WORLD-WIDE NOTES.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 16, 28 February 1913, Page 2

WORLD-WIDE NOTES.

Fashions in pets are as changeable as fashions in hats. Not long ago the marmoset was a favourite among Society won.cn, while others had an affectation for infant bears. The dog, of course, holds Ms place, and probably will always do so. Now some Eastern women of Society are carrying bantam cocks. The Wool worth building now unler construction in New York will, on completion, be the loftiest skyscraper in the world. Its tola! height is to be 775 ft., and will c.nsist of fiftyone storeys. Tlitc will tic 1,600 rooms in the building, rented at a minimum of £lO a iron'll, and the total cost is estimated at £1„500,000 A resting-place has at last been found for the mythical “ashes” which have for so long been the only reward for the victors in cricicet matches betwwcn I'lngland and Australia. At the close of the Fourth Test Match between b n Band i,nd Australia, at Melbourne, Smith, the English wicket-keeper, pulled up the stumps as a trophy. One of these was afterwards burned and the'embers ivore carefully preserved. The '“ashes” were placed in an urn in the shape ‘of a golden cricket-ball, which, is now in the possession of Mr. T. Pawley, the manager of the team.

An ingenious, if cumbersome, invention has been offered to the Paris police autho. ilka for the detection of crime committed in the streets. In fact, it Could bs applied to accidents. r lhe proposal is to in dal in the clock-towers in the various streets a cinematograph apparatus directed by wireless. The apparatus would record all the movements in the street, at the same time fixing the hour and minute. It is claimed (hat by an examination of the films any person wanted by the police could be traced from one street to another until he disappeared into a hiding-place or the railway-station, fihe police would then know if he had quitted the city.

Long-distun o photography has been gFeatly facilitated as the result of the construction of a mammoth camera. When the bellows arc extended to the full the camera is no less than 20 ft. long and uses a negative 6ft. by sft. A do en men are required to make pictures of objects at a groat distance. f.o no wonderful pictures have already been secured with this machine, 'ihe summits of inaccessible mountains may be photographed from below, while astronomical pictures have tinned out very well. There seems to be n< ? limit to the possibilities of this huge camera.

Of recent years the custom of making a systematic census of the population has become well esta' lislmd throughout all civilised countries, and it is now possible to gain a fairly accurate idea of conditions all the world over. Some of the figures now cited in regard to this matter are interesting. The world’s total population is estimated at 1,700 millions,, out of which the proportion of the sexes is known for 1,038,000,000, the rotio being 1,000 males to 900 females. The ratio varies very considerably in different places. In Europe there were, for every 1,000 men, 1,,027 women; Africa, 1,045 ; America, 964 Asia, 961 ; Australia, 937. The maximum proportion of women is found in Uganda, 1,467 ; the minimum in the Alaska gold fields and the Malay States, with 291 and 389 respectively.

I By phonographic Impressions on the I edges of the paper, giving a finely i serrated contour, banknotes and other I documents of stated value are to be ! protected against fraud according to the method of Mr. A. B. Bawtrce. The record of any desired words ds obtained by moving a photographic plate under a spot of light reflected ! from a mirror-diaphragm at the end ; of a recording-horn, and this record ; can be transferred to the document ■ paper by photo-engraving and electrotyping processes, giving a pair of shearing edges of the required contour. The recorded words are • made audible as the effect of an | air blast striking the serrated edges. 1 The apparatus consists of a pair of .’ slightly separated parallel plates, i one with a fine slit opposite a round hole in the other, and as the paper is passed between the plates the air forced through the slit strikes the diaphragm of a repro- , ducing-horn over the round hole. For a direct record the document paper in contact with the stylus of a recorder diaphragm may be drawn along by rotating cylinders. For such a record only a very simple reproducing device is needed, and it may consist of a plate through which projects the stylus of a reproducing horn.

We have beard a great deal about the playing-fields of public schools we are told that we owe our national safety to thorn ; perhaps it is correct, but I really do not know. But this I do know,, that the nonprovision of play ing-fields, or grounds for the male youthful poor, is a national danger and menace to activity, endurance, health, and pluck. Nothing saves them but the freehold of the streets. Rob them of this without giving them something better, and we shall speedily have a race of flat-footed, flat-chested, round-shouldered poor, with no brains) for mental work, and no strength for jihysical work. A race exactly qualified for the conditions to which we so freely admit it in prison.