NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11620, 6 April 1901, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

In two of the books on the war just published Mr. Julian Ralph's "At Pretoria," and Mr. Lloyd's " One Thousand Miles with the: C.l.V."—there is a curious and very interesting debate on the value of courage in battle, and the many types of courage which emerge under the deadly hail of the bullets. f The Boer and the Englishman, says Mr. Ralph* are both brave but the Englishman in battle is " always ready to rush upon death," while the Boer has a religious re-, spect for his own life, and will hide or flee without shame to protect it. German courage is of the "reliable and dogged" sort; French pluck has a sparkle of fire in it, but is apt to be chilled by a too-ready suspicion that its owner has been >"betrayed":by;his own generals. Turkish courage, according to , Mr. Ralph, has all the solidity oi the German variety, but it is made cool by fatalism, and sanguine by the vision of paradise and its hxmris,. But British valour, Mr,.

Ralph—who, it must be remembered; is not ■ I an EngUshmau—says, is j Unliko. anything -V *'*■ ({' else.: "It rteWnothiiiigj avoids nothing, j considers nothing;" It burns like some dl V ' I vine fire through the -whole regiment or bti> -- | gade or army, driving on -commander, [ colonel, captain, private, all alike. It dig- I pctl«s with strategy} or does duty for it, I It Can transmute' what seehis. hopeless dis- .. ■ aster into shining success. Mr. Lloyd—. who, again, is not an Englishman— • the different 'varieties of British courage;; the fire with which a Highland regiment: charges; the dash and fury of a good Irish battalion; and the colder, -jesting, and unyieldingvalour of the typical English "Tommy" from font or Yorkshire. Mr, Lloyd arrrives at the somewhat surprising conclusion that, while the Celtic fighting man—Welsh. Scottish, Irish—has a court age more ardent, romantic, and picturesque than the unimaginative English''Tommy l * knows, yet on the whole, and in the long run, "the English-made article is the more valuable I" It never reaches the fiaiaenikß ; fervour oi the Celtic fighting spirit; but, on 1 the other hand, it is unsusceptible ■' to its ' n V occasional chills. Phlegmatic and " un. * imaginative— to say half-stupid—cool, ness the characteristic Of the English V " Tommy." Thus the 0:1.V". once lay for | hours under a deadly fire of shells and pom, | poms. .After each earth-shaking, Wait ofc sound and flying metal nn officer would call out* "Anybody hit?" A few heads would lift and look round, then would come at dozen voices, "No, sir, we're ;all right;" and down went the heads again. But a\* ~ ■■... ° ■ _ ■■:■■■■ -.'■■■ .'•:=•■■■'-■:..■: most invariably two or three privates would I deliberately rise and wander round to pick up fragments of exploded shell to take horns j to theiff sweethearts as souvenirs while the | aii about them was peopled with raving lead ! According to Mr. Lloyd, the temper J of an English regiment lying under hostile! j fife is dogged, bub by no means emotionally j heroic. Nobody strikes an attitude or breaks into of the commina« i tory sort—or says anything about "dying for his country." There is a bit of Ugly work to be done, and "Tommy" shuts his teeth and sets about doing it. The men' V"; in the actual firing line, on the whole, rather enjoy themselves. The} have at least the . joy of hitting back. And there is no feeling of anger against the foe. He is simply a mark to be aimed at. Only when thai

bayonets fall to the charging level, and tho line of men closes with a rush on the enemy, does the fighting impulse.kindle to a pas-< sion in " Tommy's" bosom. And then, in- " deed, as has been seen all through the pre* sent war, the Boer discovers a pressing engagement in the rear! " Modern Astronomy" is the title of an ex» ceedingly interesting book, iiewlj published by Mr. Constable, from the pen of H. H. Turner, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.. In the chapter which : deals with modem mathematical astronomy, Professor Turner, . cites Professor Darwin's investigations intel • the phenomena of the tides. We know ' that the moon -, causes tides on the earth, but it not only affects the ocean, but the

land. The same forces of attraction which! j are able actually to move the liquid waters, must produce strains in the solid earth— which would be larger when the earth was I more plastic, as it must have been if it was formed by condensation from nebulous matter. Further, not only does the moon cause ; tides' in the earth, but the earth causes tides in the moon, or rather lit has done so with such purpose that it has reduced ■ that - cold ".- ■ luminary to a state where tides are impossible. The tides; in fact, whether ocean or ■ bodily, caused by a satellite in its planet, or a planet in its}? satellite, gradually causes ; changes in the relative motions of, the'pair, and in their distances apart. Each of the pair tries to ; make the other rotate on its axis in the same time which is occupied by the revolution of the, pair round each other. In the case of the earth and the moon, we call this time a month, and the earth, being the bigger and stronger, has already .. sue- : ceeded in making the moon revolve on her axis in exactly one month; so that we always see the same face of the moon. At present the earth rotates in a day—very' much faster than the moon takes; she is reducing the speed as much as she can, and [ difficult though it is to detect any appreci? [ able diminution of speed in historic times,

the diminution is there, and will ultimately make our day a month long. : The earth will' then always turn the same face to the moon ' .' as the moon does to us and the .Americans ;':>M

may have ' a monopoly ot the moonthey may see it always, while it will never be seen in Europe, or vice versa. ■ A table of figures, the result of most laborious calculation, shows that the last 46,000,000 years have changed our day from a ; fifteen and a- ; half hours' day to a 24 hours' day. From , - the same figures, says Mr. Turner, we may,? with some confidence, accept the result that ■

the moon separated from the earth when the latter was not much bigger than now, and about 57,000,000 years ago. Surely ; those facts are startling enough to stagger, poor humanity* J ,

Mr. Justice Wright, who presides over tlito Winding-up Court in London, is described ■ as a little man, his figure being almost tiny.' So short is he, indeed, that several cushions are placed on the judicial chair to raise its occupant to a dignified height above the* desk. His face is thin and mostly pale* the cheek ? bones standing out • prominently, being flanked by the still very common legal side whiskers. His eyes are bright, and have a way of twinkling above his spectacles, particularly when their owner's interest is strongly aroused. He leans well forward when upon the Bench, usually poring over the reports and balance-sheets of companies. * that have gone wrong. • His special work ■ lies in the Winding-up ;• Court—undoubtedly the driest at the Royal Courts. of Justice— - and, though a King's Bench Judge, he disposes of a large number of Chancery actions* Perhaps the severity of the work which falls to his lot has given I him his reputation far' "sharpness." He is continually called upon ■ to decide difficult points of law, and he decides them with wonderful despatch and accuracy. Being a judge of the King's Bench' Division, where points of law are not so frequently raised, and where cases are. gone.;!> \ through more speedily, he brings into his, ' Winding-up Court a style which often proves disconcerting tc the slow and deliberate Chancery barristers who appear before him —in fact, he not infrequently gives many of them a "warm time." When upon the Bench he saves time and eloquence as much as possible, his method being to interjects short, sharp questions, and to reply chiefly in monosyllables. As is generally known, Mr. Justice Wright is a terribly hard worker. He is also a very unconventional judge, b&i ing as free from anything approaching impressive ceremoniousness as any man well could be. this may or may not be the outcome of his sturdy Radicalism, for he holds the most advanced views on many of those fine questions which sometimes serve to divide political parties. It is said that on his estate in Hampshire there is a notice board bearing ; . the somewhat unusual inscription " Trespassers will not be prosecuted.' , He is an inveterate smoker, like many other men who do heavy work with- 1 their brains* - _ Though not disdaining the cigar, he is especially devoted to the pipe, and it is said ; v that he unravels most of his legal problems in the solitude of his chambers, by the aid!. , of a black, particularly, short-steamed clay*. '' .' , f J"', I, S

It looks "S& if tie situation in China, was y . j.u *~.5 . .,,; . ..,,.;.'. .:.■:.-,,■ a-.» .>..■•■;-.;;-,•.,'.i-.-.'_ .... ':'•.'. . /.--. about to assume a new and disquieting phase. In ?pH? of Russia's threat to break oil diplomatic relations in the event of China's refusal to sign the Manchurian Convention, the Emperor has remained firm in - his decision to not ratify the agreement, be"i ing influenced by the attitude of the other Powers, whose sympathies; he states, he cannot - alienate for the sake of retaining the friendship of Russia. "According to Retiter.the Viceroy of Canton has been informed by the Imperial Court that a peaceable settlement of affairs is impossible, while \ the Standard announces that the Dofrager-Empress arid the notorious General Tubgfuhsiang, whose execution was demanded'by the Allies, have been in secret conference with a view to raising a large force .of militia "to assist the Court in the event of further complications with , the Allies." Every Viceroy and Governor of importance, with the exception of Li Hung Chang, has presented a memorial against the signing of :' the Manchurian Convention. All the Allies,

with the exception of Russia, which has ap-

parently 1 withdrawn '■", from the Concert, demand the execution of four, and the degra-

dation of 91 provincial officials. There is not much news of importance to chronicle from South Africa. De Wet is said to be

, at v*rede, in the Orange River Colony, and » number of Kruitzinger*s raiders have succeeded in recrossing the Orange River, at » drift west of Bethulie. The Boers are said to have vast stores somewhere in the Zoutspansberg district, in the Northern Transvaal, and Kruger is reported to be anxious because Lord Kitchener, who evidently knows all about them, is apparently taking measures to capture them. It has always been a mystery where the Boers Were getting their supplies from to enable them 'to carry on the war, but this information, about the existence of vast stores throws new light upon the'problem. General French continues his success. He has captured two more pom-poms. The Boers in the Eastern Transvaal are said to he plundering each other. The London Times characterises the Boer methods of guerilla warfare a? alien to the dictates of (civilisation. These methods, it has how been proved, included the shooting of black women and children. The enormous amount of money seeking investment is shown by the fact that the German three per cent, r loan of fifteen millions was Covered fifteen-

fold ; in.other words the tenders amounted to the colossal siim of £225,000,000. • Leaving out of count' the doubtfuls, whose number is given at five, the Protectionists have

& majority of four in the Federal Parliament, the figures being: Protectionists, 55 ; Free Traders, 51. '.'• '