CURRENT TOPICS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4572, 17 February 1893, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

It is proposed to build another new railway across Canada to the Pacific Coast, forming a third route to the East, and running through country which will eventually Bupply a great deal of paying traffic. It is estimated to coßt nearly six millions

sterling. The Germans are paid to be using aluminium aa a substitute for elate pencils, and it is stated that "sticks" of it are being manfaotured by a German firm/The writing is said to be as clearly marked and as rapidly removed aa the ordinary lines made with slate pencils, but a little more pressure ie necessary.

The Countess of Jersey writes of her three weeks' trip to Samoa with uoaSected enjoyment. She describes in the Nineteeenth Century the visit which she paid to orthodox royalty in the person of Malietoa, and to the pretender Mataafa, at his armed camp at Malic, where she passed the night, a portion of the house of the rebel king having been partitioned off for Ler and Mrß Strong, the step-daughter of Mr R. L. Stevenßon, the novelist, nnder whose escort the adventure was undertaken. The Countess of Jersey considers Mataafa a fine-looking and dignified man, and regrets the mismanagement and misunderstanding which separated him from his old friend Malietoa. Mr Charles T. Yerkes, of Chicago, who has offered to contribute £100,000 to cbnBtruct a larger telescope than any now in existence, is known in the United States as " The Tramway King." The syndicate of which he is the moving spirit owns over 500 miles of tram lines in the cities of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, and They run 4000 tramcars. When the great Chicago fire took .place twenty-two years ago, Mr Yerkes, then a banker in Philadelphia, lost his fortune ; but, starting again, he determined to find his money where it had been lost— in Chicago. Today hia private fortune is estimated at .£2,000,000. fe -

It seems there muat be added to' the already numeroua applications of photography that of an agent in medical diagnosis. A Berlin lady was having 'her photograph taken. The face in the first negative came oat covered with epofca. Examination showing nothing abnormal in the sitter, a second waa taken with the same result ; bo it could not /be fche fault of the platea. What was it? In a week the poor woman died of emall-pox. The cleverest physician could have perceived nothing, but the sensitive film of the photographic plate had detected an actinic alteration of the skin where the pustules were to develop. . .■• ■