TOPICS OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1666, 3 February 1904, Page 76 (Supplement)

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

(From Out Special Correspondent.)

:■ THE FLOWING TIDE.

T LONDON, December 19.

PoKit&oal excitement ran high this week. Two by-elections, fought on the burning question of the hour and another brilliant speech by Mr Cham-

berlain, have had their effect in swell-. 1 ing the fiscal tide. The striking victories scored at Lewiehman an cl at Dulwfioh on. Tuesday by avowed supporters of the ex-Oolonial Secretary’s fiscal polioy had a significance which it is impossible to ignore. Making all allowances" for other factors in the result, it was, in eaoh case an undoubted triumph for Mr Chamberlain, and that statesman, wtith Tns usual astuteness, Contrived, to ride home, so to speak, on ’ the crest -of the wave. His speech at|Leeds, on> the- evening following the byo-eleotiona,/ was the culminating effort of hiis great provincial campaign. It be memorable not only for the enthusiasm which marked the occasion,, but also for the remarkable announcement to; which Mr Qhamberlgin gave utterance.

‘‘'Under the auspices of the Tariff “League, which is the organised repre- ’ sentativenssboiatiori of this, great movement. ive have,” he said, ‘‘gone a long .1 way. in the. direction of forming .a oom--mission—not air. official commission, but a non-political commission of to /dpnsider the condition of our trade 'i ’the remedies which are to be found tfoTit. - This commission will comprise leading representatives of every prin- ; industry and, of every group of. ; industries. It will pom,prise • 4«tsye9 of Ipdia, of the Crown Colonies, • offthb 'g^eat/seilf^gpverningyCMonieA; it/will invite before it witnesses froan

every trade,- and; it T after hearing all that can be said, not "merely in regard to special interests • of any particular trade, but also in regard to the interests of all the trades which may 'be in a sense related to it, to form a model tariff.” I -Another point of especiar/col oni al inin Mr- Ohamberlain’s .speech was irJbds suggestion . that he : should be sen t hsylaih ambassador to the;felonies, and negotiate with thean for mutual preferential treatment. The special correspondent of the' "Times” describes the suggestion as a “half-playful” one, and In its editorial columns that journal remarks that it would! be a mistake to suppose Mr Chamberlain committed himself to any premature decision as to when he would be likely to undertake this" task. r Nevertheless the proposal was received with an outburst of applause which in its tumultuous enthusiasm formed an inspiring tribute of confidence in “our greatest Colonial Min-' ister.”

THE SORROWS OF MARIE CORELLI. '/Miss Marie Corelli has not lived forty‘tliree years in Stratford-on-Avon, as her •counsel in--a libel action this week inadvertently suggested. She has been there only four and a half years, hut even iin that comparatively brief period the talented novelist has had; her share of sorrows. Alas that I should have to write it, some hardened miscreants have continually • misunderstood this outspoken but sensitive lady, and have done their best to impeach her motives and poison public opinion against her. So. at a-n- rate, she has given us to believe. Recently Miss-Corelli wanted to b-uv some land 'in Henley street, the street in which Shakespeare was born, her benevolent intention being to enlarge at her own expense a technical sohool which stands in that thoroughfare. But the owner of the.land wanted too high a pries, and the scheme fell through. Then Carnegie offered to build a free library in Henley street, and here Miss Corelli saw another chance of doling good. She took active measures to prevent such a desecration of the shrine of Shakespeare. Then Mr F. Winter, a Town Councillor of Stratford, ungallantTy wrote a letter suggesting that Mlisa Corelli favoured her own scheme because it would be a good advertisement, and opposed Mr Carnegie’s because she herself would not get the credit. Equally ungallant, Mr G. Boyden, editor of the “Stratford Herald,” published this letter. So Marie brought this week an action for libel against them both. I regret to say that neither of the defendants showed a. proper spirit of reverence for the distinguished authoress. Mr Winter had the 'impudence to admit in evidence* that although thousand-pound notes did not grow on every goosebery bush, he .would be disposed to pay £IOOO to get Miss Corelli out of Stratford. Mr Boyden was equally unkind. In his evidence he stated that Miss Corelli often communicated anonymous paragraphs to his paper, and asked to have them put in the most prominent position. If these advertisements were not in the exact position she wanted, he heard! from the lady next morning. However, after a lively trial' the jury decided that Mitss Corelli had been Jibelled, They assessed the damages at one farthing, whereat the Judge remarked that he took this to mean that the action should never have been brought. The jury, moreover, expressed the opinion that each party shoo'd pay their own costs, so that Miss Corelli will find! the t vindication of her action an expensive business. One of the papers suggests as the moral of the incident that “literary ladies willl be wise to read Shakespeare, and to. leave his birthplace alone.”

EXIT THE “JNSIDE COMPLETUAR.” The “Times” withdraws its “wonderful offer” of 3owt of “Encyclopedia Britannioa” after to-day, and one feels inclined to raise a cheer at the thou^ 1 ’ of it. There isn’t a newspaper reader in the country but will heave a sigh of relief when he finds next Monday that at feast he oan open a paper which is not full of the “Times” and its bulky Encyclopedia. The amount of money which has been spent in advertising the Encyclopedia must be enormous, and if the unfortunate men who had to write those marvellous advertisements are not shattered wrecks by this time, they ought to be. It is asserted' that the cost of advertising up to date has been £300,000, and one can well 'believe it. Meanwhile the “Times” people state that since April they have despatched 7,000 tom of Encyclopedias to* all parts of the globe. In their picturesque way < they explain that this represents ninety miles of volumes placed side by side, or enough pages to go round the earth six times if land lengthwise, sheet by - sheet. The timber used in packing the volumes would suffice to . make a orate to cover St. Paul’s Cathedral. The British Isles have purchased 35.700 sets, Canada 8,000. Australia 3,750, India 3;700, Europe 2,850, Africa 2.300 Ja<pan 1,500. New Zealand 750. and South America 525; and further orders, it is said, have been pouring in during' these ~last few days of “the offer.” In the United States a quarter of a million - copies have been sold, butunfortunately fo*r the “Times” nearly all of ; these are pirated editions, sold/ vrithouit (authority, and, cf course,.. eyerT more cheaply than the authorised edition.

During the last week or two., double shifts of packing hands and clerks have been working night and day despatching orders, and even the “Times” shows signs of nervous iirritation caused by the strain. Customers have been complaining that their Encyclopedias are not delivered! promptly, and the poor overwrought “Times” replies with a “nasty” advertisement (half-pagej) to the effect that it can’t undertake to pat 3owt. of books in an envelope and send them by return post. All the same, I sympathise less with the “Times” than with the subscriber who writes to complain that the carman dropped the precious book-case on his front steps, and entirely demolished them. Another (subscriber is unable to get his case of books into the house, and it reposes at present in the garden. A third has had his chandelier broken and' the walls of his hcu&e damaged in the process of installing in his library “35 large quarto volumes, 30,000 pages,, 26,000 articles by 2,000 contributors,” etc., etc. These injured ones want the “Times” to pay for the damage, but then some, people are never satisfied. From a decorative point of view (to paraphrase the advertisement) nothing could look better in a garden than a set of the 35 handsome volumes in their oak case.

THE REWARD OF PERSEVERANCE. Having relieved one’s feelings on the subject of the “Times” it is only fair to record the success Which has attended the efforts of that indefatigable journal. A member of the Cabinet is reported to* have said the other day that he had not noticed the “Times’ ” offer of the Encyclopedia. Are ‘we to treat him as a humourist ? At any rate the advertisements have, achieved their object amongst those beneath the rank of Cabinet Minister, as the following details show. The. response on the part of the public is said to be unprecedented in the history of publishing. In the course of the 300 weeks during which the sale has ■lasted, more than 1,500,000 volumes, weighing 'than 5,500 tons, have been sold and will have been delivered, on an average of more than 5,000 vols. a week during the whole period of 5f years. The largest sales on any one day exceeded £30,000 and in any one week £IOO,OOO. The largest despatch on one day was 503 sets, weighing over 60 tons. Tlie Post Office has been kept very busy, and', while it has benefited by nearly £60,000 expended in stamps, it has been the medium of bringing in over 1,200,000 cheques and postal orders. The transmission of so large a number relight have been expected to be accompanied by occasional losses in the post; but these have been but trifling—only 52 m all. From time to time there have been great difficulties both in getting binders to bind the sets fast enough to meet the demand, and nlso in obtaining leather for the full morocco, three-quarter levant, and halfmOrooco bindings. Suffice it to say that * altogether over 500,000 goats have been requisitioned, while the amount paid by binders for gold-leaf alone for the lettering and edges has been more than £50,000. ...

Over 200,000 ‘people have written to the “Times” to inquire about the book. There have beeri-altogether 2,153 who have for one reason or another made default on thdir instalments, and 153 sets of the work have somehow got into the category of “lost, stolen or strayed.” The staff employed in the department has varied from 100 to 475 persons. One whole-page advertisement in the“ Times” is ascertained to have been the means of attracting purchaser® to the amount of £B,OOO, for the orders’ were received on forms cut from the page. The cost of. all the Circulars sent to individuals was £90,000, and. as regards newspaper advertising* which cost altogether £203,000, the total space occupied has been equivalent to ££l§o columns of the daily papers and 3,400 pages of weekly papers and magazines. / In the “Times” itself,

during the 5} years, a space of 890 columns was devoted to advertising the “Encyclopaedia,” an amount which, spread over the whole period, is equivalent to less than half a column a day. Mr Hugh Chisholm, to whose article in this morning’s “Times” I am indebted for the above figures, describes the result as “a gigantic commercial success,” made out of a situation which the publishing world at the outset regarded as offering no reasonable expectation of

profit-. I agree with Mr Chisholm that the *‘Times’ s is amply entitled to- the reward of its enterprise. And has it really finished ? I do hope so. THE PARADISE LOST" MS. The original manuscript of the first "boot of “Paradise Lost” is now in the hands of Messrs Sbtheby, 'Wilkinson and Hodge for. disposal by auction; It is Understood that an American resident, in London will make a high bid—perhaps £so,ooo—for the: fragment, -but the feeling *is strong that so rare a literary treasure should be secured for the nation. Tjo save the manuscript Mr Churton Collins, Mr Sidney Lee and others suggest that a public fund should be'opened, while another proposal is that -the Government should step in and purchase the manuscript. Considering that the country is spending thousands every year on. an Historical Manuscripts Commission, it is difficult to believe that a treasure of such extraordinary interest will be permitted to leave the country. The manuscript consists of the first eighteen of the sheets which in 1667 were sold by Milton to Samuel Simmons the .bookseller for the famous £5. It is of insignificant appearance, covering only eighteen leaves of small quarto, somewhat frayed at the edges, and written in what Dr Masson calls “a light, hot inelegant, but rather characterless hand of t-be period’—that of Mil ton’s amanuensis. The impending sale of the “Paradise MS has drawn attention to the work of the His-, tori cal Manuscripts Commission. This body was formed' to. trace documents of this description. “It was fulfbime', too,” says a writer in the “St. James’s Gazette.” “The Magna Charta in th Cottonian Library was in the hand© -of an ignorant tailor, who was cutting it up for patterns when its value was discovered: "XThe State papers of Thurloo Cromwell's Secretary, fell one day cut of a rotten ceiling fin Lincoln’s Inn. A valuable secret history of Scotland was sold to a grocer for wrappings: the MS of Justinian’s code was stumbled upon in h heap of rubbish by a soldier during the sack of a city in Calabria; while the manuscript to which we are indebted . for. our knowledge of Tacitus was found'pitched away qs rubbish in a Westphalian monastery. King’s crowns and regalia .used to he regardedas of less intrinsic value than the writings' of 'the ancient scholars, and certainly they never experienced anything like the romantic vicissitudes.” SANTA CLAUS AND RADIUM. By the time these lines see'light in print your readers will hatte forgotten Christmas —its joys at anyTrate if not Its sorrows in the shape of bills—and the tip contained therein wilb.be-only good for birthdays, which have the unhappy knack of turning up when you least expect them throughout the year. Perhaps it is as well that Christmas is overpast., for until the of radium and its effects are thoroughly ascertained it is hardly wise to experimenfe with it upon one’s own person, and it is. certainly' not friendly to give your itimates the chance of doing themselves harm by presenting them with Sir Win.

Crooke’s spinthariscope. Th!is invention, /-which contains a minute speck of radcosts £lO, hut the pride has not jpijeyeuted many people in England buy'■d*%;ft for a Christmas ..ways, the ’money .Hsould ;; %d%'il>e spent for in the spinthariscope you , have the prime necessary for an in- / exhaustible series of experiments which neither weary nor pall. Many of them are quite harmless, and of these -the most striking is, .perhaps, to pile a. number of coins upon the top of the radium, and then, with a. phosphorescent sheet above, to mark the glow of the “electrons” which have passed right through the coins. ..Another experiment which cannot he obissed as quite harmless .a that of passing the radium to and fro in close proximity to the cheek bone, with the eye© shut, and in a dark room. The effect, of ’ this experiment tin the case cf some people is curious. They become aware of a slight luminous glow —probably a stimulation' of the optim nerve—and so slight is this luminosity at .first that they are tempted to hold' the radium nearer to thrir, faces and for a longer period than is- altogether wise. The result may easily be. to effect the circulation of the blood in the brain and induce a condition akin to catalepsy. A “TERRIBLE TURK.” Tn. a sense, the much-poomed wrestling match between the much-travelled! Tom Cannon and Ahmed Madrali. the huge Turk, who has been. specially brought over to England by Antonio Pie'rri mainly with a view to. “taking down the number” of George© Haekensohmidt who recently defeated the “Terrible Greek” in decisive fashion, was a grievious disappointment. Cannon is one of the finest living exponents of the Craeeo-Ruiuan stylo of wrestling, but ho is net so young as he was and the artmccß he nasieaineti dtu .ng res mug career .availed nothing against the elephantine strength of Maidrali, who shandy some inches over six feet and is built on extremely substantial lines all over. Compared with Madrali, the Englishman was an undersized l athlete and the sporting crowd that filled the Pavilion Theatre of Varieties last Wednesday to witness the pair wrestle foi £SO a side felt sorry for Cannon before the work began. The Briton hading won tho toss chose to wrestle first in Ins own particular style, Graeco-Roman to wit, at which Ahmed dees not profess to be a flier. He onrta/aily is not clever at this style of wrestling, which allows of no hold below the wais\ but his strength is so great that given a. grip of any sort he can fetch, any ordinary man down. Cannon never had a. “look in” and during the 11 minute© 19 second's he held out against the Turk he was all but the seconds on the carpet. His cleverness in defence was remarkable but Madrali’s bone-breaking crips soon reduced him to a state of feebleness and the Turk, exerting all his power turned him over and pinned him firmly down. Then, after a decent interval, the pair faced one another for a fall in the “eatch-a»-catch-can.” style, at which Madrali claims to be a worldwhipiper. The bout was exceedingly brief. Madrali went for Cannon and slung him down on the carpet. The Britain wriggled a few times and then, getting his man’s arm “looked,” Madrali rolled him over and pinned him down in just about 90 seconds. .Cannon, having donned a dressing-gown, then made a-speech, in which he declared Ahmed the best man he has ever met. And after the curtain descended lie still discSouised of Ahmed’s merits. “I never once got at his- back,” he said. “The moment he touched me I knew it was all up. Never have I felt such strength, and I have wrestled in every quarter of the globe. Only a few weeks back I met Haokensolnnidt. He threw me after ninety minutes. Ahmed takes eleven. He is the finest wrestler that l know anything about.” Thus Cannon, with enthusiasm, of hi© conqueror. And if anybody can speak with authority. it should be Cannon, who has been wresbling for .some thirty years. One could have wished a few of those years, away, for he was giving lumps of weight as well as time. But Cannon did nob ■ attempt to explain fiis defeat on the ground of age or on any other ground, save that Ahmed is the best wrestler in the world. He is certainly the strongest we have ever seen 0 in England, and to-day Cannon, is amass-bf bruases Train wrist to shoulder as the result of Ahmed’s vice-like grips., c^Haok'ghsohmiidt, powerful as he undoubtedly is, will' find the Turk much more titan his match in brute strength should the pair ever come together. '