THROUGH Our EXCHANGES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 20, 22 January 1913, Page 8

THROUGH Our EXCHANGES.

The father of a seven-year-old boy iat Kiycsu, Japan, punished him for disobedience by burying him for 21hours in a hole in the ground, leaving only his head above the surface, it took four men to dig him out.

George H. Morrison was awarded £3OO damages at Toronto against the Pore Marquette Railway for medical expenses and loss of salary caused by a cold which he caught while, waiting for a late train at a crossing where there was no shelter for passengers. He was ill for some months.

One of the Berlin sporting papers has just published some interesting particulars oT the shooting excursions undertaken by the Kaiser from time to time. The total number of birds and animals slain by the Emperor is said to have been 67,228, and to have included 38,578 pheasants, 17,950 hares, 3442 wild boars, 2068 stags, 867 partridges, and 3 turkeys. The Kaiser has done a little in the fishing lino, also, and the occasion is recalled on which ho accounted for no tiling less than a whale.

There was a tragedy at one of the variety theatres in Wigan, Lancashire. A juggler’s comic assistant, was supposed to rush across the stage, drinking from a jug. At Saturday’s performance he did not drink, but •staggered and fell, and the audience, thinking it was new business, applauded the performer. Rut aftei the applause had died down he did not get up, and the juggler rushed tc his assistant’s side. There was nc movement in the body, but yet foi a moment the principal in the* act did not think anything serious had occurred. He tried to make his as sistant get up, and then it dawned upon him that he was trying to stir a dead body. The curtain was immedi ately rung down. Heart failure war the cause of death.

The railway connecting La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, with' Arica, a port of Peru, has been completed ii live months less than the contract time. The line begins at Arica, some 1500 miles north of Valparaiso, and ends at La Paz, a distance of abou' 285 miles. It is one of the highes railways in the world, rising to i

height of 14,000 ft. above sca-levcl and running for the greater part c.l the distance at an altitude of 12 00C ,feet. A portion is on the rack sys tern. This line will be a great boor to Bolivia, as it shortens the route tc the Pacific coast by 400 miles ovei that via Lake Titicaca and Mollendo and 500 miles over that of the alter native Antofagasta line.

The first jury of women in Kansas where women were recently made dig ible to serve in that capacity by ; popular mandate, succeeded in set tling a long-standing case on which t male jury had failed to agree. They be gan their deliberations with prayer and then plunged into the issues oj the case, which turned on a dispute :u to some land. “It seemed as if al twelve of ns were talking at once,’ said one of the women afterwards

‘‘But we were terribly in earnest. Fo three days during the hearing vc had not spoken a word about the case so naturally there was a good deal to be said. We paid a great deal of attention to the Court’s instructions Some of the women read the voluminous instructions two or three times.’ Several jurors wore hats throughout the trial. They each drew a fee cf 16s, and they insisted on the removal of the spittoons which are provided for ordinary Kansas jurymen.

Ignorant of the fact that her bus band was among those who perished in the Titanic catastrophe, but believing that he had deserted her, Sirs. Mary Rippey, of Denver, Colorado, applied for and obtained a divorce Mrs. Rippey did not hear of her husband’s fate until last Tuesday week when the news was conveyed to her in. a letter that she received from a friend in New York. Rippey travelled by the Titanic under the assumed name of Charles Tail, and this circumstance explains why his wife was not aware of his tragic end. A search which lias been made over two continents for two children that were supposed to have survived the late (Mr. Montgomery Smart, a wealthy lawyer, who went down with the Titanic, has ended in the filing of the latter’s will. The bulk of the estate has been left to friends of the testator: who are in Australia.

At the Science Congress in Melbourne, Mr A. L. Adamson read a paper on the standard of English pronunciation. Among the investigations needed, he said, was one as to why nasalisation takes place. At a conference in England some time ago it was advocated that soft singing would tend to the improvement of children’s pronunciation. In South Africa the tendency was to end the words explosively instead of gliding from one word to another. This was noticed in Australia, and another fault waste run words together—as, for example, “law and order,” which were frequently run together as one word. Mis pronunciation of words was a not easily-corrected fault. The decay of classical education had a great deal to do with mispronunciation. In teaching English a certain general indifference as to pronunciation had to he contended with, and in the case of children certain home practices had to he contended with. It must he admitted that the teaching of pronunciation in Australia was neglected. The faults of Australian pronunciation were, briefly, looseness, clipping of words, and mispronunciation of words.

A Paris telegram to one of the Louden papers makes this startling statement:—M. Joseph Marie Jcgoux, a resident of Sourn, near Pontivy, yesterday spat out a bullet by which lie was accidently wounded in the left cheek in 1886. At the time of the accident the surgeons were unable .to extract the bullet, and for 26 years, M. Jogoux has been almost speechless, being scarcely able to open his mouth. He also suffered from violent pains in his head. Within the past few years, he had noticed a swelling on his leit upper gum, but did not associate it j with the bullet. While ho was taking l a morning walk yesterday he felt something heavy fall on his tongue, i and the object proved to be the bul-j let.

A Russian bomb suggests nihilism to the adult, but the boy knows it as a mild instrument of mischief, which, when thrown on the ground, makes much the same explosion as the head of a phosphorus match, and gives timid people a start. For some time the gallery of the Princes Theatre, Dunedin, has been a favourite point of vantage for the projection of these bombs into the stalls below, and the laying of an information against a boy in the Police Court on Friday has apparently proved a deterrent, as the manager (Mr John Hamer) told Mr Haselden, S.M., that there had been none thrown since. The Star saysj that the evidence against Jardine (so; far as it went) was only that of a hoy who sells sweets, and as his positive testimony that Jardine threw the bomb was based upon the fact that he smiled (or jeered, as witness put j it), it was not precisely conclusive. | The Magistrate announced that he was I prepared to dismiss the case as trivial, since it was probable that boys had not known until the information was laid that they wore committing wrong, and Mr A. J. Adams, though prepared to prove that the defendant was innocent, accepted the suggestion. The case was accordingly dismissed.

On Wednesday a gentle chuckle began in Vienna. That is where Sir George Reid was. He had just been having tiffin with the Emperor Frans Josef, and came away smiling over ti.e last story, to receive a telegram containing the rumour which has since appeared in the morning press: “A suggestion has been made that if the Liberal Party should find it difficult to com© to a satisfactory conclusion regarding the vacant leadership, it should cable to Sir George Reid, offering him the position.” That was where the High Commissioner chuckled. The large ribs began to rumble, and the rumbling grew to a mighty grumbling, and out of his chest the laugh came tumbling. One may read of laughter of various kinds—Homeric laughter, Titanic laughter, Gargantuan laughter, Olympian laughter—but it was nothing to the laughter 'which began 1 to grow and gather in strength a& Sir George Reid thought longer of tire joke. He shook, he rocked, he rolled with the exquisite enjoyment of it. The walls of the Schoenbrunn palace shook with the mighty upheaval of laughter. The sound roared down the Fraten. It spread over the couhti'yside, and the echoes trembled "'all: through Europe. “Leave my Higjn Commissionership and go back to tlie job Deakin had!” Sir George cried, and his sides began to heave again. Then he rolled to the nearest telegraph office and sent a cablegram to Australia: “Ha, ha, ha ! Let go my leg! Ho, ho, ho!”—Sydney Sun.

The Maoris evidently do not view the Public Trustee as fulfilling all the qualifications of the one who is airpointed in loco parentis, states the Christchurch News. At the Land Court held at Kaiapoi, a native agent found the opportunity to wax eloquent with the Judge on the qualifications of local trustees as compared with the Public Trustee. He urged that the Maori guardian in the place of the parent had bowels of compassion towards those in its care. If the infant wanted an advance of money, the Maori trustee would be moved to make it, and possibly it might be for urgent medical attendance. Much stress also, was laid by the native advocate on the tangi and the funeral. He urged the Maori trustee would always find money to advance to the trust estate a suitable sum for that purpose, but the Public Trustee had no idea of the importance which natives attached to an interment and the passing of a member of the tribe. He had been known to have a heart as hard as the nether millstone when asked for an advance to give a deceased ward a proper funeral. The earnest looks on the faces of the spectators showed the gallery was moved by the pathetic appeal. The Judge remained impassive. He had a knowledge of certain trustees who treated their responsibilities with laxity, and it was not advisable to allow trustees’ discretion to prevail either to tangis or motor cars lor infants under twenty-one. Finally, he Public Trustee was given charge of the estate.

Miss Evelyn Wrench, sister of Mr | Wrench, Overseas Club organiser, gave a Christchurch reporter her impressions of New Zealand and its people. In comparison with the Canadian women, the fair sex of New Zealand, she said, lost points in tidiness. Those of the Greater Dominion taught both the Old Country a distinct lesson in tidinee and nattiness of appearance. But the women of New Zealand, she added, struck her as being extraordinarily capable and adaptable. Their cooking was excellent, but, as one will vegetarian leanings, she did wish more vegetables were grown. Intellectually she had been impressed with the “liveliness” of the women of New Zealand. They were interested in all sorts of questions. In Dunedin especially she had been struck by the number of people concerned in up-to-date development. She doubted if any town would ever show her the name number of earnest, “live” people who impressed her as being of those who

did things and not only talked of them. “The beds are always clean, but otherwise New Zealand hotels are slovenly,” said Miss Wrench of hotel housekeeping. The corners of rooms and drawers, she proceeded, were not tidied out. She had found time and again in the drawers of the furniture, hats, trousers, papers, whisky bottles, etc. This should not be. It showed carelessness and lack of supervision somewhere. There were none of those sweet little perfectly clean hotels such as abounded in rural England or France. There seemed in Now Zealand a disposition to avoid bother and trouble—perhaps because everything came so easily. For instance, this was the only country where one bill of fare only was «up-

plied for a roomful of people. In two seconds one could not always decide between pineapple and plumpudding. She took this inadequacy of menus with other things, as an indication of u tendency towards slackness. If New Zealand decided to become a big tourist resort, those little points would have to receive attention. Two things, however, about New Zealand hotels she did appreciate. The first was morning tea at seven without request or payment, and the other was the freedom of the bathroom. In England and on the Continent baths were luxuries, and had to be paid for as such. The last observation of all that she would make, she said, was that she was greatly struck with the kindliness and courtesy ol New Zealanders. It was a pleasure to ask the way, the response was so gracious. She had never met such friendly people, and felt absolutely at one with them.

A now and interesting appearance is made by Mr. Harry Lauder in ‘The Woman Teacher’s World’ (says the London ‘Daily Telegraph’), to which he contributes the weekly “message” to teachers. He offers some advice which, if not new, is always worth reading. “I should say,” he remarks, “that the main duty of a teacher >s to gain the confidence and respect of the pupil. Let the boy or girl brought under your charge realise that you are a good and wise friend, and not a fearsome personage, to be regarded with a combination of awe and dread. Another point which I think worth considering—don’t give your best attention to the “clever” child. It is npt always wise to keep pushing on the best children in the class at the expense of others. Yes; that is what it amounts to! I think the really great teacher—and I use the word ‘great’ intentionally—is the teacher who tries his utmost to discover the hidden qualities in the backward child quite as much as he takes pleasure hi bringing out the abilities of the really clever pupil ” ■