AROUND THE WORLD.

Waikato Independent, Volume III, Issue 183, 25 January 1906, Page 5

AROUND THE WORLD.

A torpid liver is valuable if it happen lo be the liver of a whale. From this organ comes ambergris, and it is estimated that ambergris from a single whale may be worth £IO,OOO. The town of Sion, Switzerland, possesses an ancient clock which is probably unique. It comes from the Black Forest, and is about 450 years old. All the wheels are of wood, and there is only one “ hand,” that of the hours. A pie-making machine is one ot the latest mechanical developments. It supersedes the work of human fingers. One man and three boys with the new machine can turn out a thousand pies an hour, all exactly alike. “The Truth Tellers,” a now play, by Martha Morton, an American lady, provides parts for two horses, five Shetland ponies, a St. Bernard, two sheep, a cow, a monkey, and a parrot. Now that is a natural play if you like, but which animal plays lead. '» Mr John Brinsmead, the celebrated piano-maker, and his wife recently celebrated the sixty-eighth anniversary of their wedding, their ages being 92 and 91 respectively. It is not probable that there are many older married couple in the world. Last week Lord Rosebery (says the Birmingham Daily Mail) invented the following epitaph for Mr Chamberlain:—“ln a political career of barely' thirty years he split up both the great political parties of the State.” Since Saturday it must have struck everyone that he considered Mr Chamberlain’s alleged achievement one worthy of emulation. Anyway, he has done his best to give at least a colourable imitation. Perhaps Mr Chamberlain will now return the epitaph compliment and produce something after this style for Lord Rosebery “In a career of meteoric eccentricity he won the Derby, married the richest heiress in England, became Prime Minister, and split his party into fragments. They who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” A most extraordinary case of blackmail is at present before the New York Courts. The defendant is Mr Thomas Wickes, a well-known and respected lawyer, formerly assistant-adviser to the Ciuy Corporation. The evidence has revealed a Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde case in real life. It waste the effect that Wickes availed himself of knowledge acquired in his practice to write to certain parties demanding money, and always signed himself “ Lewis Jarvis.” The letters always contained allusions to the great learning, ability, and trustworthiness of Mr Thomas Wickes. These glowing testimonials, indeed, led ultimately to the disclosure that Wickes and Jarvis were one and the same individual. Wickes admits writing the Lewis Jarvis letters, but denies blackmail. Figures published in late New York papers show that it cost just over £dbo,ooo to elect Mr Roosevelt as President of the United States and Mr Fairbanks as Vice-President. In electing Mr Cleveland for the second time the Democrats spent nearly £1,000,000, that figure achieving a record in American politics. There were 10,000 contributors to President Roosevelt’s election fund, but the financial statement, which was published in the Washington Post, is singularly lacking in details as to the identity of the corporations and corporation managers subscribing. The statement has been made that the big trust insurance companies and railroad companies contributed to Republican funds conditional upon some political favor to come. Republican officials, however, assert emphatically that all such conditional contributions were immediately rejected. To avoid scandals arising regarding the campaign funds, it is suggested (writes a New York correspondent) that full publicity should be given to each contribution, and it is stated that President Roosevelt and Mr Cortelyou, Chairman of the Publican National Committee, will co-operate in securing the enactment of a law having that object in view. Responding to the toast of “ The Guests ” at a dinner given by the Royal Society (writes a London correspondent) Mr W. P. Reeves said that colonists who returned to the Mother Country were perhaps the most fortunate of all visitors, for they enjoyed all the privileges extended to foreign guests, while never being allowed to imagine that they had quitted their own home. But ■ what special claim, asked Mr Reeves, had the representatve of New Zealand to respond for the guests at this banquet ? He wished he could say that his colony had distinguished itself by some brilliant contribution to scientific knowledge. But science was so wide that perhaps it might sweep into its net what the newspapers called the science of the football. (Laughter.) If football were ruled out there must be such a thing as the science of politics and government, which, like mathematics and biology, dealt with unknown quantities ; and if the beginning of science was experiment, New Zealand might at any rate claim to have done her share of experiments, which, however venturesome, had not yet led to any explosion in the laboratory, (Laughter.) Forty years ago New Zealand was without railways, telegraphs, or steamships—three months’ Journey away from the centre of civilisation. If what was then a desert was now civilised country, it was due to the teaching and the aid of science, which held together ever more closely the whole widespread British Empire (Cheers).