NEWS AND VIEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3677, 1 March 1899, Page 6

NEWS AND VIEWS.

The “Jungfrau tunnel” in which, it is cabled, six workmen have been killed through a blasting accident, is one of a series of three tunnels through which will pass the railway now being constructed to a point one hundred reet from the summit of one of the most picturesque, and for Alpine climbers, most dangerous peaks in the Bernese Alps. The line, which was commenced in 1895, will have a total length of twelve kilometres from the village Little Shiedig. The maximum incline is one in four, with sections averaging 1-1 and 23 per cent. The line first proceeds at a gentle slope up the Jliiger glacier and at the Gundelxvaldblick precipice (6000 ft), disappears beneath the glacier, the tunnel being 3000 feet in length. The transit of passengers for the final 100 feet to this summit wilt* be effected, by means of an electrically worked lift. It is expected that the work will he completed by 1904, when the Swiss Government will erect an observatory at the summit. Electric energy is being used, not only for motive power but for lighting and heating and for working the rock drills. The Jungfrau is, wo may mention, 13,671 feet high. Mr Ruskiix has written in eloquent terms of its beauty. He will probably consider the railway a horrible piece of modern Vandalism.

In view of the fact that some 60,000 to 70,000 pilgrims pass through Jeddah every year on their way to Mecca, the reported outbreak of the bubonic plague at the Arabian port is fraught with serious menace to the health of southern Europe. Thousands of pious but none too cleanly pilgrims travel annually to Mecca from Turkey and Asia Minor, and it is notorious that the vessels in which they are carried —mostly old English tramp steamers—have to undergo a most powerful disinfection on their return to European ports. Cholera has now and then thinned out the ranks of the pilgrims at Jeddah and we believe we are correct in stating that some few years ago tho Porte actually prohibited the would-be Hadjis from journeying to Arabia on the ground that they might return laden not only with tne added sanctity resulting on their having visited the birthplace of tho only true prophet, but hearing with them also the germs of cholera. Jeddah itself is toriously an unhealthy town, suffering' greatly from want of water and lacking entirely in decent sanitary provisions.

To the long roll of heroes of industry whose brave deeds are no less worth recording than those whose duty it is to destroy rather than preserve, must now bo added the name of William Carney, an engineer at the Richmond rolling mills at Richmond, Indiana, who on December 10 meiHhis death by falling against a large gear wheel which tore off' one of his logs. Carney was alone in the engine room and ho knew that no one would,in all human probability, enter it for some hours. Were the fires under tho boilers to be left burning, a ghastly disaster would, lie know full well, occur, and so ho resolved upon and cai'ried into execution a deed of truly heroic gallantry. Slowly and with horrible pain he dragged his mutilated body to tlie boiler room, fifty feet away, turned off the' natural gas which was used as fuel, and then, and then alone,lapsed into unconsciousness. Twenty minutes later the machinery came ro a standstill, the stoppage being caused by the lack of steam. Tho employees rushed to the engine room to ascertain the reason and there found tho brave engineer, with his life’s blood fast ebbing away. It was too late to save him and William Carney, Engineer and Hero, died as a result of his saving the lives of his tellow workmen.

A deficit of four millions sterling/ This is bad news indeed tor the British taxpayer and it is not surprising that there is, some excitement in political circles in the Old Country. The deficit must have come as a great surpi’ise, for when the last English mail left, a leading London daily, •ommenting on the revenue returns for the third quarter of tho year, expressed tffe opinion that they were eminently satisfactory and foreshadowed an equally satisfactory Budget. The Journal in qixestion calculated the “ realised surplus at'about a million and a half.” “During the three quarters, taken together, the Exchequer has had paid into i(;£78,340,468 ■—an inci’ease of nearly a million—-and but for some sudden accident the end of the financial year should close with a total revenue ,of over £116,000,000 —or £30,000,000 more than the nation raised fifteen years ago. Owing, however, to the increased expenditure and the reduction in taxation, it is not iiuely that the realised'surplus will be more than a million and a quarter’. The most ing feature of tho returns are the facts that the death duties, in spite of the concessions, continue to yield more and more revenue; and that the income tax also, in spite of the help to the smaller taxpayers, goes up steadily. The boon granted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year to the payers of income tax ought to have cost £IOO,OOO ; in reality it has only cost £IO,OOO, showing that the income tax is really yielding more than previously. At present each penny of tho income tax yields two and a half millions sterling; twelve years ago it only yielded two millions. In other words, the income tax at 8d used to bring xn £16,000,000; it now yields £18,000,000. Taken as a whole, the revenue figures are most satisfactory,’ and show our enormous financial strength.” These details render it. difficult to understand how there can be so large a deficit as tour millions. The naval estimates are to be increased by turee millions, at least so predicts the London “Daily Telegraph, but this would not affect the accounts for the past financial year.

The yarn goes in Anglo-Colonial circles in London that that pushful person, Mr Henniker Heaton, formerly of Sydney, but now M.P. for Canterbury, and worldfamous in connection with tlie Imperial penny .postage scheme, is very wrathful at the non-appearance of his name in tlie list of New Year honours. Commenting upon this and' other features of tho annual “honours’’ excitement, the Loxxdon correspondent of the “ Argus ” gossips as follows : —There is still a vast amount of log-rolling and reclame even in this righteous country; that is to say, men second-rate in law, literature, science, war, medicine, art, do push themselves into fame and promotion by such means. And one can hardly blame them. The first-rate man, the real great one, needs no puffing or log-rolling. But if you know that you are not, and never can bo, first-rate,what are you to do ? When you are third! or fourth-rate it is easier, for you can appeal to the people and make friends with the man on the top of the omnibus by means of benevolence and public reforms. The people always respond gratefully in these cases, and Mr Henniker Heaton’s omission from . the list of New Year honours excited some indignation. It is rumoured that Lord Salisbury offered him a colonial Governorship. It is not, however, the New South Wales post, hut one on the West African Coast which the Government wanted Mr Henniker Heaton to take. Mr W. H. Hornby, M.P. for Blackburn, has been made a baronet. Of coui’se, he is not the Hoxmby whose initials are A. N., who, back in the sixties, saved the Eton and Harroxv match for Harrow off his own bat. Mr W. H. Hornsby is a great cotton spinner. F. Tress Barry, M.P. for Windsor, like Sir Fi’ancis Cook, a bai'on in Portugal, gets a baronetcy also. He is half of “ Mason and Barry,” 'a great copper mine quoted on the Stock Exchange, and lives at a gorgeous, vulgar new place, St- Leonard’s, near Windsor, and is the very ideal of ,a millionaire.