TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8181, 12 July 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Paper gas-pipes are among the Dovelties to be reported from Europe. It appears that paper can be used to advantage for this purpose. As to the method of manufacturing the pipes, Manila paper is oat j ap into strips, whose width is equwl to the lencth of the pipe section to be used. The paper bands are then passed into a vessel filled with melt- | ed asphalt. After ooming out of the bath the melted strip is rolled uniformly and very tightly aronnfl au iron rod or pipe whiob serves as the core, and has the same diameter which the gas pipe is to have. The rolling of the paper is stopped wheu the right thickness has been secured. ' Afler the pipe section which is thus formed has been nut through a high pressure it is covered 6n the outside with a layer of sand, which is pressed into the asphalt while still not. Then the whole is cooled off by placing it in water. Tbe core is taken out, and the outer surface of the pipe is treated with a waterproof compound. ' It is said that tbe pipev ia very tight and is cheaper than\netal piping. The offioial Accomodation Bureau wh»oh is arranging for tbe housing of vis'tcrs to OhristoLuroh between November and April, is about to issue its prospectus, with application slip attached. These will be be distributed broadcast throughout the colony, the Government franking them, and they will be available at every railway station. Messrs Mayes and Langdown, the agents, state that private persons, and some boarding houses, aie still slow in registering, with tbe mistaken idea that their names will be published in a list. Already there are over 2,000 applications to hand, with not more than 1,100 beds on the books. Those who register early, it is pointed out, stand a better chance of obtaining an exhibitor or attendant, rather than a casual visitor. The agents state that fchey are somewhat hampered by the aotion of several unofficial concerns, that are collect-

ing namea of landlords, with a guinea fee, to be published in special lists. The agents state that often landlords are loth to give their names to the Bureau, heing under the impression that they will have to pay a fee, or that their interests will be equally well served by the publication of the unofficial lists. Mr W. H. Maasingham, writing in the Speaker, on the interesting pasaage which tbe Education Bill ia having through the House of Conimoae, says:—"For tbe moment one movement is clearly diacernible in the progressiva ranks—the tendency to the secular solution. This hardly presented itself when the Bill was produced. The Labour members nominally declared for it, but I believe I am right in saying that this resolution was only carried by a very small majority, and that the party is not really united on this form of settlement,. Outside the Labour ranks the secular party existed, but were by no means anxious to take any step likely to imperil tbe Bill. But the Church's disposition to regard 'Bible-teach-ing' as non-Christian, or even antiChristian, has hardened many a man's view of religious instruction. If a free vote were given to-day on the two nroposala of undenominationalism and seoular education with limited facilities of entry,l doubt whether Bible-teaobing would win by a large majority. In ten years I am convinced that for good or evil the idea will be killed. The Church will have driven out the Bible." A piece of news which cannot fail to excite considerable interest in zoological ciioles has been received from the Alexander-Gosling expedition, whose arrival early in March at Bima on tbe River Welle, in the northern territory of the Congo Free atate, was recently reported. Captain Boyd Alexander reports ' that tbe expedition has secured on the district Angu, un the River Welle, a speoimen of the okapi, which he hopes will eventually find | a resting place in the natural history department of the British Museum. But the moat interesting reading in Captain Alexander's letter is the statement that the expedition .saw the animal alive; for, though several Bkins of the okapi have been brought to Europe from the Congo Free State since the original speoimen was seat to the British Museum by Sir Harry Johnston in 1901, and desired by Professor Ray Lankester, it ia believed to bp a fact that no white man hai hitherto been able to report having had the good fortune to come across a living okapi. Several expeditions have been undertaken by sportsmen and others with this object speoially in view, but it wouli now seem that the credit of the discovery which is sufficiently remarkable to be noted in the annala of zoology, must belong to the Alex ander-Gosling expedition. Captain Alexander has sent Home a desoripton of the specimen, which was obtained by Jose Lopez,' hia Portuguese oolleotor, who seems to have made several unsuccessful attempts to seoure the animal with the rifle, and ultimately captured a specimen by making use of the native method of trapping it by digging a deep pit./