TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8244, 24 September 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The New York correspondent of Tb6 Times states that stories by men who have escaped from Florida show that immigrants from Europe, after arriving in New York, have been persuaded to go there oo promises of good pay, aud are'now living therein a condition of absolute slavery. The men are taken to Florida in steamships, and after their arrival are set to work in turpentine vutmps and elsewhere. They are made to live in huts guarded by negroes, and when they demand their wages they are told that they owe their employers for board far more than the sums they baVe earned. Two men who arrived in New York recently from Florida camps wero in a terrible condition, their bodies being covered with soars left by the whips of the overseers. At least fifty immigrants are known to have started fcr Florida in the last six months, and they have not been heard from since. A letter received by a woman in New York from her says:—"This ia written at night and forwarded by a friend who is in greater danger than lam in. If he should be caught with it he would be killed like a dog, as others have been." The writer says that hedoes not dar« to tell the place where he is enslaved. He once escaped, but was recaptured and beater.

It need to be the fashion for people of means in the Old Oountry to get rid of undesirable relations by sending them to the Antipodes, where they figured under the compre hensive title of remittance men. Some philanthropic people in England imagine, apparently, that the same thing should be done with the undesirable aliens, aad on account of the leaser expense Canada is usually the country selected for their reception. Some time ago a Russian of the lowest class, who had deserted from the prmy in order to escape service against, the Japanese, came to fcinglaud, and was hboitfy afterwards followed by his wife and children. Within a few weeks of lauding the man was arrested for a cowardly stabbing affair and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and deportation es an "undesirablo." He roue, of coarse, to be sent back to his own oountry, but it was pointed out to the Home Secretary that as the prisoner had deserted from the Russian Army he would certainly be shot as soou as he landed in Russia. Under these cirumstances the Home Secretary ordered that he should be deported "without escort." \Thia meaut that he might go to any oountry that would receive him. The sequel was seen at the Thames Police Court, when a solicitor attended to explain that a fond was being raised to send the prisoner and his family to Canada, but as the promoters had not yet sufficient money ho asked that the man should be allowed some time to enable him to get there. Otherwise be would be arrested for not complying with the deportation order. The reply wes an emphatic negative. The magistrate said that it seemed to him moat reprehensible that when a Court had decided that a person was not fit to remain in Great Britain that the colonists of Canada should be threatened with his presence. He certainly would give no assistance in such a even if he had the power to do so. This decision will certainly meet with warm approval in the colonies. The magistrate's pronouncement that what is not good enough for the Home Country is not good enough for the colonies, is a very timely expression of the true Imperial spirit.

The diary of M. PolKovosky, the engineer-in-chief to Admiral JRozhdestvensky's fleet, to which brief reference was made in our cable messages recently throws a lurid light on the proceedings on board the Russian vessels on that memor-

able October night when they attacked the trawlers. M. Politovoany, who was'ont on theSuvaroff, and went down in her in the sea of Japan wrote letters to his wife in diary form throughout the voyage and these are to be published ia boob form. Japanese officers had been in Swelen for some time past, and the Russians feared a torpedo attack or danger from mines. Even in daylight the greatest oaution was observed, the destroyers clearing ail vessels from the path of the fleet. On the night of Ootober 20th, the enigneer noted that a feeling of tension prevailed, and everybody's nerves were shattered. On Ootober 220 d he noted* down the attack on the trawlers. About one in the morningthey beat to quarters, ships having been sighted ahead, and these were allowed to approach within a abort distance, and the squadron opened a heavy fire. Words fail to desoribe the disgraceful action that followed. . . . A small fishing vessel was tossed helplessly on the sea!" We saw her quit** distinctly, the black and red of her si3es, nor single funnel and the bridge, but nobody was on dec 1 !; panicsfcrioken, all had probably taken refuge below. The unhappy vessel had been the target for the ucnuentrated fire of our guns. The order to cease Are was given, but the firing continued unabated from the other ships, who, no doubt, sent the steamer to the bottom. The second and third steamers, also withoat a soul on ieok, where bobbing up and down. The Savaroff did not fire at these." The whole world, he declared, would ring with their shanceful outrage, but the trawlers were to blame, for they should have got out of the way, knowing that the Japanese had vowed the destruction of the iieet. This goes to show that the Russians knew the obaracter of the vessels at which they were firing, but it also shows tnat the fear of a Japanese attack was very real. Even on the night after the outrage an attack was expected, and the Russians did not consider themselveb safe until they were in the open Atlantic. The Aurora was mistaken for a Japanese vessel in the confusion and six shells struck her at a long range..