Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 415, 28 April 1904, Page 2

Traveller.

TRAINS. £sE£ MUNICH gentleman, Hen ©JM® Scheller, first saw the light while JJEZB& Ws mother was on a railway journey. To commemorate this event he for many years was wont to give a dinner on board a moving train. The private saloon, hired for the oooasidn, was handsomely decorated, while the table's centrepiece was a model in ivory and silver of the carriage—which, by Jfche. way, had been purchased and converted into a garden-house—in which the host had been born. His gueate consisted solely of railway guards, his father, at the time of his birth, having occupied that somewhat humble position. In the winter of 1898 William Deatriok, who owned a farm near William boh, Franklin, County, U.S.A., brought a claim ! for damages against the Pennsylvania Railway Company for illegal seizure of land. There being no building of, sufficient size at Williamson to accommodate the jury and witnesses, the Court, having inspected the land, met on the train, where the witnesses were heard. Gradually day dosed in, and as all present desired the case to be finished, and at the same time to reach their houses that night, the lawyers proceeded to address the jury while the train was on its way to Chambersburg, where moat of those engaged resided. Yankee ingenuity has sow provided railway travellers with a novelty, in the form of a theatre, with which to beguile the tedious hours of a long journey. On certain railways a oar, fitted up as a bijou theatre, is attached to the trains. Excellent companies are engaged, and the prices of admission are from one to two dollars.

One of Douglas Cooper's most successful portraits was the outcome of a commission given him by a patron conditionally on its being executed in the train—a then comparatively novel means of locomotion which that gentleman much affected. Under these conditions the artist worked With such success as to obtain further orders from his eccentric sitter, whole wife and daughter he subsequently painted in the same original studio. The sister art, music, is not without indebtedness to the. genius of George Stephenson. Sir Arthur Sullivan was wont to assert that he at times found the rushing motion of the train a great help in composition, and that much of his best music—notably 'lolanthe' was conceived while he was being borne across country at express speed. Isidore de Lara, too, has a; predilection for a railway carriage as a study, and his well-known song, 'The Garden of Sleep,' was thus composed. A railway-saloon has ere: now been for the nonce converted into an auction-room. Some years since, when in Northern Italy, the writer was present at a sale of pictures held in a car of a train while on a journey from Bologna to Florence. This novel auction was a great success, the pictures, though for the most part of indifferent merit, fetching excellent prices. On another occasion, when* in Hungary, the writer visited a small mineralogical museum attached to a train that dragged its tedious way over a local line through a mining district.

THE CONGO. . Mr. Edgar Canisius, an American, jwho was formerly in the service of the Congo State and afterwards in the employ of a trust company on the Congo, gives an account in the * West African Mail' of the Eabber Begime in the Congo State. Describing how rubber is obtained in the Mongala district of the 'domaine prive' by the 'company' to which the Mongala district has been ceded by the Government, and of which the Government holds SO per cent of the shares, Mr Canisius says if the quantity of rubber was satisfastory the native who had worked many days to produce it was required toaocept in payment' mitakos,' pieces of brass wire, six to eight inches long, which were practically of no value as currency. If, on the" other hand, a native had only a small quantity of rubber in his basket, he was taken aside by one of the soldiers, and, after all had been called up, was severely castigated with the fearful whip made of hippopotamus hide, and called the chicotte, and with which the natives in all parts of the Congo are so familiar. Should a chief fail or refuse to furnish rubber, he is promptly brought in by the 'capita' stationed at Iris village—aided, if necessary, by the company's soldierb—and receives a severe flogging, and, perhaps, a month in the chains. Babber thus obtained at Id. a lb. sells in the Antwerp market at over 3s. a lb. Mr Canisius believes that the population of the Equator district has boon considerably thinned by the rubber regime. The estimate made by the.company's oldest agent may be an exaggeration, but he is convinced that thousands have been killed, He affirms that the only agents ever punished for outrages upon the natives have been mere subordinates. 'When anyone does speak out the truth,' says Mr. Canisius, ' the State first tries to browbeat him into silence, andlif Ithat fails, money is brought to bear,'

•": DENMABK. *8 The servant question is a problem here aa everywhere else, but whilst it generally is being discussed by the mistresses only, it has in Denmark been tackled by the workers themselves. An energetic maid-of-all-work had the pluck and the energy to arouse her co-workers, and a meeting was held in Copenhagen. A resolution was passed stating that the work-day should end at 1 o'clock in the evening, and that all work done after that hour should be considered overtime and paid for. It was further laid down that every servant should have one free afternoon a week, and that a minimum wage should be fixed according to the capabilities and the age of the servant. Thus little Denmark has gone ahead in forming a kind of trade union amoagst workers, who so far have been found most difficult to combine. The mistresses are by no means adverse to this combination; they are quite prepared to grant some concessions to the servants if, on the other hand, they could expect more.. efficient workers. It is the same state of things aa in other countries, but perhaps a step in the right direction has been taken by the maid-of-all-work in Copenhagen. '' '"*','

FRANCE. .1 «, Those of ova readers who have had the bad fortune fall ill on boaird a ship have, no doubt, been attended by the official doctor. Some might have wished for the services of a lady doctor, and those could now see their desire fulfilled were they to take a trip from France to the North of Africa. Mademoiselle .Sarah been engaged to act as a ship doctor on. a steamer that plies between MttßeiHes'and AlgiesVahdiao satisfactory has the experiment proved that the Company intend appoinang two more women to act in the, same, capacity on some of their other ships. . ,

Foir Eyebrow.s 6 .faid EyoJasheß.'—To thicken the eyebrows and eyej&sb^jipply.