CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4322, 9 December 1893, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

In hygienio regulations, eaya 3fft William Croofcea, ia his translation o? Professor Lehmann's standard work on •' Methods of Practical Hygiene," Germany 5s in some respects ia advance of us, while in others she remains ia the background. Like ourselves, the Germans aro now a manufacturing people, and in consequence they encounter aome of the same difficulties whioh fall to our lot in dealing with, unwholesome arts. The adulteration of food ia now an established evil in their! midst, and it is interesting and instructive to see how they propose to meet it. They are lees sensitive than ourselves oa . the subject of sewage gas, and do not seem sufficiently scrupulous es' regards the dis. poaal of the dead. "Perhaps we may pay," adds Mr Crookes, with an evident feeling for the embarrassments of our official analysts, " that as far as sanitary enactments are concerned, their lawmakers are Bomewhat leaß industrious than oura in providing loopholea of escape for offenders." ■ Writing from a station in German Naw Guinea of the native outbreak against the ! whites, the manager stateß that thenatives as far back as August had given i& ! out that they intended to slaughter every: white man in the settlement. "The thing," Bays the letter, "has baenbrewW for months, and was fully expected, and consequently prepared for. We at thi* particular station have not actually bad a brush with them yet, though our native ! a , bou J\ ( im P° rte<i from neighbouring islands) have been working under guard for the pasb month. The station ia 1 . guarded night and day by blacks armed to the teeth, but the bush natives do not show themselves, though the reflections of their camp fireß is Been) every night, and at no great distance: On Sept. 27 fifty killed were reported in; a fight; that took place near Jttalum. Five' expeditions into the bush were made horn' that point, with the loss of but one blackboy on our (white) side. The Gernianj autnorities are on the alert, and have a' force ready for action in the event of a raid being made upon the Bettlers. At' Mrs Foraaith's stations the 'boys' are' working under guard, a patrol being main- 1 tamed round each station. There is no ; doubb that were the natives to come 1 down in thousands, as they easily could do, they would have an easy victory, but they are not organised, thank goodness; and though some have rifles there ia not', much ammunition among&t them. The' position ol affairs is moafc decidedly uncomfortable." m It ever a man, says the Strand Magaeint interviewer, was beset with office and situation hunters, and inundated with begginjr 1 letters— to say nothing of requests, both,', strange and amuaing-^st is the Lord Mayor of London. The great army of the unemployed of every grade, from a bank manager down to a messenger, from a director to a caretaker, each and everyone thinka hia Lordßhip can find him a situation, and put him on it. What will be thought of the' notion of turning the Manaion House into a Matrimonial Agency, wifch the Lord Mayor as managing director ? One youne settler out in Canada, tired o£ a single life, bethought him lately of the Lord Mayor of London as a suitable person to find him a wife. The agency was declined. On another occasion a Continental tradesman had conceived the idea of turning the Mansion House iuto a market, wifch "hia Lordship as chief saleaman," for he sent over a large case of goods with a request' that they might be sold on his behalf* Another sample of Mansion House correspondence exhibited to the Lord Mayor's interviewer, was a letter from a boy who had gone out from a Reformatory to' Montreal. He wanted to find , his three brothers ia England, and l'ortaaately tha Lord Mayor, with the aid of other civio officials, was enabled to acconiplißh hia object. Why do English military officer^ though proud of the Queen's uniform, always hasten to get out of ifc at the firsb opportunity ? This is a fact which ia admitted to be peculiar to our army. The Queen's 1 regulations permit tho use o£ plain clothed "tor purposes of recreation," and the consequence is tUab when an English officer goes out of barracks it is always "for purposes of recreation." Colonel Bengough, C.8., reoalls the fact that when a General Officer commanding a large station in India desired to restrict the license ueually accorded to officer* in this re*pecfc, his orders wore practially evaded by officers carrying a racket) bat or a hunting whip whenever they left their quarters. He also reaiembers the astonishment wifch which our allies in tho Crimea ÜBed to see our officers iruah afc the first opportunity into " inufti," often of the most nondescript character. The principal reasons which Colonel Bengough; Euggests for all this are " a British gentleman avoids publicity ; his instincta are averse to making himself conspicuous. An English officer never forgets that, though a soldier, he is still a private gautleinan." M. du Chaillu now publishes, in extenso, the letter written by Mr Gladstone to him ia February, 1890, in reply to a request for an opinion on the subject of the theories advanced in " The Viking Age." Mr GladBtone was at that time in Oxford for the purpose of delivering his lecture on Homer*' but he replied the same day in a closelywritten letter of four sides, of which SL | du Chaillu, in the introduction to hid j " Ivar the Viking," gives a f acoimilo. In iit Mr Gladstone aays : "My preposses- | sions are on your side ; bub I have not yet been able, although very desirous, to examine the argument on your aide as it deserves, nor that of your adversaries. lam a man of Scotch blood | only— half Highland and half Lowland, [ near the Border. A branch of my family | settled in Scandinavia, in the firaC half, I j think, of the seventeenth ceatury. When j I have been ia Norway or Denmark, or | among Scandinavians, I have felt Bome- | thing like a cry or nature from wibbin, | asserting (credibly or otherwise) my near- ! ness to them." Mr Gladstone then refers [ to more definitely confirmatory ijidisationa • in the lova of freedom in combination with | nettled order which is characteristic oE ! Norway and Denmark; in the ethnography lo£ northern and insular Scotland ; in the fishing population; and in the curious persistency with which, in some districts, Scandinavian terminations have been preserved. Amongst the landed properties brought to the hammer recently was Elmnv.-ood, in Hertfordshire. In a email houEe, now dumolichecl, on this estate, Hvp.d for many yesra Jamea Lucas, the " Hertfordshire Hermit," whom Char!e3 Dickens mado the subject of one of his Christmas stories* " Tom Tiddler's Ground." He w&a r welleducated man, who inherited the estate ofi his father, a prosperous West India merchant. His eccentricities are summarised in the Dictionary of National Biography, which says :—" Ho refused to administer his parents' wills, deferred foe three mouths (when the sepulture was enforced) the interment of hia mother, and barricaded hia houßO of . Elms wood, in the kitchen of which he took up hia abode 4 He excluded furniture, abjured washing, slept ou a bad of cinder*, and clothed himself in a loose blanket. Hia skin grew ingrained with dirt, aid his dark hair long and matted. Hin distavy, bssidea bread and penny buns, consisted of cheese, red herrings, and gin, and he protected his victuals from the rats by hanging them in a basket from the roof, Lucaa enjoyed the society of tramps, always put-' ting to them a series of questions, and rewarding satisfactory answers with coppers and a glass of i;in. Ho thua attracted all tho vagabonds in tbe kingdom, and had to protect himself by re-; taiuiug two armed "watchmen, who lived in a hut opposite the formidable iron grille at whioh he received visitore. These included Lord Lytton, Sir Arthur Helpß, John Forster, and Charlt a Dickens." Thia ecceutric person died of apoploxy ia 1874, and was buried in Hatkney Churchyard. Tho condor, of all creatures, poesoeacajtha greatest tenacity to life. After, that cornea the Polar kef«r.