News, Notes and Notions.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 20, 13 May 1908, Page 44

News, Notes and Notions.

Now is the day of the luscious banana and the juicy orange; and while “Colonials” or “Dominionites” are revelling in these luxuries, it is well that they should be reminded of the dangers attendant upon the careless disposal of the peel of these fruits. In the cities and larger towns where paved side-walks are the rule, the indiscriminate throwing down of orange and banana skins is an act little short of criminal. Serious accidents frequently occur- through pedestrians treading on these slippery substances; and by-laws seem as powerless to prevent the practice as is the thoughtful municipal provision of receptacles for refuse. Nothing, it would seem, will avail save an appeal to the good sense and good feeling of fruit-eaters. Such an appeal was to be seen the other- day in the form of a cardboard hung out on a telegraph pole in front of a boardinghouse in Shortland-street, Auckland, bearing an inscription which read as follows:—“Boarders are requested not to throw orange and banana peel on the pavement.” This respectful request might well be copied by the municipal authorities, with the alteration of the first word, and displayed in the principal city streets, and more especially at those corners most haunted by the frugivorous crowd. We New Zealanders are in the main a Socialistic people, and. earnestly desirous of carrying out altruistic principles. But—-

“Evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as by want of heart”;

and it is necessary that thoughtless people should be reminded that their pleasure, in the shape of open-air fruit-eat-ing, may mean a broken leg or sprained ankle to some unsuspecting pedestrian. Let everyone earing friut in the streets be careful to place the dangerous peel where it can do no harm, and one of the terrors of city life will be removed. <•><s>«•> A Continental bagman and an American sportsman differed as to the length -of time a hufiian being could remain in a railway train. The bagman for- a stake of £1,200 undertook to do so for a year, and he spent 1907 in travelling from Vienna to Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck, going and returning. He won the bet in spite of an attack of influenza, and it is now recorded that his health, “with the exception of a slight nervous shock, is good.” Our experience of Continental trains compels us to acknowledge that the victor must be as hard as nails and more patient and long-suffering than Job. But that is the only praise we can bestow, for we do not particularly admire anyone who is content to waste a year of life to win a bet. The individual who walks round the world with a wheelbarrow or who starts in a suit of paper and begs himself over the same route has at least the advantage of seeing many lands; but the train hugger might have spent the time as profitably in the dark burrow of a mole. ❖ ❖ 4> Tiie United States possesses no fewer than 25,000 miles of rivers actually navigated, 25,000 miles of other rivers which are or might be made navigable, 2500 miles of navigable canals, and 2500 miles of sounds, bays and bayous that might be connected by canal. In extent, distribution, navigability and ease of use, says Mr. Roosevelt, the river systems of America stand first, yet “the rivers of no other civilised country are so poorly developed.” The commission, whose report Mr. Roosevelt has been commending to Congress, was appointed as a result of the inability of the railways to handle the traffic of the country in the autumn of 1906. The recent commercial depression has temporarily removed this difficulty, but on a return of prosperity the congestion. of the ordinary means of “transportation” may be expected to recur, in which case the President’s exhortations will be seen to be abundantly justified. <?><?><!> The proposed closing of the Dutoitspan diamond mine in a few weeks’ time recalls one of the most romantic stories of the South African diamond fields.

Less than 40 years ago a man called De Beers was fanning a few hundred barren acres of veldt near Dutoitspan, and leading a sordid life with his family in a miserable one-storey house, which was more fit for cattle than for human beings. One day in 1871 one of his children, while playing, saw a flash of light from the mud-covered wall of the house, and, on examination, found that it came from a small, glass-like pebble, embedded in the wall. He dug out the pebble with his penknife, and took it proudly to his father. The pebble proved to be a valuable diamond, the first fruits of the rich store of gems which lay hidden under the farmer’s barren acres. Mr. De Beers sold his farm for £6000; the Dutoitspan, De Beers, and Kimberley mines revealed their treasures of gem; and within a few years £50,000,000 would not have bought the farm, which, before that lucky discovery, De Beers would gladly have sold for a few shillings an acre.—-“ Westminster Gazette.” <s><s>■s It is suggested that a law should be passed, forbidding preTanity on the New York stage. An American journalist asserts that there is scarcely a musical show, a vaudeville entertainment, or a legitimate comedy that does not yield at one moment or another, to those who have set the seal of approval upon “cuss words.” No matter how refined the subject or how polite the topic, it is safe to say that the introduction of these polluted colloquialisms will “get a laugh.” Every playwright knows this. He may pretend that he doesn’t, but he does. He not only knows it, but he avails himself of the knowledge. Every sketch writer knows it. You cannot escape the results of this knowledge. Profanity has come to be part and parcel of New York’s daily vocabulary. Wherever men or women congregate it is inevitably heard. And the stage, that pictures daily life—or at least its objectionable side—does not forget this. The stage, never leading, but always following, gives New York what New York seems to fancy most—-unabridged and unexpurgated profanity. <S> <s> <®> It is idle to pretend that woman is without influence in the world when we read that the Norwegian railways are now offering to sell tickets at a reduced rate to married men travelling with their wives. A mere man, we may be sure, though clever enough to be a chairman of a Board of Directors, would never have thought out that scheme all by himself. It is evidently the outcome of the combined intelligence of spinsters desirous of putting a premium on matrimony, and of matrons who cannot trust their husbands out of their sight. By what means a clerk at a booking-office is expected to be able to distinguish a traveller’s wife from his grandmother or his seaside cousin is not explained in the summary of the regulations which we have seen. It would be a good deal to require him to draw his inferences from the general demeanour of the couple; and the door would not necessarily be slammed in the face of fraud if the ticket inspector were empowered to inspect marriage lines as well as tickets; for even in Norway it cannot be a criminal offence for travellers to leave their marriage lines at home. Probably the directors, inspired by their women-folk, are placing their trust in the primitive honesty of an unsophisticated people; and only experience can show whether that confidence is well founded. «><s>s> •’ The removal, after a violent debate, of Zola’s honoured dust to the Pantheon will add another stormy chapter to the stormy history of that French national Valhalla. It is sad that such controversies should rage over the honour to be done to the dead; but the faet remains that no great man can be sure of finding an abiding city in this place of burial for the illustrious. The body of Rousseau was conveyed there in triumph in the days of the Revolution; but his tomb was presently pillaged, as was also tha tomb of Voltaire. The remains of Mirabeau were laid there in great pomp—• but not to rest. The public changed their minds about him, and flung his body.

out to make room for that of Marat Then, a little later, people changed their •minds about Marat, and. his dust, in turn, was thrown into a sewer. “Between Temple of All the Immortals and Cloaca of the World,” writes Carlyle, “how are poor human creatures whirled!” One fondly hopes that the precedent has no bearing on the ceremony now announced; but the announcement inevitably recalls these memories of the fickleness of popular favour. ❖ <?><s> There is at least one Christian for. whom the Moors should entertain a profound respect. This is Lord Mountniorres. For that nobleman has effectually paid the believers back in the current coin of absolute unserupulousness. Having gone to Cape Juby in his yacht to arrange for he ransom of the captive French fishermen, Lord Mountmorres invited the two headmen of the tribe who had captured them to come on board and discuss terms of ransom. The tribesmen (possibly remembering the leading case of Raisuli and Sir Harry Maclean)] complied with the request, doubtless expecting that a British subject would bo

no less punctilious than the British Government. But Lord Mountmorres was equal to the occasion. Having got his men safely on board, he informed them that there they would stay until the Captives were released. The Moors murmured, “It was written,” and, like good fatalists, accepted the inevitable, and gave orders for the release of the prisoners. But the name and fame of the Lord Mountmorres must stand high in their favour. He is the sort of Nazarene to deal effectually with the Moslem as the Moslem is in Morocco. <•><•><•>

Apropos of President Roosevelt’s impending retirement from public life* Mr Dooley has been discussing the place which an ex-President ought to take in society. “No sir,” he says, “th’ question iv what we’ll do with our ex-Prisi-dints is on’y important to th’ ex-Prisi-dints them silves. We’ll say to thim: — ‘Ye’ve often told us we were th’ most enlightened, th’ freest, th’ kindest, an’ best people in th’ wurruld. Well, we’re goin’ to do something fine f’r ye. We’re goin’ to make ye wan iv us. Last week ye were out servant. Ye said so, though ye often come out an’ batted us over th’ head with a potato masher. Ye were our servant, but we’re goin’ to promote ye'. We’re goin’ to make ye an equal. We’re goin’ to take ye out iv th’ kitchen. There’s a new cook in there now. I can hear him throwin’ ye’er soup stock out iv th’ window an’ sayin’ that ye’ve injured th’ stove beyond repair. Take that big aisy chair near th’ fire, fall to ■wife knife an’ fork, an’ thank th’ Lord ye don’t have to ate ye’er own cookin’.’ An’ the ex-Prisidint squares away an’ puts in th’ rest iv his life criticizin’ th’ manners iv th’ fam’ly an’ mutterin’ between his teeth. ‘What a cook.’ “What wud ye do if ye were an ex-Pri-Bidint?” asked Mr Hennessy. “Well.” said Mr Dooley, “if I wanted something rale hard to do, something that wud keep me busy an’ take up all me time to th’ end iv me days, I’d thry to be Prisidint (again.” ’ ■’ _ <s><s’s> There is nothing in the eternal fitness of things proclaiming the male as the necessary superior of the female throughout nature, writes Sir Ray Lankester. The fact is that the question of equality and of general superiority and inferiority has no place in regard to male and female from a naturalist’s point of view. “It is true that women are so very much less endowed with muscular strength than men that practically every woman is inferior to every man in this respect. It is also true that woman’s brain is smaller than anan’s, and that, apart from mere size, the intellectual activity and capacity of women, by whatever test you examine it, is less than that of man. When exceptional eases on both sides are excluded, the definite intellectual inferiority of the average woman, as compared Jvith the average man, is established as a fact. But women, on the other hand, Uli a place in. human life as mothers, and administrators of detail, and as companions, in which man, by nature of cannot compete with them at all. At the house of the late Sir James Knowles, some 25 years ago, when discussing the relative value of the physical and intellectual capacities of the men as compared with the women of the English working class, Mr. Gladstone said, “I am of opinion that the relative value bf a man and a woman is in all classes of society about the same as it was in my grandfather’s time in Jamaica, when they purchased slaves. They gave £ 120 for a man and £BO for a woman, and that is a fair measure of their relative value all the world over.” Mr. Gladstone was not estimating the ultimate value of women in human life when he said this. He would, I think, have considered, as I do, that it is absurd to attempt to estimate that or to raise a discussion as to general superiority and inferiority in reference to the male and the female Of the human species. They are creatures as necessary one as the other, differing from one another profoundly, and excelling one another in diverse qualities and capacities. What Mr. Gladstone es-

timated aa being leas by one-third in women than in men ia power —work value—whether physical or intellectual. I think Mr. Gladstone's estimate must be admitted as true.”