OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 772, 17 December 1886, Page 5

OLLA PODRIDA.

A custom: requiring- repeal

So much inconvenience has been experienced at Poplar during the last few days, from what is described as the fearful condition of the bodies awaiting inquest, consequent upon the excessive Heat of the weather, that the ,coroner, Mr Collier, took the very judicious'course at five inquests of sparing the jury the duty of viewing the bodies, and expressed the hope, in which we heartily concur, that the time is pot far distant when the custom of viewing the bodies, except in special cases, will be done away with. SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION IN NEW YORK. The following is an extract from the Fifth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of New York (p. 454, April 1885). The objections and occasional resistance to vaccination which are met with among immigrant (passengers indicate a considerable scepticism in European communities, more particularly among English people, as to the protection afforded by it, or else a fear that constitutional disease will be introduced by that means. The groundless character of the fear that disease will be communicated by vaccination, when proper care is used in the selection of the vaccine virus, has been too often demonstrated to require any argument in this place. The result of the teachings and influence of the anti vaccinationists is well illustrated by the fact that, in the hospitals of the city of New York, not a single case of small pox exists at this time, while in the city of London, the reports have shown for months past an average of upwards of eleven hundred cases in hospital. In New York city, where a'‘from house to house ’ inspection and search among the tenement population for the unvaccinated is practised every year, small.-pox is not met with, except as it was imported and developed by persons from other localities ; in London, the weekly average of new cases, as indicated by hills of health and the number in hospital, has been from four to five hundred. The number of cases of small-pox on

vessels that entered that port in ISS3 and 1884, was twenty-five. —British Medical Journal.

WHAT WE DRINKThe following statistics of the consumption of various drinks cannot fail to be instructive and profitable rvateperlle ad of population. Gallons. Gallons. British spirits 26,606,45 S .. 0"/33 Foreign and Colonial Spirits.. 5,012,65 b.. o*2:-1 Foreign wines .. .. .. 13,767,928 .. 0'379 . Barrels. Barrel. Beer 27,101.238 .. 0 746 lbs. lbs. Tea 182,408,830.- 5 022 Coffee ’ 32,660,320 .. 0 898 Cocoa 14,603,067 .. 0-402 j This list shows a falling off of nearly 2,000,000 gallons of British spirits, 300,000 gallons of foreign spirits, and a slight decline in the consumption of foreign wines. The beer sold shows a slight increase in bulk, but not per head of population. The use of tea has increased 20,000,000, and there was an increase both in coffee and cocoa. BOARD OF TRADE RETURNS FOR JULY. The following table gives the total values of the export of British and Irish produce and manufactures and foreign and colonial merchandise for the seven months ended July, 18S6, compared with the corresponding months of the two previous years : British and-Irish Foreign Produce and and Colonial Total Manufactures. Produce. Exports. Year £ £ £ 1884 . 136,661,01 s.. 37,965,012 .. 174,462,10/ 1885 . 123.571.934 .. 34,911.195 .. 155.453.129 1886 .. 121,842,136 .. 33,163,813 .. 175,005,954 Turning to the import side of the account, we find that, as compared with the seven months ended July last year, there has been a net decrease of £21,216,977 ; raw materials for textile manufactures showing a decline of £3,214,399; raw materials for sundry industries, £1,675,661 ; living animals, £1,305,265; duty free articles of food and drink, £12,728,512 ; metals, £879,411; oils, £284,680 ; miscellaneous articles, £1,499,181 ; and chemicals, £453,188. On the other hand, there has been an increase in the imports of articles of food and drink (dutiable), £880,005 ; tobacco, £122,917. ALONG BICYCLE JOURNEYMr Hugh Callan, M.A., a Glasgow University divinity student, has just made a remarkable journey, which he briefly describes as follows :— 1 On July ,3 I rode on bicycle back from Glasgow to Leith, whence 1 took boat to Hamburg. Starting from Hamburg on July 6, I rode on to Berlin, and thence to Dresden, Prague, Vienna, BudaPesth, Belgrade, and down through Turkey. The countries I traversed are Prussia, Saxony, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, Servia, and Roumelia in Turkey. At Knprili, in Roumelia, not far from the sea at Salonica, I was arrested, and officially deterred from completing the journey on to Athens —first, because I was suspected; and secondly, because brigands were known to be swarming in the neighboring mountains through which my path lay. The whole mileage done is 1,450 English miles. At every large town I stayed on an average two days, and on the Servian and Turkish frontiers I lost about four days through official and wonld-be official punctiliousness. Here (in Pirseus, in Greece) lam staying with my uncle—l came down from Salonica- by boat—and after having made a number of short runs round Athens I shall return to Glasgow by steamer. It may be interesting to note that the entire cost (including 16s for duty on my machine in Turkey) from home to Salonica was £l2, and from tome, all round, back will be £2O, illustrating the fact that bicycle travelling is the cheapest of all modes of seeing the world.

THE VEERING OF PUBLIC OPINION.

It is really curious, and it would be al" most amusing, if it did not relate to matter 3 of such grave importance, to observe the change, sometimes the rapid change, that comes over public opinion in regard to questions of Peace and War. The Crimean war furnished an illustration of this. There was a perfect mania for war. Press, platform, and pulpit resounded with the warcry. But in a very few years after it was over, confidence gave way to misgiving, and misgiving ultimately settled down into a general conviction, which is now almost universal, that the whole business was a piece of flagrant folly. It would be difficult now to find a man who would defend that war. The Times, which had been its loudest trumpeter, and the bitterest assailant of those who opposed it, thus spoke in 1861, only five years from its conclusion ‘ We must frankly own that we feel somewhat more free to act like men and Christians no_w than we could five years ago. That, ill starred war, those half million of British, French, and Russian men left in the Crimea, those two hundred millions of money wasted in the worst of all ways, have discharged to the last iota all the debt of Christian Europe to Turkey. Never was so great an effort made for so worthless an object. ... It is with no small reluctance we admit a gigantic effort and an infinite sacrifice to have been made in vain.’ But we may come down still later. It is fresh in our memory how the few persons who, in and out of Parliament, deprecated our armed intervention in Egypt and the Soudan, were vehemently blamed and rebuked. But now not a voice is anywhere lifted up in defence of that policy. If you refer to it in the presence of any of those who were its loudest champions, they wince away from it as though you touched a sore place. It is freelv abandoned to condemnation, and the universal sentiment is, Would we had never touched Egypt, for no one can see even now, where the consequenoes of our miserable meddling will end. So with regard to the annexation of Burmah. At first it was hailed as a precious acquisition to the British Crown. And now we find that the great body of the inhabitants detest us, resent our presence, and do all they can to expel us from what they regard, and justly regard, as their own rightful possessions; and we hear of fightings and conflagrations, and utter misery and destruction, on all hands, while the country is in a state of absolute anarchy. New troopaare called for

and sent from India, and there is little doubt that millions of money will be spear on this wretched adventure, while there is imminent danger of our being involved in a serious quarrel with China as the result of our warlike intervention in Burmah. A HEAT-INDICATING PAINT. We have received from Mr W. Crookes a sample of heat-indicating paint. This paint is of a bright red color when cold, but turns brown when subject to a certain temperature, regaining its original color on cooling. It is suggested that the paint will be of value for covering the bearings and other parts of machinery which are liable to injurious heating, so that an attendant may be able to see at a glance, without having to feel, whether anj r part is becoming hot and requires attention. It is stated that lib of this paint is sufficient to cover 100 square feet. STARS. The St Louis' Globe-Democrat say 3 : 4 Alpha Oentaurii, the leading star in the Constellation of Centaur, is the nearest star to the earth, so far as known. Its distance is usually placed at from 20,000,000,090,000 to 29,000,000,000,000 miles from the earth. A star called Sixty-one Cygni is classed as second in distance, being put at about 54,750,999,000,000 miles distance from our globe. Most of the stars, however, are millions of times further away from us than these. Light travels about 196,000 miles in. every second of time ; and yet with this inconceivable rapid velocity it would take light about twelve years to traverse the space separating us from that star. From the greater portions of the stars light would, be many centuries in reaching us. That is to say, in these particular instances the stars which we see are not the stars as they exist to night, but as they existed before Columbus sailed on his voyage of discovery or even before the creation of Adaui. THE CAPITAL CITY OF SIAM. It is a little more than a hundred, yeara since Bangkok became the permanent residence of the King of Siam. Before that date it was a marshy jungle unadorned with houses. It is still something of both a marsh and a jungle, and though the houses are not conspicuous on account of a superabundance of tropical greenness, the numerous signs of life on land and water give the impression of a populous city. The old capital was Ayuthia, fifty miles further up the river, where are still to be seen the ruins of great temples and royal palaces. When the seat of Government was changed to this place ""** the people were inclined to cluster around the royal residence and build in places not salutary. The King, fearing epidemics, ordered them to build on the river bank, since which Bangkok has been one of the healthiest of the large cities of the Orient. Hence have come its peculiarities of situation and architecture and its appellation, the Venice of the East, There are towns in Japan, China, and Tonquin that might be called Venices, on account of their travel and traffic by means of canals, but none sn peculiar in that respect as Bangkok. From every foreign villa, whose walls, which are not always of a brilliant whiteness, glimmer and do not gleam through their trees and shrubbery, steps run down to the river. These are nob marble steps, as in Venice, but plain wooden ones, not always broad and strong, but almost always slippery with the slime and moisture left by the receding tide. Every firm and family has its boat built gondola fashion, with its small house and cushioned seats in the centre, sometimes one or two of them, and nearly all business and social intercourse is by means of them. There is no road along either bank, for the principal houses and shops front thereon, and render such a thoroughfare impossible. On the east side, where are the palaces of the First and Second Kings, and the chief part of the city, there is at a little distance a broad and dusty road, several miles in length, bordered by Chinese and Siamese shops and residences, and inhabited by few Europeans. Those who can afford it live on the great waterway, with boats or steam launches, according to their means, and ehocolatehued and cotton-liveried bargemen that wait humbly to do their bidding. So we have a great city, stretching thinly for five or six miles along two sides of a great river, which * is only a quarter of a mile wide, but so strong, so deep, so powerful, with the swift tides sweeping up and down it, with it tumultuous eddies and treacherous undercurrents, that it is majestic. At intervals creeks come in at right angles, most of them small—mere vistas of mud when the tide is cutj; avenuea of green bananas, palms and small trees, when it Is in—others so large as to have shops and stairways for a short distance from the main stream. Mouhot, the enthusiastic French traveller, was able to float us dreamily along these canals as along the lagoons of Venice. It must have been when, the mosquitoes were also dreaming. Whatever beauties Bangkok has they are. not those of Venice nor of Bagdad, in the times of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid. Floating , down the Menan is not like floating * adown the Tigris’ between high.walled gardens, green and old, though as much may be seen to interest the intellect and imagination in an hour spent on its surface as in a day in the iargest cities of China and Japan.

Mr Hichborn, naval constructor, U.S.N., has been travelling in Europe, and has recorded his observations on dockyards and arsenals. He says, 4 The lack of important naval Jbattles in recent years stands in marked contrast to the desperate efforts of European powers to equip extraordinary vessels, designed to combine the invulnerable and the irresistible ; and to the rarity o£ great sea fights may be indirectly attributed the superabundance of types ; for we cannot but believe that a war of moderate duration , would speedily settle such vexed, questions as the utility of the wholly armoured water-line versus the citadel ship, and would fix irrevocably the status of sucn craft as the Esmeralda and the Giovanni Bausan. . . • Such a war * • would prove what has long been the appre* hension of intelligent officers, that the warship of our day has become far too complicated for the people who may be called upon to .work it, and that a balance of advantage, unsuspected by many, rests with that vessel

which has comparative simplicity, even though it be concomitant with a greater exposure of life, a lower speed and reduced powers of offence. The Severn, which has been thirteen years in construction, and has cost £2,000,000, was opened for goods traffic early last September. It is nearly four miles and a half in length, of which two miles and a quarter are beneath the arm of the sea. In its construction 75,000,000 bricks have been used. Electric railways are progressing steadily in the United States, and will ultimately exclude the cable systems of haulage, if not horse traction. The Union Electric Company for instance, has for some time been runing an electric car on Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia, by the underground transmission system. There is a * conduit with a slot, similar to that employed on " cable roads, and at intervals connections are made with the drains, so that the conduit can be washed out, and to run off rainwater. The copper conductors, i inch thick by 1 inch wide, run along on each side ©f the slot, and channel iron is attached to their under surface, so as to take the wear of the contact springs of the ‘traveller.’ The estimated cost per day as compared with horse traction is as two to tive, but ‘ salaries are not calculated. It may be assumed, however, that they will not alter the ratio, but will perhaps make it still more favorable to electricity.— English Mechanic. A representative of the Pall Mall Gazette has interviewed the eminent chemist, M. Chevreul, who completed his hundreth year recently : —‘ He attributes his extreme longevity to his simple and regular system of living, and to moderation in his habits. Early in youth he contracted a great repugnance for wine and liquors of all kinds, and has never allowed a drop to pass his lips—a point for the teetotalers. He has never smoked, either —one for non-smokers. He does not eat fish or drink milk by itself. Here is his simple dietary : two platefuls of soup in the morning; a beefsteak between ten and eleven, followed by coffee ; several more platefuls of soup for dinner, with a cutlet or beefsteak, followed again by coffee.’