Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 19 July 1892, Page 3

Notes and Events.

How Dickens felt when he was to begin a new story is described by him in a letter to Leigh Hunt, dated Friday, 4th May, 1855, a time when he had just finished " Hard Times," which appeared in " Household Words," and was preparing to commence " Little Dorrit : " I am now (he writes) to boot, in the wandering unsettled, lestless, uncontrollable state of being about to begin a new book. At such a time I am as infirm of purpose as Macbeth, as errant as Mad Tom, and as rugged as Timon. I sit down to work, do nothing and get up and walk a dozen miles, came back and sit clown again next day, again do nothing and get up, go down a railroad, find a place where I resolve to stay for a month ; come home next morning, go strolling about for hours and hours, reject all engagements to have my time to myself, get tired of myself, and yet can't come out of myself to be pleasant to anybody else."

Mr Stead, in the Review of Review*, writing on the Behring Arbitration, asserts : "What is wanted is first that England and America should agree to rafer all disputes to arbitration, and then to proceed to constitute a supreme international tribunal, probably by delegation from the Supreme Court and the Judicial Committee of tha Privy Council, that would take all disputed business naturally and as a matter of course. The difficu'ties in the way of roreferring disputes to a tribunal are increased twenty-fold when you have to a^t'eo to construct the tribunal before you can send tbe ease to arbitration."

The great danger of trouble in Egypt is brought to mind by Mr Stead, who points out that in the firman appointing the new Khedive of Egypt, the Sultan had taken pains to vary the form so as to have been free to re-annex the peninsula of Sinai to Turkey. This litth game was exposed and frustrated by the vigilance of our Resident.

Mr Stead further exposes the capital manner in which the Woman's Liberal Federation have turned upon their creators and used the formation to secure the franchise. The G.O.M. dislikes woman's suffrage, will have none of it, but he admits the great assistance women are in canvassing. The Woman's Liberal Federation was therefore formed, with Mrs Gladstone as President, and the wives of probable Ministers as the Executive Committee, to fight the Dames of the Conservative Primrose League. When the branch associations were formed, the political women came to the front, and at its annual meeting a resolution was passed in favour of woman's suffrage. The Executive Committee resigned, and Mrs Gladstone would have, could she have, but the times were against her, so at present she appears as the head of a League having for Us purpose a political object to which her husband is strongly opposed to.