HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1664, 20 January 1904, Page 16

HERE AND THERE.

I should like to know (says a writer in. N how it ever got into the. publio mind that Mr : Arthur Balfour is the t sweet, docile angel of universal approval. Very few men in the House are less entitled to the description. In the first place, he is a man who. never makes friendis. He has only one friend in the House of Commons, and that is Alfred Lyttelton. v After all these years in the Commons noun an. save the new Colonial Secretary, can truthfully describe himself as Arthur Balfour’s friend. Of course, the .idea that Mr Balfour is a weak man is equally wrong. H<T has a most remarkably strong will of his own; and this will often take the shape of petulance, and occasionally manifests itself as sheer pigheadedness, and is not liked. His acquaintances outside politics arc not of that character which the majority of Englishmen enjoy. Women with strange fads' seem to have a special .fascination for him, and but for golf he might become as objectionable in his own way as Bernard Shaw is horrid in his. It is all a great pity. Arthur Balfour is a clever man —not a great man possesses a singularly adroit intellect, can v' make himself agreeable when the mood is upon him, and is anxious to save his generation: but Tie has never fraternised sufficiently with the better kind of men of action to acquiro the. onLy spirit whereby a map can rule with honour to. himself and glory to his country. * -fc * & 3? * The highest possible compliments are paid in the “Quarterly” to Mr John Morloy for his ‘ Life of Gladstone.” is a great portrait of-a great man.” The question is put whether the biography will tend to re-establish Mr Gladstone’s - moral ascendency over the minds and . consciences of his countrymen. And the ' reply is—remarkable as coming from the 'Conservative review which has the most severely condemned the Gladstone polioy of late years —that now that the stress of circumstance and the unseemly stains of party conflict are passing away, it will be well if there is such a result. Gladstone, it is pointed out, jstands for ,o>ne ideal, as Bismarck, his greatest com - temporary, stands for aoiother. “0 a the one hand, we have the gospel of force, the ethics of Maohiavelli, combined with the duplicity of Elizabeth; oil’ the other a sustained conviction that is wriong in private life cannot be right in public life; a large and expanding lovo of freedom, and a life-long endeavour to raise politics to the level of Christianity.”

Once James Parsons, the Congregational ist preacher' was coaching from York, through Doncaster, to some preaching engagement, reports Dr. v - Guinneas Rogers in Ms “Autobiography.” He sat on the box next to the ©oaohman, who kept pulling out his watch and saying, “We shall he m time, I think.” When this remark .had been repeated two or three times, Parsons asked, in his thin, small voice, “In time for what?” "‘Why, for th’ Seliinger (St. Leger) to be sure !” “Oh .” said Parsons, “I don’t care for horse races.” The Jehu looked down at him for,a moment, and then said, “No; you looks as if you preferred-a good cockfight to anything, like mel” * « 4 * * # A Scots minister lately returned from a long holiday trip, on which ho had been accompanied by his wife (says “W.C.”). At a prayer meeting shortly afterwards an elder offered up thanks for the minister’s safe return, but unfortunately put liiis foot in it.. “O' Lord,” he said, “we thank thee for bringing oor pastoi* safe hame and his dear wife l , too, O Lord, for Thou preservest man and beast.”

The subject of race suicide has never troubled the inhabitants of a certain region of. the United States. On the eastern slope of a mountain range every ■wife is a mother, families averaging from five to 14 children. On. the western slope the birth of a ohlild is an event. On one aide the water is hard, on the other soft. Couples that have : • been' childless for years move to the eastern slope and are very soon blessed rr with offspring. . JHo- r e..is m attOr for our ‘ dabblers inraca problems.

« •» « ■» 0 The electro-thermic fan of M. Do Mare, of Brussels, consists of a rotating fan, with mica blades carrying ro- : ' skrtance coils, tbe apparatus being driven . fey an electric motor. The advantage of this form of heater is that the moving polls radiate heat so rapidly that Nothing is lost in light, and in a late SC: experiment the wire was made white ? hot /before - starting, but soon co ol ed down to blackness at the centre as the

fan rotated, fire other coils continuing to glow feebly. The heat discharged :. u from the mouth, of the fan’s casing was. greater than the hand. could hear. In another experiment with coils of very thin wire, the fan was started be- . fore the current was turned through the coils and the. wire glowed but faintly, , cal though radiating heat that would have melted it under) the usual conditions of a.stationaryifjcoil.j .-.-Vv 'x<9 a ' o

Jasmine flowers, yield only about 0.1 c-per cent, of essential oil, which costs flOOdol or more per pound. An artificial jasmine oil has been patented in Ger-

many and consists of a mixture of 55 parts of benzyl acetate, 15 of linalyl acetate, 10 of linalol and 20 of benzyl alcohol.

A plague of ants lately invaded an office at Everley, England. Paper soaked with oil of peppermint was spread about when the ant® disappeared in half an hour, and, although the odour of peppermint quite evaporated in a few days, their memory was good and they never returned. * * * * 8 e

As most of us know, science has given the human race only a limited span of existence. This was one of the prospects which distressed'Darwin, and it has weighed on many other sensitive minds. Some three millions of years or so is about the average estimate. The discovery of radium naturally led to the question whether a supply that metal in the sun might nob indefinitely prolong that luminary’s active life. A Cambridge scientist has therefore been trying to discover in sunlight any signs of the rays characteristic of radium. After some months’ exposure of vary sensitive solutions to the sun he is—unfortunately—able to say that if there are any such rays at all they must reach us only in inappreciable quantity. The verdict-, therefore, is that the discovery of radium afford® no* reason for altering the cosmical time scale. Still three millions of years is probably twelve times -as long a.s the whole past of human history.

The arrest of a. tramp named Baudoin at Douzy, near Bourges, for the murder and mutilation of two farm girls, promises to lead to his being charged with crimes a® hideous as those of the notorious Vachar. known as the “French Jack the Ripper.” The man’s movements have Dean traced through the districts of Cher, Lorient. Nievro and Indre, in all of which his presence was \A l tb a series of horrible murders of women ■working alone in, the fields. In all cases the victims were violated and then killed either by strangulation or by having their throats cut, their bodies then being cub about and mutilated in a most fiendish fashion. No one ever saw the crimes committed, so that most of the evidence against Baudoin is purely circumstantial. He has been positively identified, however, by two women from different parts of the country who were attacked by him, but managed to escape from his clutches. Baudoin is a thick-set, powerful man, about forty years of age, and a typical tramp.

The woirlid’isl mounjtayieering record has recently been broken in two respects in the Hunza N.agar peaks of the Himalayas, on the north-west frontier of India. For four years past Dr. and Mrs Bullock Workman have been carrying on climbing operations in those parts with the aid of Swiss guides, and 1 on 12th August last Dr. Workman and the two head guides climbed an unnamed peak near the Cliogo Loongnia glacier to a height of 23,394 feet. They did not quite reach the top, hut this is higher than the previous world’s record, which is the summit of Aconcagua, in the Andes, 23,083 feet. Mount Everest, however, the highest peak in the world, still remains unconquered. On the same day Mrs Bullock Workman reached a height of 22.568 feet, which breaks the previous record for women- —held by herself —by 1568 feet, Mrs Workman is a mild looking, middle aged lady, with grey hair, and a by no means athletic figure. 8 =» 8

At least the terrible tragedy of Miss Hickman may serve for a time to cast discredit on the countless clairvoyants and spiritualists and other quacks who at present impose on the public credulity. A recent sensational trial in Berlin has put a temporary stop to. the career of some depredators there, and the history of this case should do. the same in England. The clairvoyants had every chance; they handled the dead lady’s garments and visited her rooms, and they confidently described half a dozen different and totally irreconcile~ abie scenes. Not one of them appears to have succeeded in getting, even as near to the truth as the law of averages would have made probable. All that they achieved was somewhat to to the agony endured by the unfortunate father.

The present Prim© whose imperturbable sweetness of temper is such that even on the links at North Berwick or'St. Andrews the strongest expletive that has ever come from his lips is said to he “Deal' me!” Arriving once ,at dusk at a certain large station, he set his Gladstone down on a bench while he went to purchase “Golf Illustrated” (for we know he reads no daito papers) at the bookstall. On. returning to the bench, Mr Balfour took up his bag and made the unpleasant discovery that during hiis absence the bottom had been cut out and! the contents adroitly abstracted. Gazing at the mutilated "Gladstone, • “Dear me I” exclaimed the statesman, with a melancholy smile,- "it is evident that there is something Radically wrong about this hag.”- ’

It is curious that Nicholas .IX.. one of tlie greatest of living monarch®, should also be one of the smallest—from the physical point of view hand had he carried out his intention, ol visiting

the King of Italy we should have been treated to the spectacle of a meeting between, two of the shortest sovereigns of their time. Yet tire (. zar, however small and slight of stature, has. somewhat the advantage as regards inches, of King Victor Emanuai 11., who repo 1 eon 111., before ho can be seen at his quires to get into the saddle, like Nabest. Like so many men, both the Czar and the King of Italy are more the sons of their mothers than their fathers, so to speak; and certainly there is nothing in the appearance of Nicholas 11. to suggest his sonship to Alexander 111., who was almost a giant, or of Victor Emmanuel to recall the burly soldierlike figure of his father and his grandfather, the rollicking, fiercely; moustached Re Galantuomo.

The “Druggists’ Circular and Chemical Gazette” publishes an interesting note on’the origin of the grain weight, By an English law passed in 1266, it was provlided. that a silver penny, called a sterling, should equal- in. weight 32 wheat grains, well dried, and taken from the centre of the ear. From this it seems evident that the grain of wheat was the prototype of the standard grain. The weight now known a® the grain is, of course, copied from governmental standards. In 1826 certain weights and measures were legalised in England, among them being the troy pound, equivalent to 5,760 grains.

The “Studio” contains “Reminiscences of Whistler,” by Mr Mor timer Me lines, as recorded by Miss Menpes. Whistler’s habit for committing t<o memory for subsequent use is thus referred to —“In the evening we would often dine together at the Arts Club or else at a friend’s house. We went home at night by way of the Embankment to look at- a “nocturne,’ perhaps a fish shop, which Whistler was trying to commit to- memory. Ho would talk aloud as he created the idea for one of his marvellous picture®. He would say—‘Look at that golden interior, with the two spots of light, and that old woman with the chequered shawl; see the warm purple tone outside going away up to the green tone of the sky, and the shadows from the windows thrown on the ground—what an exquisite lacework they form!’ He would say all this aloud. I would walk with hlhn to his studio, and talk with him sometimes until two in the morning. And then ho woulld say as I was leaving—‘Now, Menpes, remember —I want you to be here early in the morning. As for mo, I am going to make my mind a blank until I paint that fish shop ; and you must be here early.’ And I always wa® fhere early—so early that I very often breakfasted with Whistler. And lie would paint his pictures without a single note, for he maintained that if he drew on the s-pdf? it- only handicapped him.”

“M.A.P.,” in a.sketch of Mr Fergus Hume, the novelist, tolls how “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab” came to be written in Melbourne 17 yearn ago. “Having failed in his endeavours to dispose of a play—the managers had no belief in local talent—he thought he might have better luck with a book. But what style of book should he write? Her© hi® Scots blood came to his * assistance, and to the leading Melbourne librarian he put the shrewd question: ‘What kind of book do you find most sale for? 5 ‘Detective stories, and especially Goboriau 5 ® 5 was the reply. Mr Hume had not read . Gaborirau, but he bought a complete edition of his works, and the rest is obvious.” Mr Hume went to> England in 1888 to find himself and his book the two topics of the day. Since then he was written nearly seventy “stories” —“M.A.P.” emphasises the word, for according to himself, he lias written but two novels, “Whom God Hath Joined 55 and “Woman the Sphinx. 55 None of them, perhaps, ha® attained to the .enormous popularity of the “Hansom Ga.b,” but still he ha® a wide and faithful public.

One morning Mr Fergus Hum© opened a letter, to find in it (says “M.A.P. 55 ) the torn-out title-page of “Woman the Sphinx. 55 On it was scrawled in a fierce, feminine hand, “Sir, I have burnt your horrid book. If I met you I should smack your face!” That, however, was an exceptional document, and Mr Hume lias hundreds of grateful letters from readers, who have found surcease of pain or sorrow in his thrilling tales. An average of five books a year is not maintained without much labour and thought. Method is the secret of Mr Hume’s great output. He goes to his desk every morning, as the city man goes to hie office, and rarely puts in less than, eight hours’ ivork a day. All his work Wdorne on a typewriter, partly on account of the greater speed, partly, one regrets to say, on account of eye-trouble. Mr Hume waig in a railway carriage with a friend. In one corner was an old lady. Mr Hume said to his friend that he really did not know how to murder anyone in a new way. He had murdered! at least 20 people, and now he wanted a new mode. The old lady shivered and looked most apprehensive. At the next station she got out hurriedly. - ■ Q #. • ' •,*- .• . * ©

The trial at Paris, France, of the Swedish Baron Dadelsward and the Belgian. Count do Warren, charged with propagating devil worship, was begun recently. The baron, It 18 arranged a sumptuous -temple and dedir

cated it to the -devil, in his apartment® in the fashionable Elyisee quarter. There, aided by Count de Warren, he initiated young men in the worship of his satanio majesty.

James Lynn, of Chester, Fa., a nio<-tor-man on the Chester Traction Co. lines, is an unwilling passenger on ai steamship sailing for England. He _ia there because ho tarried just one minute too long/to say farewell to his family. Hejiad purchased passage for the family, and went aboard the boat at New York city to say a last goodbye. He started away from the boat intending to go l ashore, when one of his daughters called him back. He went back, kissed the child, and returned to the gangway to find that the boat was under headway.

A Springfield school teacher received the following note from, the mother of one of her pupil® recently: “Dear Mis, You writ mo about whip mg Sammy. I hereby give you permission to beet him up eny-time it is necessary to learn him lessens.- He is juste like* his father —you have to learn him with a clubh. Pound noiedge into him. I want him to get it, and don’t pay no> atenshun to what his father says, I’ll handle ‘him.’ ”

Nitroglycerin is occasionally used in' medicine, and It now appears that soldier® of the British army have become addicted to cordite—which is more than half nitroglycerin-—as a. stimulant, An investigation by Mai. Jennings shows that even a very small quantity produces very powerful effect. The taste is sweet, pleasant and pungent-, and when a little io sucked by itself from a strand the effect is a strong tendency to sleep, with a violent headache and noises in the ears for 36 hours or more. . The worst results follow it® use iii beer. Intoxication follows at once, and the men become quarrelsome, destructive and brutal, soon falling into deep slumber. The cordite victim® ago rapidly.

Much to be desired is a method of recognising poisonous plants at sight. Wlulo no general rule can be given, Dr. H. IT. Rusby finds that there are evident indications and t-nat certain characteristics often go with poisonous properties. One of these i® the lurid] purple colour of stems of castor oil, ciouta, eonium, pokebexry and dogbane. A narctotio odour is common in many of the most poisonous plants, though lacking in others, and: a milky juice is cause for suspicion. The most general 'Characteristic, however, is an acrid taste. Tills is our host safe-guard, and it can usually be relied upon to give warning before a dangerous quantity has been eaten.

A citizen of Munich.. Germany, named Scherzer, baa gone every day for 30 yeans to the same beer saloon seated himself at the same place, and emptied several time® a quart beer mug. ihep ho has returned to his home, his heacc high, and walking with a firm step. A friend who ha® a mania for statistics has kept the number of quart® he- ha® consumed in the course of the years. The result, is a veritable river of beer—32,850 quarts. 'Mi- Scherzer’s beer jubalee is soon to he celebrated, when a quart beer measure will be presented to him to encourage him on Ins joyous beer-bibbing way.

The number of lunatics under control in Ireland is 22,000, an increase of 1,000 in two years. w * 8 © *

Professional criminals are usually destitute of wisdom teeth. So says ;an Italian scientist.

Twenty thousand young children, daily and nightly, stand in .the streets of London offering various articles for sale * » * * o *

For producing steel castings free from blow holes .M. Meslan advises adding an alloy of aluminium and calcium to the molten metal. He has found that the combination of these two metal® absorbs-all gases present. * * * # o «

Milk varies in viscosity with composition and temperature and a new apparatus called the ‘Tacto-vise ometer is regarded by French psyicians as solving the problem of a simple test for milk. It consists of a tinned copper reservolii, mounted on a tripod, with a fine glass tube as outlet. When the reservoir is filled with a sample of the milk, the stopcock is opened and the time required for the escape of the liquid is noted in seconds, with the temperature, and reference to a table shows the oxaot character of the milk corresponding to these data.

There are 4,700. lawyer® in Chicago, The increase in their nlj mhei the last twelvemonth wa ® 3-d. A drop of .blood &£ Leather waste is. f°. 1 Manufacturers it m a form, instead of iron, to make cogwheels.- : ! » » Twenty sohoolhouses in New, "iork were opened this fall as recreation centers for the neighbourhoods in which they ate situated.