NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 10 May 1901, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

EvEivyBODY knows that money wears *>ut, but we fancy most people will he amazed when told that John Bull has worn out over half a mil ion of money in his pocket since the Queen's accession to the throne. As a matter of fact, the loss to the Mint during the last eighn years has heen at the rate of something like .€2OO a day, but this represents the waste of all the years previous to 1892, when light coins were first withdrawn from circulation. In the first year' of the calling in of light gold the total va'uo of the deficiency was over quarter of a million, an average of about 4d. on a sovereign.

Tns British navy is growing bigger | and so are the ships. Hitherto the Admiralty hasbaen content with firstclass battleships of 15,000 tons displacement, but as other powers have followed our lead in that direction, it has been decided to put on more weight, and the new battleships (.juoen and Prince of Wales will be of 18,000 tons displacement. The increased bulk will of course give room for more guns and armour, and will also, it is urged, diminish the risk of inconvenience from torpedoes, because the bigger the ship the more easily can systems of water-tight compartments ba amplified.

There is a boom in centenarians just now. Lady Jane Catew, who was grown up at the time of the famous ball at Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, and was married in 1816, is over 10J, ha'e and hearty, and can still enjoy a game of cards. Guernsey, too rejoices in the possession of an old lady aged 108, by name Mrs Neve. No doubt there are a good many' old parties about, and we should not be surprised some day to hear of a orowded meeting of centarians summoned together to discuss the rights < f the aged. However obscure a man or woman may have been, let him or her put a halting foot over the hundredyear bar and fame will arrive.

It is not generally known that it is the custom of most natives of South Africa, on returning home from work in the mines, to present the paramount chief of their tribe with a certain sum of money. The amount of tribute, or whatever it is called, varies in different tribes, but it is stated that the astute chief of the Shangaans, Gungunyana, who rebelled against the Portuguese in East Africa, and was sent into exile, gathered together no less than 15 large grain baskets full of sovereigns, and just prior to his capture had them buried close to his "great place." Only the most trusted Induna was told the whereabouts of the hidden treasure. What a bonanza some day for a wily prospector !

At the recent Liverpool assizes, Mr. Justice Darling had twj bigamy cases to try, and the sentences which he passed seemed to suggest that his lordship believes that the man who commits a bigamous marriage at a registry office is not so big a scoundrel a 3 the man who goes through a service in a place of worship. In one case a church official and bell-ringer, wha had gone through a form of marriage with three women, in addition to his lawful wife, was sentenced to three years' penal servitude, the judge remarking that the prisoner, by virtue of his position, was well acquainted with the fact that " marriage was peculiarly sacred." In the other case the sentence was three days' imprisonment, presumably because the prisoner had only committed bigamy in a registrar's office, and, as the judge put it, " had not profaned any religious ceremony." As the law recognises no distinction between marriage in church and marriage in a registrar's office, one would think that a bigamous union in either place would be equally cruel and villainous. Mr Justice Darling evidently thinks otherwise