we establish all the more complicated pieces of mechanism on a solid foundation. The cylinders, the valves, the pistons, the con-necting-rods, the cranks, and all unsymmetrical parts, are enabled to take life easily in a nice, roomy, sheltered engine-house, where rattle and vibration are reduced to a minimum, and where rain, hail, and sleet are jealously excluded. The stationary engines are big, and therefore they are able to be run at a slow and steady speed. Also, the tall chimney disposes of the difficulty of maintaining a uniform draught through the fire-box of a locomotive travelling at all rates of speed, and, worse still, sometimes standing idle. The electric locomotive is simply a receiver and transformer of energy. It does not pretend to generate power. In the main its mechanism consists of smoothly rotating wheels, so that the desperate pulsations of a labouring piston will no longer afflict the nerves of passengers, nor alternating motions of " reciprocating parts" create oscillations sufficient to disturb the soundest permanent way. A proportion of the cost of cleaning locomotives ought surely to be saved, for this process now involves an outlay of £40 per engine, or thereabouts, every year, the dusty and overheated mechanism having to be overhauled some three or four times a week, and always before it cools.

The London Times recently printed an instalment of " The Past Century," being extracts from the columns of that newspaper of the principal events in each year. A letter from Charles Dickens on the horrors of public executions is given. It was written in November, 1849 : —I believe, said Dickens, that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution could be imagined bv no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun. The horrors of the gibbet, and of the crime which brought the wretched murderers to it, laded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks, and language of the assembled spectators. When. I came upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and the howls that were raised from time to time, denoting that they came from a concourse of boys and girls already assembled in the best places, made my blood run cold. As the night went on, screeching, and laughing, and yelling in strong chorus of parodies on Negro melodies, with substitutions of "Mrs. Manning" for

I "Susannah." and the like were added to - : these. When the day dawned, thieves, lov prostitutes, ruffians and vagabond* of every kind, flocked on to the ground, with everyvariety of offensive and foul behaviour, Fighting, faintings, whistlings, imitatioijj of Punch, brutal jokes, tumultuous demonstrations of indecent delight when swooning; ' .'" women were dragged out of the crowd by . the police with their dresses disordered, W8 * a new zest to the general entertainment When the sun rose brightly—as it did— it gilded thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal ' mirth or callousness, that a man had cause to feel ashamed of the shape he wore, and to shrink from himself, as fashioned in % intake of the Devil. When the two miser,ableVeatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them were turned quivering into < the air, there was no more emotion, no more . 4 pity no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, no mare restraint in any of the previous obscenities,, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there were no belief among men but that they perished li}» J beasts. I have seen, habitually, some of the . worst sources of general contamination sad corruption in this country, and I think thereare not many phases of London life that could surprise me. lam solemnly convinced thatnothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of, time could work such ruin as one public e«- -•» cution, and I stand astounded and appalled . / bv the wickedness it exhibits. Ido not be- ; lieve that any community can prosper where such a scene'of horror and demoralisation as was enacted this morning outside Horse-' monger Lane gaol, is presented at the very dcors of good citizens, and is passed by, TO . j known or forgotten. ~

The New York World publishes the fob • ... lowing" replies to the question, " What in. . vour opinion is the chief danger, social w political, that confronts the coming cen"Archbishop of Canterbury : I have not tin slightest idea. . 'Hie Bishop of Gloucester: Self-adverti*

ing vanity. Dean Farrar: The chief social danger is, . the dominance of drink. The chief political danger is our apathetic laxity in facing serious problems. Lan Maclaren: Political collision of th& ' Western Powers in the East, and, socially, anarchv. Dr. Max Nordau : The chief danger threatening civilisation itself, seems to me to be that" infernal selfishness called by pseudophilosophers " Individualism." ~:; Dr. A. Conan Doyle: I should say the/uncontrolled supremacy of an ill-balanced, excitable, and sensation-mongering press. Mr. Stanley J. Weyman: The influence upon half-educated nations of an irresponsible press, whose first object must (with very rare exceptions) be pecuniary. Mr. Gilbert Parker, M.P.: Apart from international questions, the spread of big monopolies and trusts. Mr. Arthur W. Pinero: Trades Unions— the relations of workmen and employers. Mr. William Watson: Greed. Madame Sarah Grand: The sapping ft! the foundations of society, by laxity in the matter of marriage. ; Mr. Max O'Relj -. An irresponsible and unbridled press. Lady Colin Campbell: The results of universal education.

Mr. Zangwill: The reactionary reversion " to mediaeval ideals of militarism, caste, and ecclesiastical despotism ere they have been , sufficiently purged by modern thought. . _; Miss Ellen Terry: A lack of simplicity— in thought, manners, and customs. '; !gg| Lord Charles Beresford: The Chinese,'.-' question. _ - & Mr. Keir Hardi'', M.P.: Militarism. : i Earl of Wemyss: Socialism, the State, k , and municipalities trying to play the part • ~c of Providence, and traders. :?| Mr. John Dillon, M.P.: Imperialism, v | militarism, and the corruption of public life arising from the Companies Acts limited * V; liability and the immense development of the Stock Exchange. |§ Mr. T. M. Healy, M.P.: Newspapers! Mrs. Asquith: Militarism. * Mrs. Ormiston Chant: The glorification J. of sordidne?s. " - 1 Karl Blind: Imperialism. Ouida: Tyranny; tyranny of majorities;' f s tryanny, military, medical, scientific, political. M. de Blowitz: In my opinion the chief danger that confronts the coming" century m is a universal and violent coalition of those . who have everything to gain against those who have something to lose. Mr. Walter Crane: The pursuit of money« * Mr. G. R. Sims: The spread of insanity, - Sir Walter Besant■: Increased naval armaments, and trusts. " :