NEWS ITEMS

Colonist, Volume XL, Issue 8807, 5 March 1897, Page 3

NEWS ITEMS

(From oub Latest ExoffANGßg.) Ricently one of the Japanese newspapers having confessed to the amiable hope that " a general conflagration in Europe " would enable Japan to " reap the benefits cf the curtailment of the ascendency of the European Powers in the Far East," the 1 Kobe Chronicle,' an English journal pointed oub firmly but ltindly that Japan is a small country on the extreme east of Asia, which any one of the greater European Powers could crnsh, had it a mind to do so, and whose disappearance from the map would have little, if any, effect on the progress of the world. Then tbß fun commenced. One paper declared that the editor of the foreign journal came of a "jealous and perverse race," which did not understand Japan's strength and resources ; 3 and that " foreigners are skilled in the use of blackguardly words, and the English language is rich in calumny and libel." Another journal threatened thit the time would come when ' such kinds of fellows" as this foreign critic would be driven from the country and a third accused foreigners in general of being "arroganG and insolent," and the particular editor in question of ignorance and the use of '• such extremely violent words against our country as w.e believed that no person who possessed common sense would use." At Paris, on January 21st the singnlar dispute in which two princes of the royal house of France are concerned advanced another st»ge. At the death of the Comte de Paris it remained undecided which of the rival Pretenders had the right to style himself King of France and to use the royal arms, consisting of the famous

three golden fleurs de lis on a Held of blue, the Duke of Angou claiming that as a descendant of L vis XIV., he alone wai so entitled, the Orleans family being derived from a youngfii* branch of the Bourbon stock; but this c^aim was disputed by the Corrite de Paris, and is sti 1 disputed by the Duke of Orleans, his son. At length the case has got into the courts in Paris, although the Duke is by law exiled from France, and it came before the First Chamber of the Civil Tribunal, which is thus in the singular position of having to decide, in the name of the Bepublic, the rights Of the Pretenders to the national sover* eignty. Counsel for the plaintiff c'aimed that the action referred only to the right to use the royal arms, and was quite unconnected with politics. In the course of the proceedings counsel appeared for Don Carlos, and claimed for him the right to bear the royal arms of France^ After counsel for the plaintiff and deendant had been heard, the Public Advocate asked that the plaintiff be non-suited tn the ground that as there was no royalty in France, there could be no king. The armorial bearings, he argued, could only be considered] as those of France, and they were no more the arms of the Due d' Orleans than of the Duo d* Angou. Judgment was deferred. Three hundred French soldiers in Southern Algeria were marching down a deep ravine when heavy rain began to fall, and before they had reached, the end of the ra?ine they were nearly swept away by a torrent, against which they could only stand by holding hands in a square. The ' Otago Daily Times • of March 2nd states: —The drought is causing serious inconvenience in the goldfielda districts, and in Lawrence, the reservoir having been completely exhausted people are borrowing water from their neighbours. Mr Montgomery, a hotel keeper, however, is the fortunate possessor of a fine spring of water on his premises, and this supply proves of inestimable value at the present juno* ture. At the reoent International Con* gress of Psychology, Dr Muller gava an interesting historical sketch of the etiology of self-murder, and, by means of an elaborate series of statistics, traced to alcohol the primary cause of its marked increase of Jate years. The author estimates the number of suicides in Europe at 50,000 a year, thus showing that the evil is increasing at a greater rate than the population. The most favorite month for suicides is June, the least December; early morning is chesen in preference to the night, whilst the mechanic class furnishes the largest number of subjeots and the peasant the least. Dr Muller considers brandy the most pernicious form of alcohol, and traces to its influence the blunting of those weapons which in the struggle of life are the most necessary to sustain the conflict. The oldest wooden building in the world is said to be the church at Borgund, in Norway. It was built in the eleventh century, and has been protected by frequent coatings of pitch It is built of pine and in fantastic Romanesque design.