NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12698, 28 October 1904, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

the census OF INDIA. That the census of India for 1901 lias been published only lately, gives an idea of the enormity of the task. The superintendent of the census says: —" The greater part of the enumeration was don© without recompense by ah army of private individuals numbering more than a million and a-quarter, who brought to their troublesome, task a spirit of painstaking and occasionally grotesque accuracy which is unequalled anywhere in the world. In one province it Was very difficult to number.a. certain assemblage of ascetics, because they were under vow of silence. In Rajputamt the Bhils have ancient claims to be exempt from census. But their head men were impressed by the practical argument that there would be no food at the next famine for people who were not enumerated.' At Port Campbell the censustakers were attached by the implacably hostile JaraAvas of South Andaman Island,, in the Bay of Bengal, and were compelled to fire on their assailants. The result was that there was one less Jarawa to be counted. The enumerators ; discovered ah unknown tribe, the Tabo ? of South Andaman. There were few of these because a short time before a contagious disease had spread among then!, and they had killed off carefully all whom it attacked. The census proves that in 1901 the 1,254,612 square miles of the Indian Empire had a population of 117,458,193." Of these the Christians number 2,923,241, of whom 2,664,313 are natives. Of these latter two-fifths are Roman Catholics. In 1872 the Christians numbered 1,506,098, of whom 1,248,288 were natives. So the growth of Christianity is far more rapid than that of the general population.

. THE MOTOR CAB. The motor car (says the London Telegraph) is indeed making a revolution both in town and country life. House and land agents state that people are.no longer unwilling id rent mansions in districts formerly regarded as inaccessible. With the motor car's almost magic agency of transport dwellers in the country cease to consider the number of miles that a house may be from a railway station or town, A lady may do lief shopping in a town 20 miles away with as little trouble' as she Had in visiting one five miles off by means of a horse and trap. She may lunch with a friend at, 40 miles distance and return home comfortably to dinner. The motor car has this advantage over the train.: that it takes the traveller all the way from his startang-pdint to his donation. Therefore* on a 50-mile journey one may travel as quickly by car as by train. For, although the train travels faster—sometimes—than the ear, the time lost in getting to and from the railway station at each end of the journey annuls that gain. In journeying from: London to Brighton, for example, most people are so situated that they could, without transgressing the legal limit, get from house to house by car in very little longer time than by train, with the advantage of starting when they liked and hot when the railway time-table ordains,

"little JAPAN."

There is -titte illusion about Japan,' remarks the London Spectator, which seems to survive evidence and to work most serious political mischief. The Continental Power?, and Russia more especially, can;not get rid of the belief that the island empire, however brave or astute or lucky its children may be, is, after all, but a " little" State, which in a very short time must "bleed to death." It is not very easy to trace the origin of this belief, unless it bo the habit of expecting great size in all empires, or of comparing the area of Japan with that of China or of Russia itself. So compared Japan is, of oWse, a little place, which looks on the Maps almost insignificant. Compared, however, in a more sensible Way with the other island empire which has so long been one of the great Powers of the world, Japan is by no means small. Its total area, without counting Formosa, is by 27,000 square miles greater than that of the British Isles, and as large a proportion of it is fertile and thickly populated. That population again is 44,009,000, or 3,000,000 greater than Britain's, 6,000,000 greater than that of France, and almost equal to that of Austria-Hungary. If the word " little," again, refers to strength for war, that strength is in many respects superior to Britain's. Britain could probably destroy the Japanese fleet, but the Japanese fleet nas destroyed that of Russia, and could, if allowance in made for position, maintain a contest with that of France or Germany which would not be absolutely hopeless. As regards soldieirs, Japan has a conscription, and the conscription obviously works. Within the last six months the country has sent out six armies, eacli nearly equal to cither Of the forces that contended at Waterloo. We thought we had done a great thing when we sent 80,000 men to India in 1657, and an extraordinary one when we transported 200,000 men to South Africa in 1900. But Japan has transported more than 400,000 men across the sea, and is now defying the Russians at Liao-yang and Port Arthur with armies: greater in the aggregate than that which Napoleon 111. mobilised for the invasion of Germany,