GENERAL ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1642, 25 November 1916, Page 4

GENERAL ITEMS.

Writing to (the New York Call, from Paris, Charlies Edward Russell, a well-known Socialist journalist, who visited New Zealand some years ago, says that the war has upset all the old notions about national trails and characteristics. He writes: “The old idea; that the French wore merciful, emotional, and unstable was annihilated at the Marne, and afterwards; it will never be heard again. AN e used to say these things of the French, and of the English say that .they were steady, cool, impassive, and undemonstrative. NVe have lived to see all the qualities of reserve and poise manifested by the English now manifested by the hrench. JVhen the wounded are brought in jxt Charing Cross, London, 30,000 people jam the streets to make holiday to laugh and cheer and throw flowers imd dance. When the wounded come in at the Garc de IEst, Paris, the people stand in silence, with hared heads and clenched jaws.” San Francisco and Oakland afO talking of a five-mile bridge to con-,

nect the two <*itie^; plans, indeed, hove been submitted to the United States Secretary of War, and a hoard of army engineers has been appointed, which has .just held hearings in the two cities preparatory to a report upon the feasibility of the undertaking’. Over 40,01)0,000 people are annually carried across the bay, and during rush hours the ferry steamers are uncomfortably crowded. Traffic is increasing at such a rale that before the bridge could be completed, five years hence, it will have doubled. The proposed bridge will have two decks, one for steam and electric trains, the other for vehicular traffic. Four transcontinental railway systems now terminate in Oakland, and these will he carried across the heart of the larger city. The estimated cost is 22,000,000 dollars. Two high span* near the San Francisco shore, each 000 ft. long, will allow for the passage of shipping. The bridge will quite put in the shade that over the Forth of Forth in Scotland; hut America is the land of great things!