GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11686, 22 June 1901, Page 6 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

TAXATION' OF BACHELORS. The experiment of taxing bachelors is actually to be tried in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. It is not an unprecedented fiscal device, says the Daily Graphic, for it was tried both in England and Holland at the end of the seventeenth century. Fiscal history records that the yield from the tax, considerable to begin with, rapidly diminished, and that its consequences were more pleasing to spinsters than to Chancellors of the Exchequer. In Pennsylvania the idea is to devote the proceeds of the impost to the maintenance of homes in which spinsters may live at the public charge.

THK UN'KISSKD PKOFESSOK. Professor Crook, of the North-Western University of Chicago, addressing a scientific class a few days ago, casually remarked that the successful pursuit of a scientific career demand the sacrifice of many human weaknesses. He added, " For myself I have never sworn or tasted intoxicants, never smoked, never kissed or hugged a woman." Mr. Crook to-day is one of the most discussed men in America. His inexperience in osculatory matters excites the most comment. Newspapers devotes columns to the subject, printing interviews with public men, who gravely discuss the professsor's peculiar characteristics. Mr. Crook is thirty-seven years of age, good looking, and has lived a great deal abroad, especially in Paris. The modest professor is surprised and humiliated by this notoriety. He is, says the Daily Mail, being deluged with letters from all over the country, some praising, others ridiculing him. Many are from women who make him offers of marriage.

i STUABT AND NAPOLEON BELICP. | At Christie's lately, in the course of a ' miscellaneous sale, 9£ guineas was given for Napoleon I.'s drinking-cup. of thick glass, of beaker form, engraved with Leda and the Swan in intaglio, said to have been taken from Napoleon's carriage after the Battle of Waterloo. A lock of Napoleon's hair, obtained by the late Admiral Bennett (who. as Captain' Bennett, was in command of His Majesty's sloop, Cygnet off St. Helena until Napoleon's death in 1821), while waiting for an audience of the Emperor at Longwood, was sold for 5A guineas. A Stuart gold ring, presented by Prince James the Pretender to a person in Cornwall, fetched £31. A silver box with wooden lid (said to have been made from the Boscobel oak) surmounted by a silver plate representing the Royal Oak with bust of Charles 11., was knocked down for 25 guineas; and a Star of the Order of the Garter, and two Garters, worked in silver thread on pale blue silk, and said to have been worn by Prince Charlie, realised 111- guineas. THK KING TO "W.G.""

At the opening of first-class cricket, the following letter from the King to Dr. W. G. Grace (reproduced in Cassell's Magazine) may not be inappropriate. The letter is dated June 1, 1895, and not only exemplifies His Majesty's tact, but the close way in which he follows first-class cricket: —

" Dear —The Prince of Wales has watched with much interest the fine scores which you continue to make in the great matches this year. He now learns that you have beaten all former records by scoring 1000 runs during the first month of the cricket sea-son. as well as completing more than 100 centuries in first-class matches. His Royal Highness cannot allow an event of such deep interest to all lovers of our greatnational game to pass unnoticed by him, and he hits desired me to offer you his hearty congratulations upon this magnificent performance.—l remain, dear sir, yours truly, Francis Knollys." training or british troops. The idea— of course, of the Boer war that South Africa should be systematically used as a training-ground for British troops has been put forward more than once, but never perhaps with the detail or with the power of argument evinced in a letter to the Times from Colonel Sir John Hay Macdonald. There is no doubt that the lack of adequate training space at home does materially impair the efficiency of our military forces. In South Africa, however, there is so vast an area that it would be possible to find new ground for tactical operations each year. The presence of large bodies of troops there would bring a good deal of money into the pockets of a people whose sole road to prosperity is that of supplying food for man and beast," while the constant interchange of troops would serve to impress the inhabitants with a sense of Britain's power. Of course, such a scheme

presupposes the command of the sea, but the idea is worth serious consideration. TAVERNS OK A LITERARY REPUTATION. " The doom of another batch of literary landmarks has lately been sealed," says Literature. "First the old Black Bull tavern in Hoiborn. where Mrs. Gamp nursed .Mr. Lewsome in partnership with Betsy Prig Nussed together, turn and turn about, one. off, one on.' Then the Red

Lion, at Henley-on-Thames, in which Shenstone was said to have written familiar lines which Dr. Johnson quoted to maintain his thesis that ' there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or ism:' though other authorities have claimed that honour for the Red Lion Inn at Henley-in-Arden. Lately, too, Burford Bridge Hotel, near Box Hill, where Keats finished 'Endymion' towards the end of 1817, has been in the market— for demoliiton or not we cannot say."

THE DESIGNER OF WESTMINSTER CLOCK. Of Lord Grimthorpe, who has just celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday, the Daily News tells a story. Until recently his lordship used to sit at Petty Sessions. On one occasion a' country jeweller was summoned by the Excise authorities. The lawyer appearing for the prosecution had prepared an elaborate dissertation on the making of clocks, all got up from the " Encyclopaedia. Britannica," Lord Grimthorpe stood it with admirable patience for some time : then he suddenly stopped the speaker, and decided the case off-hand. It was not until the Court had risen that the lawyer learned that the presiding magistrate was Lord Orimthorpe, the writer of the article on horology in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and the designer of the great clock of the Houses of Parliament.

SUICIDE ill' HEREDITY. An extraordinary case of hereditary suicidal mania is related in the Paris correspondence of a contemporary. The man left a letter saying that he was forced to commit suicide because he had reached the age of thirty-five years, at which his forefathers before him had taken their own lives.

The police inquiry has shown that the man's statement is correct. The suicide, mania runs in the family, and irresistibly gains possession of each member as they attain their thirty-fifth birthday. The man's father and grandfather, and lately his uncle, all died by their own hand when they reached that age," CKLEBRATED LADY ANGLERS. The Duchess of Fife is facile princeps among our Royal fisherwomen. She has, says Mr. George A. Wade, in an article in the May Lady's Realm, the advantage of having several accessories in the sport—her husband is a very keen angler ; " there is the possession of charming seats which are admirably situated for aiding her in the pursuit of a favourite sport ; there is the inclination she has always had towards a quiet, retired life rather than to the pomp and glitter of society/' Most of the duchess' angling is on the Dee, where she can play and land a salmon with the best of her guests. The Princess Victoria is very nearly as keen an angler as her sister. The Queen also knows how to handle a rod. Illi: ISI'MrENCK OP AMERICAN WOMEN'. Comparisons between the habits and custom and dominating, forces of different countries are becoming more and more popular. In the compass of an interview Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the charming American poetess, favours Great Thoughts with her views on the contrasts presented between England and America in journalism, literature, manners, the religious spirit, and notably the position and influence of women. While she expresses strong disfavour with the methods of Mrs. Carrie Nation, she considers that American women influence life more generally than English, and become, owing to the reverence with which men regard their mental endowments, " a seemingly silent but strong force in politics."