NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1305, 1 October 1914, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

The Swiss Society of Public Utility for Women makes an appeal urging every young girl of marriageable age to undergo a physical examination by a doctor “for the sake of herself, her husband, and her country.” The object of the society is the betterment of the race and the home until the day when the Government takes the matter in hand and demands certificates of health before sanctioning a marriage.

The following curious prophecy was published in the Cologne Courant in 1703: —“When men fly like birds, ten great kings will go to war against each other. The universe will be under arms. Women will bring in the harvest. They will begin the vintage, but the men will complete it.”

The war has been the cause of particular anxiety to a young naturalised German resident in Wanganui, says the Chronicle, His brothers are fighting with the Germans, and his sisters’ husbands, who are French, are fighting with the Allies.

“I myself am no party man,” declared Bishop Averill at a meeting in the Auckland Town Hall on Saturday night. “I do not know anything of politics as politics, but try to vote for the man who has a clean reputation, and who desires to uplift the people and bring about as far as he can national righteousness. Remember, you and I have a vote, and we have to record that vote. Alter consulting with our consciences, it is our duty to support men and principles which are likely to honour God and to raise the tone of the people and to strengthen the national character. I consider this to be a far greater duty for men and women than merely to be members of any particular party.”

An English officer who was iu Belgium when the war broke out says : “The Belgians were at first extremely dubious of our intention to send troops to Belgium to support them, and night after night, at a certain well-known seaside resort, they crowded about the British Consulate for news. When it was definitely known that the British expeditionary force had started, Belgian men and women asked for the Union Jack to be brought out by the Consul, and when this was done they filed past, kissing it. I saw this with, my own eyes.’’

Mr Austen Chamberlain recalls that when he was a student in Berlin a professor, preaching on the superiority of the Prussian spirit of duty, said: “Prussia will make her culture and civilisation supreme throughout the world, but Britain is the greatest obstacle.” The only reproach against our statesmen, said Mr Chamberlain, was that they kept the danger too secret.