NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 257, 3 November 1906, Page 9

NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

~ Japanese correspondent gives interT~ Retails or the complete recovery sea at Sasebo of the submerged Lvjeship Jliiasa-- which sank there SfflSy after the victory of Admiral ?Z>> 3 fleet in the adjacent Straits of Tsushima. Ai«t repeated disappoint- „ t= r-aiiscd by nnpropitious weather, rtf hose ship was floated on the Sth of i , imt This intelligence, says the cor«S>ondent. spread to all corners of the Empire- and was at first received rather the hopo of refloating the va r=bip having been by many altogether " The Town Council of chiißonoseki regarded it as an event of to <reat importance a.~ to warrant au appeal to the authorities to grant a genJal amnesty- It was not expected that ± - ne attempt" to raise her would be made D ntil the 10th. but who on the Sth wr e up with the lark saw that vast preparations were being made, more than a fiotisand workmen of all grades—engineers, artisans, and coolies —being assemyesl on the wharves of Sasebo, and the utmost activity being visible everywhere. jot thi*. a* one tui vernacular jourMis puts it, was to be a great day in gg a nnals of Japan. The four powerful ay-inch pumps brought by the British Vessel Batoum, each capable of discharging three thousand tons an hour, whjn jet to work created no little astonishment among the onlookers, it seems, and, i= the writer of the account given in the Osaka journal says, "with clear skies jnd the favour of Heaven, the nnited itTenvih of men and machinery proved jqoaf to the task/ By the joint aid of tie ship's OWJI pusips and the divers it Jsd been possible to prepare for raising steam- and as she gradually rose it was seen that her own funnels were emitting Hnoke. and the flagship of Admiral Togo once more seemed a living thing to the enraptjred multitude. She was almost E year submerged, having sunk on the sight of September 11. and when she Soatsd she was covered entirely with mud. and her condition internally was such as to demand first of all the services of the sanitary corps to rid the vessel of dancerous accumulations of poisonous •rases. The Mikasa was found to -have ten large holes in her sides., to say nothing of an abundance of smaller leaks.

An amusing example of the idiosyncrasies of the British postal authorities 35 told in "Truth."' A post-card received from France had the stamp on the back instead of the front, and a surcharge of 3d was paid by the addressee. Out of enriosfty he asked how this amount was calculated, and got the reply that the pterin? of the stamp on the back of the card made it an insufficiently stamped letter, and the stamp on the card being tie equivalent of Id only, the deficiency at the letter rate of postage was ljd, TrMch. doubled, amounted to the surciarge made. Including the penny prepaid, the postage of the card cost 4d; yet if the sender had omitted to stamp it at all the surcharge would only have been twopence.

It wonld l>e rather a surprise to the fcedeaters of the Tower if one of the fiats oi armour suddenly came to life «&&. itself Riehajrd TV. come •to cvmge tie wrong done at Bosworth, says the "Pall Mall Gazette." The astonishment of the attendants at Versailles, who happened to be a soldier of tie Second Empire, must have been scarcely le=ij when a visitor espied nn "effigy"' of Napoleon I. lying on the Kmperors bed in full Napoleonic costume, and when that "effigy" sat np and proclaimed itself Napoleon" IV., who had fought a Seaan and was now about to resume his Imperial rank. There was bo rallying round of the faithful Bonapariists, however. 'T will go aJiyTf&ere you desire,"' said Niipoleon IV.. fc hut don't send mc to !St. Helena." fflej didn't; they sent him. to a lunatic asylum a good deal short of that. He lad a Napoleonic bee in his bonnet, in fact. Still, he got a good deal nearer to business than the Napoleonic Pretender proper has ever done.

Scientists for many a long year past iiave been trying to discover the secret of life—that is to say, the indefinable eomethjng that separates the organic from the inorjrahic world- Tlie latest alleged discovery in this direction comes Jrom Xante*. There Professor Ledna, uf the Medical school, lias announced that lie is able to produce '"the elementary cells of life." He lias certainly produced something that he styles "living cells." because under suitable conditions they increase in nuniber when placed together —in short, appear to treed. After lonjj experiments with various fluids Professor Ledna claims that he has produced cells that grow and form tissue after, he manner of vegetables. A well-known Ifotanist is stated to have been deceived by them and to have taken them for the. tissues of some hither unknown plant. Ajl this lias yet to be substantiated, and scientific circles are tery sceptical on the matter. Some thing more tangible will have to bo produced by Professor Ledna be-fore he persuade the world that the veil ef Isis has at last been lifted.

. A thought ful person has been studying iae ways of eats and especially neighbours' cat? in hack gardens, and has 1 it on a method, which he gives to the pubj*c, of discouraging them from displaying much affability in the flower beds. He points out that shooting cats is a "sky experiment, owing to' lesral coiupucations, and he has therefore perfected a scheme in which a common cardan plays an important part. He ativises the person who suffers from the cat■excursion's to hide himself out of agat, armed with the loaded hose-pipe and when the cat appears allow it to get withm easy range. Then turn on tae hose-pipe full blast. He gives the assurance that no cat thus entertained « a s been known t<, return to that gar- «°- Ihe idea looks effective, and would ato appear to offer opportunity for fun. v there were plenty of eats about.

So fu . foUowin " ivininiseenee of life African war is recounted by wav Maff officers were then made of. A staff onicer i lad {o heud ft mes t(j tbc general commanding a Belabouring coland called a colonial trooper to ~m Having explained that the. eoltonjra due west, lie added: "Of course, hJJtl' I™*™* that in the soutnern the sun sets in the east. J, 1 ' 1S - getting ™w. Keep your Sγ* it, and you will find the general." AJe truth or this is vouched for! but, of fting c oU i d happen now. The staff S has '. BO doubt > like the rest of as, ™c* leaning "the lessons of the war"— we nurserj,

Grant Allen-fold- in a well-known «tory how a civilised-' nigger parson found the eaU of the blood too Sron * and reverted suddenly to his savagery- \ similar phenomenon was recently witnessed on a wholesale scale in >ew York, were 2000 negro servants were holding a dance. The civilising conditions of the waiter's ot domestic servants life might have been expected to drill restraint into the African nature only less effectually than the clerical career; but the 'rag-time music suddenly made the negro blood feel at nonie, svreet home. Hundreds of the dancers began to tear each other, to go for the white waiters with bottles, and to knock teeth out of the police when they arrived. Afterwards, the popula.ee of the district, which is "all black." assembled on the roofs and showered down bricks and ihot water on the police, who were driven, bo far as a Xew \ ork Irish policeman requires driving, to clubbing every black head they saw. The incident* provided an awkward _ test for the 10,000 negroes at the time in congress at Memphis, Tennessee, to discuss" their race's rights to social recognition.

According to Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the reason why we take too little interest in the drama is that we take too mrucb interest in football. There is no rear son in the nature of things why the two interests should clash, seeing that it is not the custom to play football after dark; nor would it appear to be the teaching of history that gaanes and theatres cannot flourish side by side. The Olympian games and the Athenian theatre were simultaneously popular Institutions. The gladiatorial games at Rome, which present points of analogy with the game of football a* at present played, did not prevent the Romans from applauding the works of Plautns and Terence. A" still more apposite ease is furnished by the condition of things in our own Elizabethan age. Shakespeare, if Mr. Bernard Shaw -will allow- us to say so, was a dramatist not without merit. Yet the time when Shakespeare was producing his most memorable plays was the time when it was ccanpulscry to play football on the vil lage green every Sunday after morning church. It looks, therefore, as if Mr. Tree would have to cast about for another explanation of the decline of the public enthusia-sin for the art which he practise?.

The heavy-weight ex-champion bruiser of the world has made & public statement. His character has been assailed by a common milkman, whom he had threatened to beat, and the world-famed knocker-out found it necessary to protest in the Police Court that he was too much of a gentleman to dirty his hands by laying them on the man who looked after the cow with the iron tail. In America it is evidently possible to be both a bruiser and a gentleman. You have heard of Jim Cotfeett.. a once champion pugilist, who on «ne occasion received such a bruising hitwelf that he after- | wards chucked up the sponge and took to another and easier profession in the melodrama line. But Ist Corbett tell his own tale. '"I am a gentleman, your Honor, and belong to the profession of gentlemen. 1 have always been a gentleman, and I am kno\m throughout the civilised world as a gentleman. Many persons are under the mistaken irnpresi sion that because I was once a pugilist lam nothing- but a brate. That impression is malicious, and utterly false. I "never -threivterned the asilkman, and neither did I shake my list at him. I would not hit or threaten a milkman, and. this charge is brought for tie purpose of annoying mc." Covbett is undoubtedly right. After reading his statement one cannot think of him as anything else but a gentleman, and the milkman deserved punishing for his lying audacity in sayins he was otherwise, and so did the judge for having Corbett bound over to be of good behaviour.

f The League of the Empire" publish a J summary of answers received to a set of i questions as to what English girls read, I which the league sent out all over the British Empire. Among novelists Seton Merrimaii is more popular with British girls than any other novelist. Anthony, Hope is often named, but almost always for his earlier novels, "Rupert of Hentzau" and "The Prisoner of Zenda." Marie i Corelli is not much read. Stanley Weyjman is extremely popular, and Lytton j surprisingly so. '"Lorna Doone.' 5 is a. 'great favourite, but other novels of i Blaekmore's are rarely named. The j ''Vilar of Wabefield" constantly appears. L. T. Meade, E. E. Green, Rosa Nouchette Carej, Ethel Turner, and ihe "Mrs Wigg3' ! books are often the favourite 1 reading , of girls of fifteen and sixteen. '■ Colonial girls often mention ''Alice in Wonderland/ but English girls not nearly so often. The great majority of girls are interested in daily papers. Many read only the sporting news, the parts about Royalty and its doings, and the births, deaths, and marriage?; but many also read literary criticisms, everything relating to art or music, often the '"gardening" chat, while a large proportion read about the elections and the Parliamentary debates. English girls tend to take more interest in politics than colonial girls. As a rule Tennyson's poems are. the most popular. Shakespeare is mentioned nearly as often, but Tennyson usually leads, his favourite poems being the "Idylls of the King," "In Memoriam,"

"The Princess," and certain minor poems such as "The Lady of Shalot.' , Browning also holds a high place with English girls, andwith all girls Scott and Longfellow are popular. No poems, except Tennyson's, are more often mentioned than "Hiawatha" and "Evahgeline," with "The Lady of the Lake" and "Mannion." Rossptti, Matthew Arnold, Kipling, and

"Omar Khayyam' 1 find readers among the more intelligent girls. In English classics Ruskin, Lamb and Bunyan are, perhaps, the more frequently mentioned after Shakespeare.

History has recorded the names and exploits of various notable Theresas. There have been the noble Spanish Saint of Avila, the Empress Maria-Theresa, "Theresa" the popular singer of the Parisian music-hall stage in the palmy days of the Second Empire; and there is Theresa the Turbulent, better known as Miss Theresa Billington, the. suffering

••suffragette."' But none of these has been acclaimed, by the poular voice as Theresa the Great. That honour has been conferred exclusively on Mine. Therese Humbert,' heroine of the phantom million?, inventor of "ies ireres Crawford," and custodian of that colossal instrument of the confidence trick, the famour "eoffre-fort." "La Grande Therese" has languished in gaol for three full years, since August, 1903; bufc now is reported her release, and that of her husband's. She promises to reveal hidden millions, but the world is naturally sceptical. We. shall be curious to see whether Madame will try and stagger humanity by some new '•'coup." At all events we hope she will write her Memoirs in all sincerity. They should be extremely piquant reading, if '•"La Grande Therese" will only tell tha truth, J3ut can she?