HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2949, 21 September 1910, Page 82

HERE AND THERE.

—Story of a Millionaire.—

In one of Mr Arnold Bennett's most effective books there is a story of a millionaire who, angered because he could not obtain, a porter house steak at a well-known hotel, quietly called for the manager-proprietor and purchased the whole place, lock, stock, and barrel, and then, as proprietor, ordered the refused dish to be served immediately There was behind this story an actual basis of fact. A famous American millionaire, an associate of Lincoln and Stan Don, one night asked for broiled chicken at a certain restaurant. He was told that there was none on the bill that day. "Can't you send out and kill a chicken?" he asked. "No," he was told; "you must wait till chicken day comes round. Meantime, be satisfied with something else." ''Very well, then, I'll have broiled chicken when I want it, if I have to build an hotel of my own." And build an hotel he did, the great Kaaterskill, standing to this day, the biggest "spite hotel" in America. And now another multi-millionaire, Mr Alexander R. Peacock, who became rich in a single night, has almost duplicated Mr Harding's example. The other morning his breakfast egg gave him a shock; he got up and ran away from it. "If I can't get eggs fresher than that, I'll grow my own, ' he said. He rang up a real estate agent. "I want a farm,' he said—"a farm that will grow chickens, lots of chickens, and eggs. The only way I can get a fresh egg in Pittsburg is to have a farm of my own, and I -want that farm right now." Two days later he had a fine farm in the Plum township, at a cost of £12,000, and at the present moment a steam-heated, electrically-lit chicken house and incubator is being built, with tiled floors and "every modern convenience." By the time Mr Peacock has purchased a South American cattle run, a model dairy in marble, a wheat track in Canada, a salt mine, and has taken two or three other similar precautions, he will probably feel satisfied that he will not die by food poisoning. But the amusing point" is that he is just as likely to get a venerable egg at a restaurant, and :n all probability will, in the end. be bowled out by an infected sardine. Still, even a millionaire must have his excitements. —King George's Distillery.— King George is the master of many industries, but it is not generally known that he is the owner of a distillery, where he distils some of the finest whisky that ever drew praise from a connoisseur. This curious possession of the Crown is situated on the Balmoral Estate, near Abergeldie Castle, and is known as Lochnagar. The whisky manufactured is, as may be imagined, of the highest possible quality, and it finds its way to all the Royal" tables via the cellars of Buckingham Palace, where it arrives in bulk and where it is matured in large maturing vats, so that it does not really make its "professional" debut until it is from 15 to 20 years old. The distilierv was at first an ordinary commercial undertaking, doing a fair amount of trade, and producing a whisky of sound repute; but when the property passed into the possession of the Crown, in the reign of Queen Victoria, the products of the distillery were reserved exclusively for the use of the Royal Family and their respective households. Although the King manufactures his own whisky, he actually drinks very little of it, for the acute indigestion from which he occasionally

suffers has placed it under a taboo. tJut the "Lex;hnagar Scotch" is often, drunk by the Duke of Connamght, and it was practically the only stimulant taken by Queen Victoria for many years before her death If the King only chose to put his whisky upon the market, .and chose a capable advertising manager to set forth the advantages of the Royal brand, it would not be necessary to upset the House of Commons with proposals for increased civil grants, for it is a foregone conclusion that he would annex almost the entire whisky trade of the kingdom. —A "Smilers' " Club.— Mark Tafley's viaiy that to amila i»

easy, but to smile in adversity is some ( credit, is the philosophy of the Matlock Smiling Club, which (says the Daily Express) numbers 1500 members in all parts | of the country, and is rapidly growing. The Smiling dub owes its creation and j growth to the persistently genial efforts . of Mr Thompson Crowe, a comanercial traveller, who lives at Matlock. Mr Crowe travels hundreds of miles every week, and counts a day ill-spent when he does not enrol a few more members of the Smiling Club, and induce them to part with the entrance fee of a shilling. "In the first place, it is a mistake," Mr Crowe says, "to allow the ham and ei£gs to upset the household the first thing in the morning, even if you don't feel quite up to par. What costs it to be cheerful? When the sun refuses to shine there is all the more reason why people should smile, instead of looking glum and miserable. Indeed, the more doleful the circumstances the more valuable is the smile, and members of the club are pledged to smile j in circumstances of the greatest diffi- i culty." The ceremony of initiation in I the Smiling Club is performed by Mr j Crowe with the aid of two assistants carrying tongs and poker. The club has a secret sisn by which members may recognise one another It consists of a cheerful smile and a graceful bow, after which each member unostentatiously tickles himself under the left arm. One ! reason why the Smiling Club has proved I such a success is that Mr Crowe devotes all the shillings to a fund for providing . slum children with country or seaside holidays. He has raised £6O in smiling shillings this year.

—Oldest Woman in the World.—

The claim of Frau Dutkiewitz, of Posen, born on February 21 L 785, to be the oldest woman in the world is, says the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Express, now contested by Madame Baba Vasilka, who was born in May, 1784 in the little Bulgarian village of Bavelsko, where she has lived ever since. The record of her birth is preserved in a neighbouring monastery of the Orthodox Greek faith. She is the daughter of a peasant, and has worked herself as a peasant up till a comparatively recent date. For more than 100 years she regularly worked in the fields, according to the custom of her country, where women are employed in all sorts of manual labour. The events of her life up to the time when she attained the age of 80 are far more distinctly impressed on her mind than the happenings of the last 46 years. Her son Todor, following the family tradition, has also worked in the fields as a peasant nearly all his life, but he has also taken apart in various wars and rebellions in the Balkan Peninsula. He is not quite so fresh and vigorous as his mother, although he is still capable of doing a jrood day's work, and enjoying such small luxuries of life as a pipe and the strong spirits drunk by the Bulgarian populace. The oldest woman in the world is said to enjoy fairly good eyesight and good hearing, and she is able walk without support. She lives on pension paid to her by many of her descendants, who number more than 100. —Mr Harriman's Fortune.—

The inheritance tax of £134,000 shows, says the New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, that Mr Harriman died worth £14,250,000, instead of the £20,000,000 with which the public credited him. Even the railway king's friends thought £18,000,000 a conservative estimate. The authorities who received the tax desire to know just what stocks Mr Harriman owned, but the information has not yet been forthcoming. It is recalled that Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Stewart Kennedy, the little-known philanthropist who came here an emigrant boy from Scotland and acquired wealth, all left fortunes just over £14,000,000. This amount , would be greater but for the practice of American millionaires to distribute their funds largely during life to universities, charities, and hospitals. Mr J. D. Rockfeller, the Standard Oil king, who is undoubtedly the world's richest man, has lately been busy ridding himself of many superfluous millions, and if his life is prolonged he may yet be successful in concealing the real extent of the wealth he has acquired. A short time ago one of Mr Rockefeller's lieutenants. Henry Rogers, died, leaving nearly £8,000,000, and what Rogers had at his best was always a mere bagatelle compared to the wealth of his chief. —Scientific Bricklaying.—

What Mr F. W. Taylor, a consulting engineer, of Philadelphia, termed " motion study" of labour —increasing the output of the workman by reducing his movements on particular work to a minimum—created (says the Daily Express much interest at a joint meeting of the British and American Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Birmingham. Mr Taylor stated that "motion study" was being more and more taken up in America every year and he gave a striking illustration of what had been accomplished in the bricklaying trade. He said: "Every individual motion of a bricklayer throughout the laying of bricks was scientifically investigated, with the result that the number of motions necessary in laying a single brick was reduced from 18 to 5 in one case, and 18 to 2 in another. Consequently, on a particular job in Boston each man was able to lay 350 bricks an hour, against 120 previously. A good deal of prejudice on the part of the trade unions had to be overcome, but it was done in this way: The unions agreed to leave their men in the hands of the originators of the system on one job. The men were offered about 53 per cent, higher wages than the standard on condition that they did exactly what they were told, and the result in output was as I have stated." —Some Dangers of Tree-felling.— The Lancet has something to say of the results which follow from injudicious destroying and felling of trees:—"History,

indeed, had already "supplied an impressive example of the Nemesis that follows improvident tree-felling in Spain's loss of her mercantile marine by the exhaustion of her timber;. while, in the day now passing, Italy bears rueful testimony to the same ' retributive justice,' seeing on the other side of the Alps the preservation of the Swiss woodlands maintaining an equable river-flow throughout the year, to the steady evolution of that electric force which was Italy's own discover}*, but which her tree destruction, causing irregular rainfall aud the conversion of her rivers into gravel-pits, prevents her from utilising in the industries now enriching her more circumspect neighbour. By the droughts induced as a consequence of tree-felling uncompensated by tree-planting, forest fires become more and more frequent, as Italy knows to her cost, both on the Tuscan and the Ligurian littoral, and her experience will be that of other nations, not least, indeed, that of America, where the recent destruction of so many miles of wooded country ii fraught with danger in the future as inevitably provocative of similai visitations."

—A Huge Warship.—

The new battleship Rio de Janeiro, which Messrs Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co. are building for Brazil, will be by far the largest in the world. According to the Engineer, she will displace 32,000 tons, and will mount 12 14in guns. Her cost will be approximately £2,900,000. The 'Rio de Janeiro will be almost twice as large as the Dreadnought, which displaces only 17,500 tons, and mounts 10 12in guns. The. 32,000-ton battleship and the 14in guns are for al lother Powers except Brazil only abstractions. Mr Meyer, the Secretary of the United States Navy, has stated that his Government intends to build four 32,000-ton battleships mounting 14in guns, but no active steps have yet been taken. Great Britain's largest ship is the Orion. She will displace only 22,500 tons. The battleship cruiser Lion will displace 26,000 tons. As striking as any feature of the Brazilian battleship is her secondary armament, which consists of 14 6in guns, 14 4in guns, three six-pounder landing guns, six machine automatic guns, and three 18in torpedo tubes under water. The secondary armament of the Dreadnought consists of only 27 12-pounders, but some of the later types have a more powerful equipment than this. This Brazilian battleship when completed will be the greatest fighting machine ever devised by the ingenuity of man.

—Hostels for Women.—

The fact that hostels for women immigrants are established in so many cities in Canada is evidence of the desire of the authorities to do well by those who seek their hospitality. In these hostels the women are granted free board and lodging for 24 hours—an immense boon to i a stranger in a strange land ; —but they are also welcome to remain at a moderate charge until suited with employment, or they can even stay on as boarders as far as the accommodation allows, should they obtain daily employment in. the city. The young women can always return to the hostels on a visit, and teachers and others spend their holidays in these homes of welcome. The weekly charge at Calgary is sdol (£1), and the same for ladies at the hostel at Toronto. At Winnipeg and at the Young Women's Association at Vancouver the cost is rather less, as it also is in the home for girls of the jlomestic class at Montreal. A Young Women's Christian Association Home has also been opened at Regina, in Hamilton, near the railway depot, where four beds are to be kept for the benefit of women requiring temporary accommodation.