NEWS AND VIEWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11659, 16 February 1900, Page 6

NEWS AND VIEWS.

A German man of science, Professor Basehide. has been making some interesting investigations in regard to sleep and dreams, particulars of which are given in the Daily News. He made experiments upon 36 dreamers—that is to say, sleepers, for the terms are convertible according to this authority. His subjects were of various ages, from one year to 80 years. In some cases his observations were continued during the whole night, and in others for a great part of the night. He watched and recorded every change; of physiognomy, every movement of the limbs, and every speech or sound uttered by the unconscious dreamers. The depth of the sleep was also carefully measured, while from time to time the dreamers were awakened, bnt;without'their own perception that the awakening was intentional. The professor obtained, as he states at length, the following results:—(l) We dream throughout the whole of our sleep, even in that deepest sleep which we imagine to' be' "dreamless." (2) There is an intimate connection between the depth of our sleep and-the character of'our dreams. The deeper the sleep, the further back travels the retrospect, into the past experiences of life, and also the more remote is the contents of dream from reality. In a light sleep._. on- the contrary, the subject of .tho dream relates to Uie experiences and excitements of the day, and has a character of probability.' (3) In a comatoso sleep the profesfor thinks there may, perhaps, be no dreaming. (^) Persons who assert that they do not dream "are the victims of a psychical delusion." (5) Dreams of a mocleraic diameter remain longest in the memory: tho wilder the dream, the sooner it is forgotten. How the professor: ascertains that dreams are present when the subject is unconscious of Own is not stated. . '

The Pasi? Kiver has (pays 'the Manila. Times) again given up the dead. This time the theme for a buried treasure story has come to light. On Saturday, December "9, the Government dredge at work in the river opposite the Oompania Maritima's offices brought up in her buckets amid the mud from the bed of the river a bag of silver coins. The man in charge of the' throttle valve and receiving lever Fir?t noticed this most astounding occurrence, v/hen a few old Spanish doubloons dropped from above and fell at his feet. Naturally he stopped the machinery. A close investigation revealed the fact that one bucket held o small canvas bag filled with Mexican money. Coming in contact with the sharp • edges of the bucket, the cloth had been somewhat ripped, thus allowing a few coins lo fall out and thus make food for another

" newspaper pino dream." In addition to tho discovery of the money in a bucket just beyond, a little further down the endless chain was a bag of silver ware.' It is presumed that some Spanish'captain in possession of a well-appointed ship, or some wealthy Manila family fleeing from their home, may havo dropped the two bags from the side of some outbound ship which never railed. George Dev/ey, the man who has revolutionised the Philippines and placed a peg in modern history," must have had something to do with the" deby in this ship's departure. At any rate, he may be accused of being the cause of the two bags of valuables having a resting place in the bed of the Pasig llivcr. No doubt in the future other instances-, of finding concealed treasuro of this 'kind will come to light. This particular lot is said to have belonged to certain people known to the authorities, and that it has been returned to them, much to their enjoyment, as might bo expected.

In the am-ual report nf the Salvation Army (ieneral Booth appeals for £27,000 to carry on the " Darkest England" scheme during the coming year. The accounts for the year show a turn-over of about £187,000, which includes the proceeds of sales of goods manufactured by. the people in the various institutions, their payments for food, and so on. Tho charitable public are credited with some £25,000 of donations, of which about, half seems to have been oxponded in extensions of the social work, and tho remainder in providing the deficiency between the people's earnings and the cost of what is done for thorn. The farm produce at Hadl«ij?li realised £10,000, while the brickmaking carried on at the farm colony realised £7833. The Salvation Army has now 460 distinct institutions engaged in social work. During tho pact year .2,5*2,897 ■ meals were supplied at cheap food depots, at pricoH varying from Ad to W; 1,650,116 lodgings were urovidctl, at '& cost to the lodger of from 6d lo Id per night, £33,609 being received for food and lodging; 12,307 applications from tlie workless were registered at the labour bureaux; 2210 perrons were reeoived into the •Salvation, A rmy'o factories, or "elevators," as they are called; 32,461 others were found temporary or permanent employment; 605 criminals, who passed through the prison (rates home, wero either sent to situations or restored to friends; inquiries were made for ?,714 missing perronp. of whom 1093 were found; and 21.29 females were admitted into tho rescue homos, of whom 1823 woro either put in the way of earning iv virtuous livelihood or restored to friends.

The Mount Monger Mail launches out on the grievous complaint, generally made by merchants of the goldlielils towns in regard to the difficulty they, at present, experience in set-

ting their bills paid because of the fact that "every penny that can,: be seized upon is emptied •at /the. dredging shrine.'.'.'. Many find if convenient; to forget; that! before plunging their resources upoii' any speculation whatever, the duty Ho their storekeeper, butcher, and draper ought/ to be requited. We are assured thntrsome, with steady5 income, are laiU ing to fulfil these neceswry obligations, and where the cap hapless fits, the charge of tho-, rough meanness, not io use a stronger expression, may be laid. It amounts to this—that some are using cash, certainly not theirs, in their ventures —money wilier. :,'.iould. enable merchants:to carry oil. business with more advantage.'lb: those who act " on. the square ": ■strictly, and to t-he'veomforf. of: themselves and the success of -the- concerns in which they are bound up. In conversation with a goldfiolds' merchant (he other day, he informed us of ■his intention of altogether .abandoning a large branch of'■his.i'businws, 'because on account of one single,.,cheap, bulky, and "comparatively profitless ■ppnimodity.- he was lyi,ng out of £1000, anja,-:as"rlie'sdid, " couldn't get in a farthing."' With'liifrf'it-is-not a matter, of choice,"but.implacable force. The tortuous methods ;6ften presently, obtaining: to p;et shares are'iiipiitly rssppusilile for a shame for which not. a shrod: of palliating defence can be urged. ■ But the hurt•'Uiu3-.dorio--by.no meanf ends here,,' Such illegitimate aid. to speculation !strikes the investor disastrously in the long run.:'lt imparts to the gold venture a more roseate'; hue that it has, very likely, any i-ight to possess. It half murders Lhe industry'of those _who do so much to uphold thei'-'tpwnE'hips' in their substance and character," _ ■.... .■■"':.■... . .

In private letters from Paris it is stated that important developments -in the -Dreyfus business are now impending.. Both M. Zola, and Colonel Picquart tire determined to accept no amnesty, and in all declarations from each' qf them will shortly be issued. . General Merrier s election to the Senate!•'■however,' will probably preclude all possibility of an amnesty being granted to Dreyfus. The following is the full text of Captain Dreyfus's letter to M. Clamageran, President of the French Senatorial Amnesty. Commission: —" 11.'., le ' Senateur,—On the very day when liberty was restored to me by a measure which I in no wise solicited. I wrote the following declaration: 'The Government of .the .Republic restores me to liberty. For me liberty is.notliing without honour. : From this day forth I shall continue mv efforts to obtain reparation for the frightful judicial error of which I am still the victim. I desire that the whole of Franco may know, by a definitive, judgment, that lam innocent. My heart will only bo at peace when not a Frenchman remains who may impute to me the crime committed by another.' It is not fov mo to intervene in the political discussions raised by the amnesty question. But if the judgment which unjustly fell upon me deprived me of my rights as a citizen, I retain my rights as a man in, their entirety. I ask but one thing of the public powers, winch is that I be deprived of none of the mea?:s given me by the laws, to .seek the revision of my case. I have neither hatred nor. rancour in my heart; but for my children, as for myself, I wish my innocence to be proclaimed in the name of the .Kanublic, in the name of France. I havo a right to truth and to justice. I therefore request that I may bo left in possession of every means' of legally establishing the fact that I. am innocent of the crime committed by another, for which I havo been twice, and each time unjustly, condemned. Pray accept the assurance of my profound respect."

A funny thing occurred at the sale of the Sarcey library. The auction was a beautiful object-lesson in the depth i and incalculable variety of human duplicity, and other pleasing trails of. the bete humaine. Stacks of presentation copies greeted the eye on all sides, and if was most instructive to read the imploring dedications, the grovelling autograph homage.of well-known writers!, who, a very little later on, became notoriously vicious and scoundrelly in their private and public attacks'on the man who had helped them. This was instructive to the philosophic observer. But comic, to the verge of farce, were the attempts made to buy back certain letters by the men who had written them. ThGse letters went with the books which originally they, accompanied. In fact, M. Sarcey had i>. habit of pasting them on tho. fly-leaves'of the works sent with them. And thereby hangs a tale. One very prominent critic was present at the sale for no other reason than to recover a single letter ci his lo Sarcey—a letter whose contents, in the light of later events, are nothing less than a blight,, the Sarcey family ?ay, upon his fair name. But this letter has been stuck in one volume of a big. inseparable series of .volumes. So he, had'to buy/the entire lot right out, which ran him up to fifty-eight franca, and compelled him, under tho conditions of the under-his arm, much to the great man's disgust.' A Job's comforter among his friends whispered to him: ''It is.well that the letter wasn't gummed into a volume of the 'Encyclopedic Lnrousse.' Then it would have cost you 300 francs and three cabs!"

The Y\"cslinghouso Klecirie Company, which are about to erect extensive works at Manchester, have just seemed a unique order from the Manhattan Hallway Company. The apparatus covered by tho contract consists of eight three-phase alternating current generators, each of 6650 horse-power capacity, with Filch stepdown and converting devices for the railway company's sub-stations as will be necessary to transform tho alternating current in the power-house into direct current of 500 volts. These generators will be the largest ever designed or . constructed. Their external dimensions will bo something over 10ft, while the rotary element has a diameter of 32f1. Ejeh machine and engine complete will weigh nearly a thousand tons. The largest electric generators: ever previously constructed were of 5000 horse-power capacity, and these were hy the A^estinghoupo Company.

In an illiwiraied lifc-vtori- of "Tile Most Powerful Young Man in Europe" in the "Youur Man," some stories are told of Nicholas IT. At the beginning of his reign lie put liimsßlf.on the side of common sense in the army by sotting the' officers a practical example' which they are not likely to forget. A- young lieutenant had offended his colleagues by riding in a Irani car in St. Petersburg, and was requested to resign. The story reached the ears of the Czar, who at once took his seat in a tram and rode down to the barracks. " Gentlemen," said the Emperor, "T. hear that to, ride in a tram is considered beneath the dignity of an officer in your regiment. I am your colonel, and I have just been riding in a tram, Do you wish me to send in my papers?" This little speech settled Iho'matter.

A few days ago (says the St. Petersburg correspondent of the Morning Post) a. man was found by. the police lying helpless in one of the streets leading to the Warsaw Station in St. Petersburg. His only clothes were some ragsnd garments, such as are usually worn by the Russian-peasants. His hat coni.ained the' name of an English maker, however, and be was taken to the .-.dice of the British Vice-consul, where, 'hough terribly frostbitten and almost insensible from starvation and the maltreatment he had evidently received, he managed to exolaih that his name was .Tames Mallard, and that he had been kidnapped by two num. Mallard's brother is, foreman in some larte engineering works in St. Petersburg, and the injured man bad been for some days exnected to arrive from England on business. His non-arrival had caused considerable anxiety, his luggage having duly reached the station. The unfortunate man has since died without having sufficiently recovered consciousness1 to give any further information, and the police are as.yet without any clue to the author of Ihe crime of which it is clear he lia-s been the victim1.

The following beautiful words are said to have been written by the brave General ColMhv just previous to the fatal battle of Majuba:— '■'... Lord, ere -I -join the* deadly strife, And battle's terrors dare, First would I render soul and life To Thine Almighty care. And when <u'im death, in smoke wreaths robed, Comes thundering o'er the scene, What fear can reach a soldier's heart "Whose trust in Thee has boon?

The fashionable woman has, become tired of the' pretty-pretty in room decoration. It is the very latest thing to ndorn one's' drawing room and silting room with all kinds of curios from the Cannibal Islands and elsewhere. 111!} more, hideous the more valued. Grinning idols from .' the ' South flea Islands and Now Zealand clubs, shell ropes, spears— if poisoned, ro muoli the belter, —Japanese swords and 'knives,* carved Chinese "•loss" images. Indian, masks, all and everything bizarre and quaint is fish for. the not of the votary of this latest fad. But as a recoil from nil tlio gilded rolling pins and milk, stools, and violently-coloured {francs' in glass jap, and dusty, stringy art muslin " draperies," and a plethora of uninteresting photographs of girls " with uurly fringe's and slack mouths," without which no lady's'drawing room'was considered complete, even ugliness is welcome for a spell. . ... .

The cruelly and callousnora of the Chinese are no new things, but we have'seldom heard of a mare diabolical outrage than that which Ivrb just taken place in a district bordering on the now British territory opposite HongUong. A gang of-ruffians kidnapped a boy about. eight.yemv; of age. sent.a message to his fat Urn- jlfiinandmß a. ransom quite beyond the hitler's means, and which' ho said he could not pay. The gang, believing that he could rais'.' the money if he wished, cent a furthe:

threatening message to the effect that if (.lie money were not forthcoming by the time specified, the boy would be returned to' him ': in pickle." The money not' being paid they 'actually carried out the threat, ao'd returned the dead body of the son to his fatlier in a.cask of brine! , • :

Lord Brdugha» ytaa fond of telling a story about a certain bishop, who, at one of his country visitations, complained that the church .wan in bad repair, pointing out several lilaces where the rain eanin'through the roof. Having severely rebuked tho vicar and wardens, lie added with considerable warmth an expression which' he was horrified at finding in the local paper next, day reported thus: — "I am determined'not to visit this d d old church again till it is in better order." The bishop's secretary'thereupon wrote explaining that what his lordship sr-.id was that he would not vieit " I his damp nlclj church agahi" But the editor, in n footnote, said that, while gladly giving publicity to', the expjanation, he had every confidence in the accuracy of hia reporter. ■; ' ;j