HERE AND THERE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10065, 5 February 1909, Page 4

HERE AND THERE.

WOULD STOP BULL FIGHTING. The Humanitarian League of England has addressed a petition to King Alfonso iofwSp'anv asking that he- put a stop to bull: fighting. "We do not for a moment,-" says the appeal, "suggest that Englishmen a ie themselves free-from cruelty to animals,. and so have-the rightj'to address remonstrances to rulers of other nations; on the contrary, we are aware that ■ certain ; British 'sports'—especially. the .worrying *of tame deer andiof captured rabbits—arequiteas cruel and much more cowardly than the Spanish-bull' 1 fight itself. 'Tint as the. infliction of., any needless torture on animals seems J>o us to be an evil wherever and by whomsoever it is practised,: and as cruelty is the same thing in all parts of the earth, we think that those who are striving to put an end to cruel pastimes in their own country are justified in also making protest against similar customs elsewhere. For which reason we venture to support the prayers of those of your Majesty' 6 subjects who have asked for the discontinuance of the bull fight as a barbarous pastime unworthy of the high position held by Spain among the nations c-i the civilised world." THE WEALTH OF FRANCE. "We never tire of telling the world that we are a great financial democracy, possessing immense wealth,'' said Frederic F. Flahaut, a banker of Paris, France, who is making a pleasure tour of America. "France's wealth belongs to a majority, and not to a minority of her people. The rich and the excessively opulent, possessing millions, are hardly' to be counted by units r they may be designated by name. The large fortunes are limited- to a few people—possibly ten persons possess each something like' £4,000,000 and over; 100 may have between £400,000 and £2.000.000; 600 may have between £200,000 and £500,000; 4000 have from £BO,OOO to £200,000, and 13,000 have from £40,000 to £BO,OOO. Out of 10,000,000 voters we have from 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 who are capitalists and owners of interest-bearing stock, landed proprietors, holders of Parisian ' bonds, Credit Foneier bonds, railroad bonds, national bonds; members of co-operative bodies, people who put by for the rainy day small sums .in the banks, that serve to assure life or insure against death. It is not the rich who resort to the co-opera-tive companies or to the savings banks. The manner of distribution of property, real and personal, constitutes the fortune of France."

ORIGIN OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM. The Japanese have an interesting legend in connection with the origin of the chrysanthemum. In a garden, bathed in the soft moonlight, a young girl plucked a flower and commenced to strip the petals to see if her fiancee loved her truly. Of a sudden a little god appeared before her and assured her that her fiancee loved her passionately. Your husband will live, he added, as many years as the flower, which I will let you choose, has petals.' With these words he disappeared. The young girl hastened to search the garden for a flower which should have an abundance of petals, but each one appeared to promise but a brief future for her beloved. At length she picked a Persian carnation, and, with the aid of a gold pin. taken from her hair, she separated each of the petals of the flower, so as to increase the number of folioles and of the number of years accorded by the god to her fiancee. Soon, under her deft fingers, orjc, two, three hundred petals, thin, pliant, and beautifully curved, had been evolved, and the younngirl cried for joy to think of the happy future which her ruse had assured her fiancee. So, runs the legend, was the chrysanthemum created one moonlight night in a Japanese garden, where silvery brooks murmured softly as they ran beneath the little bamboo bridges.

SEXOR SAEASATE'S WILL. Large bequests to his native town of I'ampeluna, Spain, are contained in the will of Senor Sarasate, the famous violinist. He left to the School of Music at Pampeluna his musical library and £IOOO i to found an annual orize. He left £6OO ' for tie poor of the town, and to. the town council he bequeathed his piano, two of his violins and his bows, jewels, and decorations to be exhibited in' a special room. His famous 1y24 Strndivarius violin, a sift from Queen Isabella of .Spain, lie left to the Paris Conservatoire of Music, where he received his first musical instruction and gained his first success. The Conservatoire also receives a sum of £BOO for .ill annual violin prize. To the Madrid Conservatoire of Music he left £4OOO for the same object. By his will .Senor (Siraeate bequeathed his 1713 Stradivarius violin to the .South Kensington Museum "as a remembrance of the welcome and the successes which I obtained in England." By a codicil, however, he revoked the becuiest and left the violin to the Madrid Conservatoire. He left £I6OO to his valet, Charles Gouin, and £4OO to his cook, Marie Diirand, should they lie in his service at his death, and his villa at Biarritz, and £6OO to Bertilla Goldsehmidt, the residue being divided between his two sisters. The total value of the estate is not yet known. The British property is worth £2413. NAPOLEOX'S SAYIXGS. ■ Hitherto unpublished aphorisms of Xapoleon 1., collected by Count Eoederer, a high official of the Council of State, both under Bonaparte's Consulate and after his proclamation as Emperor, have been given to the Matin by M. Vitrac, one of the librarians of the Bibliotheque Xationale. who is bringing out the count's literary remains in book form. Count Eoederer, wherever he had an audience of Xapoleon. went straight home and wrote down word for word all the first Consul or Emperor had told. him. Some of Bonaparte's remarks read strangely: "I believe greatly in presentiments. I have a presentiment that I shall carry through my undertakings completely, and shall leave France powerful and prosperous." "While I live France will have peace. Two years after my death she will be at war with the whole world." "I have no ambition .... or, if I nave, it is so natural and innate, so intimately attached to my existence, that it is like the blood in my veins, like the air I breathe." -"I do love power, but I love it like an artist. I love it as a. musician loves his violin. I love it because I love to draw sounds, chords, harmonies from it. I love it as an artist." Then, perhaps, Xapoleon painted himself better than he knew. The last of the list of his sayings smacks a little more of talking for'the gallery: "I swear that all I do is for France. My only object is to serve her. I swear that if I do not grant her more liberty it is because I do not think more liberty would be good for her. I have only one passion, only one mistress —France."