NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14745, 29 July 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

Miss Sylvia Pankhurst's book, "The Suffragette" is promised.. It gives, we are informed, the " complete history of the movement," and contains an introduction ;by Mrs. Pankhurst, who can. certainly claim to possess exceptional knowledge of the rise and progress of the agitation to obtain political rights for women. . " -

Following precedent, the King has appointed an artist to paint the official picture of the Coronation scone in Westminster Abbey. It will bo an elaborate work, and the artist will have individual sittings from all . the : principal personages. ";. The honour has fallen to Mr. J. H. F. Bacon, who became an Associate of tho Academy in 1903. He is already at work on the .picture!'',. ,: ; •'■ • '

Scotsmen are in great evidence in Canada. At the present time nearly a million people from north of the Tweed have made homes for themselves under the British flag across the Atlantic. The majority of them are doing uncommonly well. y It is believed that in twenty years from now there will be at least two million people of, Scottish blood settled in tho Dominion. Messrs. Kegan Paul have ready an interesting book, written by Mr. J. M. Gibbon, entitled "Scots in Canada." It is illustrated in colour. ■■■■■'■',

"Why is 't tint the realm is hot richer for Ireland Such, we are told, is the question (oftener asked than answered) which Lord Dunraven has set himself to discuss in a book to be shortly issued by Mr. Murray. It is more than thirty years since Lord Dunraven published a striking study of "The Irish Question," and in the interval he has kept a keen eye upon the changing conditions of Irish politics. His new book, "The Legacy of Past Years : A ■ Study of Irish History,' is likely to have perspective -and judgment at the back of it, and its plain-speaking is certain to arouse discusson.

A book by Mr. Samuel Turner, describing his climbing adventures in four continents, represented by Switzerland, Siberia, the Andes, and 1 New Zealand, is now; in preparation, and will shortly be published. Ho travelled on sledge and horseback 1600 miles through Siberia in winter to climb Beluka (14,800 ft), at that • time supposed to be Siberia's highest mountain, and discovered other mountains 17,800 ft high. His traverse of Mount Cook for the first time is the longest continuous climb on recordit took four and a-half days," out of which 36 hours were continuous climbing.

" A New York librarian haft been warning the world that all our newspapers, which are printed on paper made from wood pulp, will have • perished utterly in a'.; comparatively short period, and that an invaluable record of the times will perish with them, and his advice is to have special copies for preservation in libraries printed on some enduring material. Perhaps the future historian might rather have desired to be saved from this friend. Already our historians seem scarcely able to keep their heads above the flood of resuscitated documents preserved even from ages when documents were few. The historian who has to peruse the complete files or the world's newspapers in addition to the State papers and private memoirs will certainly not be able to see the wood for the trees.

4 To the boyhood of forty years or so ago the " genus" pirate was a glowing reality; hut now that our seas are so carefully policed it is to be feared that the, fiction of the schoolroom has gradually neglected the pirate as a popular hero. A volume of reminiscences, however, which appears in Messrs. Hutchinson's autumn list, is to introduce us to a goodly merchantman who sailed his own vessels among Eastern waters at a time when the black flag was no uncommon signal upon the masthead. Mr. John Dillon Ross has collected, under the title" Sixty Years in the Far East," the reminiscences of his father and of himself, and the recollections of the elder man include many stirring ' encounters with freebooters of the sea. The younger man has. spent the best years of his life at sea upon the trade route between the States Settlements and China, and , tells good stories of adventurous experiences which ought to have attractions for both young and old.