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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8408, 6 January 1899, Page 4

A witness in giving evidence in a case at the Auckland Supreme Court stated that he had been in business eight or nine years and had never kept a bank account nor signed a promissory note. When witness was pressed by counsel as to where he kept his money His Honor iuterjeeted that perhnps it would not be wise to disclose this fact in view of the recent influx of undesirable characters. Mr George Anderson, a well-known Edinburgh civil engineer, lias formulated a plan of utilising water power for electricity, which, if it should prove successful, will revolutionise several industries in Scotland. Briefly, the idea is to divert by means of tunnels and aqueducts the waters of Loch Ericht and of other lochs close by to the head of Loch Leveu, which lies about twenty miles to the west, and to have at a point en rmile two waterfalls, which, it is estimated, will give a total horse-power of 35,000. The waters of Loch Ericht are at present carried south-east-wards to Loch Rannoch, whence they pass into the valley of the Tay. A Bill is to be presented to Parliament next session for powers in connection with the scheme, which is welcomed by many industries, notably the chemical and allied trades, who cannot now hold their own against the electrolytic process adopted in Germany. Englishmen, it seems, are out of favor on the Continent. This is what Mr Stead says in the Review of Reviews :—" Ten years ago I wrote, 'If you want, to appreciate your country, look at it, from any foreign capital you please.' To-day I no longer feel it would be safe to give the same advice. Compared with New York, London is a badly lighted country villuge. Compared with Hamburg, the street locomotion is as that of the stage coach era compared to that of the train de luxe. Why, even here in Sebastopol, in the city which lias risen like a pha-nix from the ashes of the fortress we pounded to hits half a century since, electric tiolley cars are running which are immediately in advance of anything to be found in the capital of the British Empire. Yet what region of the world is there that is not full ef the labors of Englishmen ? Even this very Sebastopol was originally laid out by an Englishman in the Russian service. Englishmen made the gas for St. Petersburg as they are still to do it for the suburbs of Vienna. All overSouthern Russia, Englishmen founded and directed ironworks, and presided over the industrial development of the country. Now all is changed. Belgians and Frenchmen and Germans do the business, and a greater business, that the Englishman began. Even in the working of tramways Belgians make lines pay which the English have abandoned in despair of earning a dividend. And the city of Vienna, under the guidance of its Anti-Semitic chief, Dr Lueger, has just mulcted itself iv an expenditure of a couple of millions sterling in gratifying a determination to get rid of the English Gas Company without regard either to law or equity. AH this is bad showing for the Britisher, although, no doubt, it is the best medicine for John Bull, who of ate years has grown too fat and altogether high and mighty to properly look atter his i business,"