CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4576, 22 February 1893, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

Glasgow has a real centenarian. Mrs Fullarton, the lady in question, hails from Eilmarnock where she was born a hundred and one years ago. At the age of fifteen she went to Glasgow, and tKere she has lived for eighty-6ix years, four as maid, fiffcy-five as wife, and twenty-seven as ! widow. The venerable dame recalls, as if it were yesterday, the battle of Trafalgar and the heroic death of Nelson, and she talks of Waterloo as a " more recent event." | A discovery has been made, which is : rather disconcerting to the foreign trav- | eller. This is that certain hotel-keepers ; on the Continent have a secret method of ' making confidences to one another con- : earning their customers, much as the j tramp hands on his knowledge by mystic symbols to hia professional brother. The hotel-keeper does not employ chalk, he simply varies the colour of his label with which he adorns your box when you leave. Thus a green border may mean stingy and i unprofitable, while a blue border implies liberal and wealthy. But the secret came out the other day through the revelations of a discharged waiter, and an irate traveller who was labelled stingy has communicated it all to the newspapers. One of the heads of the Melbourne Young Men's Christian Association's Labour Bureau says: — "Nearly all the I applicants at our bureau are of the j • clerical ' stamp — the class of young men ! who go seeking situations and then find, out that they have no qualifications. You see, a clerk nowadays must be more than a good writer to obtain any post worth having; he must be a good shorthand writer, a typist and a linguist. By far the greater number of our applicants are none of these, and yet they expect to earn a living. The market is glutted with good writers ; no more clerks are wanted. A point that cannot be too strongly forced on all parents is the necessity of giving their children a good foundation ; qualifications of some sort are more and more needed every day. There is the utmost need of technical instruction ; we have lately started a day school in connection with the T.M.C.A., the subjects taught being shorthand, type-writing and languages. We have 2000 scholars attending every day." The Channel tunnel scheme is again before Parliament (the Argus correspondent writes), and with it a scheme for the construction of .a bridge over the Channel. This last is influentially backed by France,, and Lord Wolseley has written to say that he finds it much leas open to objection than the tunnel* Concerning this latter there was a meeting lately, and Sir Edward Watkic. seems to think that the Government of Mr Gladstone will favour his project. What it will do, perhaps, is to leave the House of Commonß free to vote on the Bill when it comes forward, but that means littjle. The borings in Folkestone have been carried to a length of 2220 yards under the sea, the tunnel being seven feet in diameter. The same amount of work has been done on the French end, but there things are now at a standstill, and Sir Edward Watkin iB talking of floating a new Company to work the coal found during the borings, the shareholders in the tunnel scheme to have the first offer of the colliery fahares.

At the Wiltß Quarter Sessions last month a labourer was tried for sheep-stealing:, and after a long hearing the foreman of the jury, on being asked for the verdict, blurfced out, "We find him guilty, but, through being undefended, we find him innocent." There was a momentary look of blank dismay on the features of both Chairman and Clerk of tbe Peace, while others, unrestrained by official gravity, gave vent to their feelings in hearty laughter. Happily, th 9 foreman's brother jurymen grasped the situation, and it was explained to the Court that their real verdict was " guilty," with a recommendation of the prisoner to mercy " oa account of his being undefended."

Mr Laboucbere writes in Truth: — The missionary appears in quite a new light in a case which has recently been before one of the local Courts of the Transvaal. The R9V Otto Kahl, head of a station of the Berlin Missionary Society, was seed by a blind Kaffir, named Mateila, for money which had been paid as "fines." The circumstances under which these fines were levied indicate a truly patriarchal condition of society. It appeared that one cf Hatsila's daughters had given birth to a child without the preliminary formalities of wedlock. Why Matsila Bhould have been punished for this offence— unless it was supposed to be the result of his blindness — is not apparent. But he was called before the Bey Mr Kahl and fined £5. He was also fined £1 on account of a similar misfortune on the part of another daughter, and a fine of 25s because his Bon had been fighting. Altogether, therefore, the old gentleman's children do not seem to have been much credit to him. He failed to get his money back, because it was proved that the fines had been levied by the Church, for church purposes, and in accordance with the rules of that community ; but whether it is desirable that any " Church " or any pastor should wield these powers I venture to doubt. At any rate, the Eev O. Kahl has established a moral code which completely reverses the Decalogue, and visits not the sins of the fathers on the children, but the sins of the children upon the fathers.