THE WEEK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4774, 14 October 1893, Page 7

THE WEEK.

The international yacht races now proceeding between England anfl are of a dual nature, Two ooatesta are .being fought, one in American and the other in English waters. The Vigilant tsn4 Valkyrie Ate the representatives in Amerioan waters, the latter being the English yacht, This struggle is ffofcthe possession of the onp won of old bythe 'American schooner yacht, America, and ■wnloh the English yachts have never been r*>We to wrest from tie Americans. They Have always been considerably handi- ' oaped in having to sail across the Atlantic the Americana have only had to ftaild a racer to oompete againsb what yeally ia a crniaer. , . The contest in English waters is fora (ftp given l)y the Eoyal Viofcdria Yacht ! Olub. ;. The Ameiioane have sent their j cuifer&ayaioe across, while the Prince of Britannia will defend English honours. Five race 3 are to be sailed, the 'Tinner of three to secure the prize. The Britannia is one of the fastest English cufctef sever launched. The courses are arranged to try the oraf 6 on every point of Bailing all round, and onght to show conclusively which is the better yacht. The latest news from DrNansen reached Christiania on August 24, the intrepid explorer having' written from Verdeu's passage. He was then able to declare that the Fram sailed remarkably well in the loose ice, and to give assurance that all on board were of good courage. At Verden's passage he had obtained thirtyfour splendid sleigh*dog3, and all reports' seemed to indicate that the Arctic conditions would be favourable to the success of the undertaking. Good luck go with fcim. Those who are concerned in the frozen meat trade will be interested in the outcome of a casa that has been dealt with in the Nisi Priua Court at Liverpool. Messrs Houston, shipowners, were proceeded against for the recovery of .£13,085, two cargoes of foreign meat haying been [tendered valueless by the breaking down of the refrigerating machinery on board the vessels. It was held that the ship■owners were responsible, but inasmuch as it seemed to ba a hardship that they Should have to bear so heavy a burden, the award was reduced to Some of the opponents of the enfranchisement oE women have appeared to be fearful tbat demands of an intolerable nature would be speedily forthcoming. There will no doubt be occasional putting forward of queer proposals, as thora ha 3 been by cranks of the ruder sex; but it slay be safely assumed that the general good sense of women will ensure the Bpeedy rejeotion of what is impracticable or undesirable. An Auckland lady the other day wanted the Women's Franchise League to move forthwith in tie direction of scouring marriage laws more favourable to women; but was promptly reminded that it would be unwise to attempt a sweeping change. The adrice will apply admirably to other questions than the marriage laws. By the way, it may interest the enfranchised women of New Zealand to ieara that there is a very active movement in France to secure the political equality of the sexes. The high priestess of the new crusade is Madame Hubert Auclerc, who Issued a foroible manifesto a few weeks Ago. Madame Auclerc's scheme is a Maternal State; a condition of things that shall oppress no one, and shall deny no liberty Baye the liberty to starve. To this end— a Socialistic ideal — she would nave the Constitution revised by delegates oE . both . sexes j she .would have direct State supervision of .all industries, olassi- * fying the workers according to their capacities, and she would have women freely admitted to every kind of public employment. As to thje military service, Madame Auclerc frankly acknowledges that this duty to the SfcaTO must still b a Xnoumbent on men alone, but her scheme equalises this by the provision of compul- 1 tory "humanitarian service" for women, { whose duty it should be to undertake all • the work and responsibility of the public ; charities. A ohampion mean man has. been discovered: in Melbourne. There was a wedding at the home of a Collins street Solicitor, and there was the usual display of pretty presents. Some of the more Mostly of these, articles of jewellery, mysteriously disappeared. Perhapß their whereabouts might never have been discovered, if the sneaking thief bad not carried his meanness yet further by stealing some books from the University. library. For thi3 offence, William J. Lang was sentenced to two months' imprisonment. The detectives learned that he had been a gaest at the wedding, and BO it came about that the further crime Tras Bheeted home. O£ course he had a specious plea for forgiveness : friends had supplied him with funds, and therewith he was making ready for "a fresh start in life " in San Francisco. He will not get there just yet. ... An interesting and instructive table has been published by the Wellington Times, showing 1 the work of legislation during the past eleven years. It may be some comfort to those who imagine the Legislative ••swamping *'* to be growing greater evary year, to noke that the number of Bills passed does not grow appreciably larger. Moreover, it has to be borne in mind that of the Bills passed some are purely formal, dealing with such matters as the granting Of " supply," and that many others are ■imply in the direction of amen ding previous legislation that has been found to work imperfectly. The following is the table referrsd to, the asterisks denoting years in which.there were two sessions :—

A good story comas about Admiral Tryon's dispatch-box, which waa found floating about after the going down of the Victoria. That was the very thing which the box ought not to have done ;' it ought to have gone plump to the bottom. Tbe "box, it eeems, waa specially niado to contain the code of signals — a code which of course it is highly desirable to koap fieoret from an enemy. It might, in some desperate emergency, be necessary to send the. box overboard, so it was lined with lead and perforated with many liolea. But it floated beautifully. "It would be interesting," Mr Labouchere snggesto, "to learn Who were the designers of this box, which, being specially constructed to sink, floated safely, and is now at the Admiralty, A most practical proof of the fallibility of farexparta."

Another proof of that fallibility is 'furnished by her Majesty's cruiser Forth, a plated vessel that ts armed -with a ram fcwenlsy»foor feet in length. She collided with a merchant steamer in the English Channel, and fared very badly indeed. She was doomed as speedily as possible, and theoutcome of the examination is stated 4hne :— "T'rom the quantity of water in fore pompsetment, and the rate at which it found its way aboard, it was concluded that a hole bad been made in the ormeer*B bow as a result of the collision. Instead of ono hole, however, no leas than haM a 4orren holes— each sufficiently large to admit a great quantity of water— were discovered on the Forth's port bow, and two other holes are below the p/oteofcive dedfc. The starboard bow has fared a little better, there being but one or two openings in the iron plating through wnioh the water has bean able to enter. The holes were caused by the ram being bent to port, and consequently the rivets in the plating giving bat. It is probable that the ram will have to ha bodily removed and renewed." Some of our warships are evidently highly dangerous— to themselves. The extraordinary stir that is being made in Yiotoria relative to the manage- I meat of the railways, is bringing to the surface some really wonderful bits of in* ! formation. The " dead-head " system has grown rampant. A short time ago a return was published showing in detail the free parses that bad been issued to members of Parliament, " their sisters and their cousins and their aunts," and the Age had for the edification of its readers a little list occupying eleven and a half columns. Sut it turns out that even this formidable list was scarcely an indication of the magnitude to which the "deadhead" system had attained. A new Parliamentary return was demanded by an inquisitive member, and this discloses the fact that in a single year (1891) fiffcy-five thousand passes of all kinds were issued, j An analysis of the unique document shows j that oS the total .number forty-five thousand represented what are called departmental, passes, and that the remaining ten thousand went to "distinguished visitors" and members of the general public. "Some- officials," the Age remarks, "have found railway travelling under the"se conditions bo agreeable that they, invariably accompanied by their wives, Bpeat a considerable part of each year in honouring the taxpayer by taking free rides on the railways." The proportion of cases in which can be discovered the why and wherefore of the issue of free passes to distinguished or undistinguished persons is ezcaedingly small, but the explanations that are available constitute a nice little museum of official reasons. - For instance, one undistinguished gentleman got a pass because he waa a " borough officer;" another because he happened to hold a berth as ship's carpenter on board one of her Majesty's fighting ships; another gentleman was allowed to travel free to "gather ferns for exhibitions;" and Mr Julius Herz made a journey "on the nod " because Sir W. Eobinßon recommended it. The system must have made an uncommonly big hole in the revenue. Headers of nautical narratives have, no doubt, been disposed to regard some ofthe stories of the scuttling of ships as apocryphal, bub a most rascally business has basn exposed in the Higher Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, the details of which afford one more proof that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. The prisoners were Dundee men, David Mubtard Hobbs, a ahipbroker, and Joseph Severn, a captain in hiß employ. They were charged with deliberately sinking no fewer than five vessels, the Cape, the Grotjelina, the William and Martha, the Tryst and the BaTbrogill Castle. Hobbs pleaded guilty to only two of the charges of giving instructions to Severn to settle the vessels, and Severn would admit having executed the order in only one case; Lord Eyllachy, addressing Hobbs, said he must pass a sentence of seven years' penal Bervitnde. Hobbß, who had been weeping | while in the dock, broke down completely j before he was removed. Severn, his lord- ■ ship said, was a less intelligent man in ( some respects, and bad not the same education as his companion. He therefore limited his sentence to five years' penal servitude* The case of a Melbourne informer and his victim was related in this column laßt week. Here, by way o£ contrast, is a record from a criminal Court in France, where they sometimes "manage things differently." An ex-anarchist named Chenal, having professed moderation in his ideas, and abandoned the utterance of wild speeches, has for some considerable time been adding nice little sums to his income from the police cheat. Knowing all the anarchists, he was able to make himself valuable as an informer, and iv this way pocketed some substantial rewards. His success in ttiis direction seems to have whetted his appetite. In a billiard saloon, where he was employed as marker, he became aware of an intended burglary by one of the frequenters of the place, and forthwith offered to assist him in the enterprise. Ghenal's greed bad warped his judgment. He did assist in the burglary, and then went and gave information to the police. Perhaps the authorities were tired of Chenal ; perhaps his latest exploit was too " dirty " even for their hardened nature. They astonished Chenal by putting him in the dock instead of the witnees box, charging him as the prime mover, and his intended victim as merely the accessory. The Judge reminded Monaieur Chenal that it was soarcely necessary for him to go to the extreme length of breaking into a house in order to denounce another man, and then crowned an act of poetic justice by sentencing the informer to eight years imprisonment, and letting his companion off with only three years.

Bare old Ben Jooson preferred in -women the simplicity of Nature, and condemned "the adulteries of art." He would have found ample scope for hia condemnation in these days ' of dyea and enamels more or less villainously concocted. Madame Anna Bupperfc is a Dublin expert who has flourished on the credulity of womankind, and her "skin tonic" haa been eagerly bought; for it was guaranteed to " contain nothing injurious to the skin." But one day an officer of the Pharmacy Society stepped into Madame Kuppert's shop, bought a bofctle of the tonic, and sent it to Frofesßor Tiohborne for analysis. That bottle contained, in solution, eight grains of corrosive sublimate, a poison that has worked death in five-grain doses. It appears that this corrosive sublimate is an old remedy for freckles, but its use is obvionsly attended with so much danger that it ought never to be applied save nnder medical supervision. Madame'a price par bottle was half a guinea, and aa the analyst deposed that the contents were worth only a half-penny, the

percentage of profit was uncommonly t handsome. The sale of that particular bottle, however, involved Madame Rupperb in a fine of £5 and costs, and since she is not registered under the Pharmacy Aot, and is nob likely to be, it may be hoped I that her pernicious practice has been , effectively stopped.

„ " Passed. Failed. Total. 18S3-- 76 84 160 J884*... 89 96 185 1835 83 72 155 1886 ... : 04 53 153 1887* ... 65 153 218 ■1883 -- — 72 80 152 1889 64 72 136 1890 ... 62 86 MS 1891. 73 83 ISO 1892 88 81' 109 1893 87 37 174,