AN AMERICAN LETTER

Southland Times, Issue 19822, 19 March 1926, Page 5

AN AMERICAN LETTER

NEWS ACROSS THE PACIFIC. SYMPATHY FOR AUSTRALIANS. (From Our Correspondent.) San Francisco, Feb. 24. The fires that have destroyed life and devastated country in Australia have been reported by cable. Many expressions of sympathy have been uttered by American citizens. Two editorials appeared in two of San Francisco’s dailies on February 19 last. The Bulletin concluded its survey of the situation with this paragraph: “The problem of forest fires is another link between Western America and the Antipodes.” The Illustrated Daily Herald used as its text the one hundred men, women and children of the little town of Neejee facing death as the bush fire swept on, and their action in using the one house left standing as a church to pray for the deliverance that came as the wind shifted. Reference was made to the nights the Titanic and the Empress of Ireland went down to their doom, and how “in the hour of trial men and women turn to the faith of childhood for comfort and aid.” A FAMOUS BUILDING DISMANTLED. In both 1851 and 1926, and during the intervening years, the inter-section of California and Montgomery streets has been San Francisco’s financial hub. The water of the Bay used to come up to Montgomery street, and under the reclaimed land extending down to the present-day sea confines for a distance of about half a mile are many ships that were deserted in the days of ’49, California’s gold rush time. Wells, Fargo and Company’s first office stood on the corner mentioned. The still substantial looking building in ruins is giving way to a fifteen storey, Class A, office building of the latest type. Californians were sorry to see the old building g<s. It -was the clearing house for shipments of gold mined in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and in the Golden State. It was fashioned of stone blocks hewn from quarries in China, brought over in clipper ships and put in place by the same Chinese stone workers, who were paid a pound of fish and a pound of rice and a dollar a day. It is said that each stone bore a Chinese sign to indicate iust where it should fit in the building as a whole. The joy of the old tradition and the splendour of “the days of gold” had to give way to the more prosaic needs of a later generation. COURT PROCEDURE. Lamentably weak are the usual processes of justice in the United States Courts, excepting the Federal tribunals. And this is not the fault of the lady who holds the scales. Federal Judge John S. Partridge of San Francisco shattered precedents in his Court on February 11. He ordered the “English method” introduced on instructions from Chief Justice William Howard Taft of the United States Supreme Court. In less than an hour Judge Partridge secured a jury to try an important case, after asking only three questions: Do you know any of the defendants or their attorneys? Do you know the prosecuting attorneys? Do you know anything about the case, or have you formed a fixed idea about it? Prospective jurors replied to the questions promptly, and the long-drawn-out examinations by lawyers on two sides were abandoned. In important cases in the past it has happened that weeks have been taken to secure a jury. Additional surprise of a pleasing character was the notice to citizens that three bank robbers in California had been to the penitentiary two days after committing the crime. In an Eastern State a coloured man was convicted and sentenced to death for committing a murder, all within three or four hours. All this means the unusual in the United States, but other “English methods” of like kind will surely result in fewer crimes and the introduction of justice in place of technicalities and delays. It can be said to the credit of the legal profession that all the good lawyers are “helping out,” for they well know the need. The months and years to come will see radical changes. END OF THE COAL STRIKE. An agreement was reached in the coal strike on February 12 between the operators and the miners, and the latter ratified the terms in a conversation held on February 16. Work has been resumed after a term of idleness lasting five and a-half months. Public opinion forced the conclusion of the struggle. The men were tired out, financially and otherwise, and the employers were afraid of the talk about Government intervention assuming concrete form. President Coolidge had declined to interfere, but it appeared to be inevitably that Congress would have to take steps to stop the strike and see that the suffering public was furnished with coal. The loss in daily wages of £220,000 and the loss in daily production of coal of 226,000 tons, added up for five and a-half months, give a fair idea of the stupendous struggle. The 158,000 miners were employed in 272 colleries, covering 828 mines. And so the longest hard coal strike in American history is over, never to return, it is hoped. The strike of 1902, under John Mitchell’s leadership, lasted nearly as long.

ITALIANS PERFECT SYNTHETIC WOOL The newspapers of the United States carried a report sent out from Rome on February 21 to the effect that announcement had been made by the Iniavicosa Textile Trust, an £8,000,000 concern, of the perfection of an artificial wool fabric which cannot be distinguished from the general article. The new fabric is made of wool pulp, and can be woven into beautiful designs. The Italian demand is great, and manufacture and marketing have been started. During 1925 the Iniavicosa company manufactured 20,000,000 pounds of synthetic fabrics, much of the product being artificial silk. Probably the foregoing is like the frequent statements in the American papers about the discovery of rubber substitutes. That commodity is in such great demand and the price has been soaring so that inventors are busy endeavouring to supply the need without growing rubber in the orthodox way. So far real success has not attended the attempts at artificial substitution, although it ffi impossible to tell what will be discovered in the future. WONDERS OF RADIO AND TELEPHONE It seems as though the davs to come will enable people all over the world to talk to each other without thought of distance. On February 23 announcement was made in the United States that direct wireless telephonic communication with Australia, a distance of 12,000 miles, was established by Frank R. Neill, of Whitehead, near Belfast, Ireland. Next was the statement that Great Britain had a new problem to solve with the dominions oversea, because Australia had requested that she be permitted to establish an independent wireless station in England for the maintenance of communication with the Antipodes, it being the British foreign policy to do business with the Marconi Company. Spencer Speedy, of Herbertville, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, writes that he hears a Chicago radio programme. Gus Wasterhold, a German engineer and inventor, is demonstrating at a San Francisco theatre that the direct and absolute control of ships by radio is an accomplished fact. The office of the Union Steam Ship Company in San Francisco is radioing the South Seas for Ernest Davies, who is wanted by his sister in Pennsylvania. PERSONAL ITEMS. Dr. Hector D. McKenzie died in Oakland, California, on February 18, aged 35 years. He was born in Roxburgh, Otago, where his sister, Mrs Jean Bennetts, resides. Alfred Hill Australian composer, gave a Maori song recital at the Seven Arts Club in San Francisco on February 2. The music was described as “melodically distinctive” by a critic. Mrs Mirrie Hill’s songs were sung by Miss Emelie Lambert Burke. The Hills are en route to Minneapolis. Lieutenant-Commander Harry A. Garrison talked to the Kalon Club of San Francisco on February 16. His subject was “Observa-

tions of the Reception to the United States Fleet in Australia and New Zealand.” Mrs G. S. Humphries and Miss Betty absolute control of ships by radio is an Francisco. Mrs Humphries is tfle widow of the late R. B. Humphries, a prominent sheep owner in the Hawke’s Bay district. Miss Humphries is to marry Richard Leckner, also of Wellington, who holds a responsible position with one of the oldest business houses of California.