NEWS AND VIEWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11505, 18 August 1899, Page 8

NEWS AND VIEWS.

Lord Rosebery attempts, in Lady Randolph Churchill's "Anglo-Saxon Review," to define the position of Prime Minister. It is to be regretted that Mr Seddon has not let the world know definitely his views on the point. Lord Rosebery says:—"What is a Prime Minister? That is a question which it would require a pamphlet to answer, but in a few sentences it .may be possible to'remove a few hallucinations, for the title expresses much to the British mind. To the ordinary apprehension it implies a dictator, the duration of whose power finds its only limit in the House of Commons. So long as he can weather that stormful and deceptive ocean he is elsewhere supreme. But the reality is very different. The Prime Minister, as he is now called, is technically and practically the chairman of an executive committee of the Privy Council, or rather, perhaps, of Privy Councillors, the influential foreman of an cxc cutive j'iry. His power is mainly personal, the power of individual influence. That influence, whatever, it may be, he has to exert in many directions before he can liavo his own way. He has to deal with the Sovereign, with the Cabinet, with Parliament, and with public opinion, all of them potent factors in their various kinds and degrees. To the popular eye, however, heedless of these restrictions, he represents universal power; ho is spoken of as if he had only to lay down his view? of policy and to adhere to them. That is very far from the case. A First Minister has only the influence with the Cabinet which is given him by his personal arguments, his peisonal qualities, and his personal weight. But this is not all. All his colleagues he must convince, some he may have to cajole—a harassing, laborious, and ungracious task. Nor is it only his colleagues that he has to'deal with —he has to masticate their pledges, given before they joined him, he lias to blond their public utterances, to fuse as well as may. be all this into the policy of the Government; for these various records must be reconciled, or glossed, or obliterated. A machinery liable to so many grains of sand requires obviously all the skill and vigilance of the hest conceivabio engineer. And yet without the external support of his Cabinet he is disarmed. Tho resignation, of a colleague, however relatively insignificant, is a storm signal.'

A story which the Washington correspondent, of the Chronicle rightly—if mildly— characterises as curious comes from Binghampton, New York State. GusUve Bertrand, of St. Madeleine, Quebec, says that while on a fishing smack in Baffin Bay, and being in a small boat alone, a storm drove him out of his course. After being without food for some time, lie met some Esquimaux, and lived with the natives, always getting nearer the North Pole. In the course of a year he reached the Pole. This country he describes as being an island surrounded by ice. There are two ranges of small mountains, and a small tribe of well-built people, not Esquimaux, live there. There are two seasons, mild and cold. In the milder weather lichens grow, me .people, he says, aro savage, but not unkind. He suffered many hardships, and returned by working his way down to Ellesmere 'Land (?) He was then helped to Northern Alaska, 'and went prospecting in Klondyke. He got into some trouble with the Canadian authorities, and was sent to prison at Toronto. After his release, he worked hij way to New York State, where he is now penniless. Bertrand is a totally uneducated man, and has no knowledge of seamanship or geography. ■' . •

Miss Frances Power Cobbe lias writen for the monument to the stewardess of the Stella the following inscription, which Miss Marston, of 95 Onslow. square, has sent to the Spectator:-—"ln memory ,'of the heroic death of Mary Ann Rogers, stewardess of the Stella, who, amid the confusion and terror of shipwreck, aided all the passengers under her charge_ to quit the vessel in safety, giving her own lifebelt to one who was unprotected. Summoned in her tA-n to make good her escape, she refused, Test she might endanger the heavily-laden boat. Cheering the departing.crew with the. friendly cry of 'Goodbye ! "-nod-bye!' she was seen, a few moments later, \as. the. Stella went down, lifting her arrn^ upwards with the prayer ' God have me!' then sank into the waters with the sinking ship. Actions such as these—steadfast performance of duty in the face of death, ready self-sacrifice for sake of others, reliance on God—constitute the glorious heritage of our English race. They deserve perpetual commemoration ; because among the trivial pleasures and sordid strife of the world they recall to us for ever the nobility and loveworthinnss nf human nature."

_ The reported death at Auokla.i-.il <;! ' a Frenchman named Andrew Claude Seux has caused in some quarters in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, and towns in the Department of Ardeche a. commotion, which has caused rame Frenchmen to forget that there is such a tinner-as a Dreyfus case. The story is that M. Seux, who it is said was married to an Englishwoman, aluo deceased, left behind him an estate valued at 30,000,000fr, or £1.200,000. As he had no children, the money was vaguely bequeathed to his French heirs, if any could be found. No sooner was the announcement of the death, and of the sum left, published (says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph) than claimnnto to the estate startedup all over France. The name Seux is decidedly an uncommon one, but it suddenly seemed that it whs borne by a _?ood many people. This was also the case with the name Meyrand, which was that of the mother'of M. Seux,. late of Auckland. Ino centre of the agitation about the rich man s inheritance is at Savas. in the Arde'c-he where he was born in the third year of the century. To Savas have flocked many peoplo from other places, including Paris in order to consult baptism and marriage registers, to assci't their relationship with the families of Seux and Meyrand. and to claim nari, of the cake, .as the French call the inheritance. No trace of tho •Auckland millionaire can, however, be found in his -eputed birthplace. The mayor, parish priest • doctor lawyer, and schoolmaster of Savas have been at their wits end answerim- inquiries, and making researches for claimants.' vvtio are still coming like Banquo's progeny! havas is, in fact, besieged by would-be "heirs to die valuable Seux estate, but down to the present the sole person who has made any profit out of the demise of the wealthy New Zealand settler is the man who keeps the only hotel and cafe in the locnlitv. Some oE the people bearing tho names of Seux and Meyrand have, in the meantime, clubbed together for the purpose of pending a representative out to Auckland-, in order to make inquiries on the spot, and io see if the millionaire ever existed. The return of - the trusted emissary is anxiously -awaited, for the claimants aro subjected to mild satire by all the people>ho can assert no title to the' property, with the exception of the local innkeeper, who does his best, to hold out hope to the profitable customers whom the announcement of tho dentil'of M. Seux has brought to Savas.

Ihe Homo correspondent of the London Daily Mail, writing on June 19, says:—"The inscription in archaic Latin discovered in the Roman Forum on a column close to the tomb of Romulus lias frequently been the subject of scientific discussions at the Aceademia. Dei Lincoi, which in Italy corresponds to the Institute of France in Paris. Senator Gamarrini gave an address to-day showing that the inscription is the same as that on the celebrated vase of Formelluß, and that the archaic

Roman writing wlis imported not from Cumas, but from Ctere, a place of vast: antiquity. The early Roma:', civilisation, as well as religious rite, must therefore have been brought from Sasro. The column found in the Forum has therefore modified the opinion of archaeologists as to the urisin of the Eternal City. The pundits of''the Accademia dei Lincei are agreed that the column dates from the first half of the sixth cautury B.c, —that is, from the epoch of the Roman kings, and is consequently the first written vestige of that period

On tl.e prairiu ..:■!> l.urta'.o is extinct, but New Vorfc the otiiar day had an old-fashioned hunt after a female bison as big as an olephaut, which had escaped from Central Park. It darted into Fifth avenue, scattering vehicles and pedestrians, and careered westward along Fifty-ninth street like an express, followed by a crowd yelling like Indians. A person describing himself as " Percy Fitzgage, son of tho Marquis of Brent," in his private automobile joined in the pursuit, and' women made grotesque efforts to scale the park walls. Bicyclists fell as if they were smitten by lightning. In Columbus Circle the buffalo,, becoming over-heated, turned, and when men carrying lassos approached, it tossed them aside. Some mounted police at this stage, by firing into the air, headed the animal into the park. It entered the lake, and after emerging browsed upon the sward. Hundreds of amateur cowboys amused themselves by experimenting with ropes, and finally the bison entered the smaller lake and was l.issooed, quite 15,000 persons witnessing the capture. One eyc\Ul w:i* seriously injured.

A strange story comos from Tons;a, which, if true, will probably have the effect of rendering those blest lotus isles more densely inhabited than any other part of the earth. Thither will flock the toothless one.? of many lands, and the unhappy possessors of decaying molars will turn their faces itowards 'this second Mecca, not. as the faithful Mohammedans, to ronew their faith, but to Ret a newset of teeth "nil their own." The story, which may or may not be credited, is that'n, lady living in Tonga, who can look back upon a century's existence already, appears to havo determined to make a fair start in her second century, and is cutting a new set of toeth. Whether this strange phenomenon in second childhood has rendered the uee of

.teething powders necessary, history does not state, neither are we informed whether tho old lady suffers from convulsions, or is given a. ring to bito on, as was probably the°case 100 years before. It is afeo recorded that a young man living in the same place rejoices in the possession of a double row of teeth "set sharkwise. but that this extraordinary freak on the part of (ho old lady has completely knocked him out of time: and considerably lowered his status in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen. Should the toothgrotving properties of the Tongan isles become widely known there would, no doubt, be a

'■ rush." the like of which was never seen before. IClondvke and Bendigo would Le simply "not in'it."

There was an infernal machine Gcare a\ Edinburgh which, in the end, had a somewhat amusing explanation. The report was circulated with great detail that tho police were investigating the circumstances connected with tho explosion of an infernal machine in the sorting department of the post office. It turned out that a friend of one of the officials in tho Midlothian constabulary had posted some chemicals enclosed in a sardine box to a gentleman in the south of Scotland for tho purpose of preserving rare eggs from the Hebrides. The box had a hole drilled in it, and there was a tube for blowing the preparation upon the eggs. Some rough handling at the General Post Office had caused the substanoo to explode, and a large Same was visible. The fireMvas extinguished, however, before any damage was done.