TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14888, 30 January 1914, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Visitors to Australia may The notice in the harbours of First Sydney and Melbourne Flagship, men-of-war of an unfamiliar type. They are the forerunners of the Australian Navy of to-day, ami date back many years. The Australia could deal with all these small old craft with her little finger, but they still serve a useful purpose. One of them is tho Gayundah, a thirty-year-old flat-iron gunboat, which until now has had her fore-deck cut very low to enable an eight-inch gun to protrude from the middle of her forehead —as it were—heavy armament for a vessel of only 360 tons. The Gayundah has had an interesting career. In the 'eighties aho represented three-fourths, or perhaps nine-tenths, of the Queensland Navy, and she is the only ship that ever turned her guns on the police in Australia. According to the "Sydney Morning Herald," the captain quarrelied with the Government over supplies. The Auditor-General wanted to know what became of thirteen cases of gunpowder and a ton of nails, and holding the captain responsible, called on him to resign. The captain refused to do so, and ordered tho ship to be made ready for eea, so that he could got derwn to Sydney arid report to the admiral there. In the middle of the preparations a hundred policemen appeared on shore opposite the, vessel, armed with rifles, and tho captain was informed that they had come to arrest his ship. The "old man" retaliated by sounding "general quarters'for action," and the guns were swung out, but when the gunners looked along them the police had gone to" cover. In the end wiser counsels prevailed, and the captain resigned. But though the Gayundah did not fight that day, she had the honour, years afterwards, of being the first Commonwealth flagship, long before the Australia type was thought of. Shortly after the Commonwealth was inaugurated the Commonwealth fleet of the day emerged in line ahead from the Brisbane river. The Gayundah was leading, the Paluma kept station on her, the picket boat Midge brought up the" rear. On that historic cruise the Gayundah bore the senior officer's flag, and those who man her have not forgotten it. Tho Gayundah to-day has the engines that brought her out in 1884, and ehe can steam faster now than she could then. She is used for training naval reserve men, and is at work year in and year out, though she yields few newspaper paragraphs. She steams 14,000 miles a year, and. does so very cheaply. This 360-ton vessel of an obsolete type may bo useful for another twenty years. At any rate the authorities have faith in her, for they are now putting in accommodation for another twenty men. Tho recent death of the A Famous Rev. Ernest Charles Law Suit. TLellusson, of Ardfallen, Oxton, recalls a oncefamous will and a celebrated law case. Mr Thellusson was a descendant of Peter Thellusson, who died over a century ago, and by his peculiar will gave profitable employment to tho legal profession for many years afterwards. The will provided that tho residue of the Thellusson Estate should not be touched for five generations; the income during this timo was to be accumulated and finally divided among the heirs of his great-great-grandchildren. Such a will, though almost unique in its provisions,, was quite legal in the eighteenth century, and old Peter Thellusson went down to his grave with the comfortable assurance that his distant posterity would bless his name, even if his more immediate heirs were to display a not unnatural disappointment. The estate in question was a valuable one. Tho annual value of the real estate was about £5000, and the total personal estate amounted to over £600,000. 11 all had gone as Peter Thellusson expected, the beneficiaries of ihe estate would have had some £14,000,000 among them. Time went on, and in 1856, when Thellusson had been in his grave for half a century, the right heirs seemed to have arrived. But the different claims clashed, and a protracted lawsuit began to decide who should get the money. The case lasted some years, aad finally the House of Lords decided in favour of Lord Rendlesham and Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson. But the heavy legal expenses had swallowed up nearly all the increased value that Peter Thellusson had anticipated. He had sacrificed the interests of his living heirs largely in vain. A will of a similar character could not be legally made to-day. In 1800 tho Accumulations Act had . oeen passed, providing ag«iu:V such tying-up of estates. It ensured that no rr.e could dispose of his property in a way that its rents were to accumulate for more than twenty-one years after the death of the grantor, or dur-

fng the Trinority of any one person. This statute is the law to-day, and under its clauses any -will attempting to hold back bequests or legacies beyond the statutory term becomes void twentyone years after the testator's death. Probably few of those- to A "whom (or omelPotato ette) Parmentier" is a Pioneer, familiar dish associate them with Antoino Parmentier, whoso centenary was celebrated on tho 17th of last month; or if they do, they doubtless know , little or nothing about him. The Paris correspondent of "Tho Times" throws some light on the career of this genial and industrious chemist, whoso fame though not widely spread, has yet secured him a statue in the town of Neuilly. Parmentier was, among other things, the populariser of tho potato in France. Sir Walter Raleigh introduced the potato into England, where it speedily became a familiar article of food. But in France, ever eince its first introduction from Peru, it had been the object of strango prejudices. It was accused of causing fever and weakness, and suspected of producing all kinds of ailments, even leprosy. If any enterprising person who experimented in potato cookery happened to fall ill, people at once cried, "I told you so!" and tho potato went down one more degree in popular favour. It was to Parmentier's scientific exposition of its nutritivo value, and his campaign in its favour that the final dissipation of these scruples and the spread of the cultivation of the potato on a large scale were due. Parmentier was born in Normandy, was apprenticed to an apothecary, and when eighteen years of age was sent to Hanover during tho Seven Years' War on the medical staff of the army. Here he continued his study of medicine under the famous physician Meyer, and here it was that he first became acquainted with the nutritive properties of the potato. After the war he returned to Paris, and, in 1778, published a treatise on the potato, in which he demolished the current prejudices against it. Ho succeeded in obtaining from the Government 80 acres of waste land north of the Bois do Boulogne in which to make experiments. People jeered at him as a crank, but Parmentier continued importurbably to "cultivate his garden." When, in due time the flowers appeared, he presented a bunch to Louis XVI., who at once placed it in his buttonhole, thereby assuring the success of the potato in the future. Tho Royal chef followed up the victory by. inventing the "pommO soufflee," and this palatable dish quite won over tho Court to tho side of the potato. Parmentier himself followed his potatoes into Court favour, and this fact possibly accounted for his failure as a candidate for election about the time of the beginning of the Revolution. "Wβ won't have him," the electors cried, "he will make us eat nothing but potatoes." So they ehoso another candidate and thus ended the political life of this "potato pioneer'i"