The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1912. CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 23, 10 January 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1912. CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING.

I I ■ ■ —T-T— , , , ; ,: ( T Go-operative housekeeping* is the latest experiment do' ! be undertaken':' in London, and undeWone' roof the 1 Avork--11, i i 1 ■■l,■ .-' r i' 1 ■ Trs will, bp .gathered,, near thPp' wofk, Witli this end in view a great building is to bo erected at Clapham Junction. The basement will be a great market for fruit, vegetables, and other provisions,- the ground floor will lie occupied by shops, and the five floors above will contain a couple of hundred flats, ranging from two to five rooms, and thrpe hundred, single, rooms. In the centre of the . building will he Olub premises l for ’ inen and women,' with restaurant, smoking, writing', billiard and drawing-rooms, and gymnasium. i .There will bo a concert hall, seating eight hundred people, and the top of the building will be a glasscovered roof-garden, with a skating ri.uk and children’s play-ground. The rooms will bo let furnished, and rent will include membership of the club, and lighting, heating, and cleaning. It will be quite unnecessary to keep servants. All meals will be taken in the restaurant, and the charges will be made as low as possible, to suit the purse of the clerk and the typist. The rents will average 12s a room, and the only payments besides this will he for food and washing. The London and North-Western Railway will run a siding right into the building. It is calculated that over a thousand people will live in the building, which will lie the first of its kind in the world. It is held that this mode of life will be more sanitary, more economical, and will quite get over that world-wide and ever more difficult problem—the domestic help. At present in smaller households the domestic servant is almost unprocurable. There are certainly drawbacks to the scheme outlined above, but authorities contend the advantages will far outweigh the disadvantages, and that the big house system will become popular.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH’S PIPE.

Smokers will possibly be interested to learn that Sir Walter Raleigh’s pipe was sold in London the other day. Describing it a writer tells ns that it is .not the ordinary type of Indian tobacco pipe known to antiinaries, though it is doubtless quite genuine. America, of course, smoked before Europe, and tobacco pipes ire found amongst the very early prehistoric remains of the native races, notably in the grave mounds in the valley of the Mississippi river. These early pipes are all made of stone. Wooden ones, if these makers of the mounds had any, as they very likely iiad, would have mouldered away long igo. The stone pipes are nearly all one pattern. The stone is cut in :he form of an oblong and slightly tent platform or base three or four nches long by one inch broad. On die middle of this, and rising about in inch above it, is carved the bowl. )ne end of the base is pierced as ar as the hollow of the bowl. The ither end was, no doubt, used for adding the pipe. A bowl without ny ornament is common enough, but m others the artist has bestowed meat pains. In these the bowl is n the form of a bird, quadrupc-u, or eptile, and occasionally the head of man is found. Pipe sculpture, it I

bus been said, is the only native Indian art which withstood for any length of time the coming of European civilisation. There were several quarries of stone excellent for the purpose, easily worked by the craftsman. The quarry at Coteau dcs Prairies, in South Dakota, was the most famous. Pipes made from its red compact stone are found from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and some of the earliest specimens in the burial mounds are made of it. Smoking under certain circumstances was a. religious rite with the Indians. So sacred was the calumet, the “peace pipe,” that in tamo of war pipe-stone quarries wore neutral ground.

CHINA’S FUTURE.

Commenting on the situation in China, the Sydney “Telegraph” remarks that now that “the Shanghai Conference has authorised a National Convention to decide whether China shall bo ruled by a constitutional monarchy or by a republic, and has resolved that .the convention shall bo held without further delay, the rest of the world may well look towards China with fascinated interest. Dr. E. J. Dillon regards the revolution in China as “the most momentous event for 1000 years.” He declares that it connotes the awakening of Asia, the advent of a giant among nations, the letting loose of a tremendous force, with the properties of which the world : s but imperfectly acquainted. “What- I ever else it may create or destroy,’ he writes, ‘it will cut deep into the life of all civilised nations, and will incidentally open new markets to their jroduco and manufactures, and con"ront them with the most formidable 'ommorcial and industrial rivals they mve over had.’ If the awakening of Dhina is of profound interest to Europe, Japan, and the United States, ■ t is at least of equal interest to Australia. For the shadow of the Chiicso giant when lie stands erect in iis full stature—just one hundred dines bigger on a population basis than the little pigmy Australia—will ’xtend as far as the Commonwealth, is well as across Asia. The cabled •oport that Sun Yat Son, the revolutionary leader, lias offered the Prosiloncy of the Chinese Republic to fnan Shi Kai, the present Premier )f China, is discounted by Yuan’s anlouncemcnt that he will never accept office under a republic. But Yuan Shi Kai may change his mind. Dr. Dillon calls him ‘the cautious political equilibrist’, the Blondin of Chinese politics, who many times risked every-' king,; including his head/. 1 never lost mything, not even‘his prestige, nor aver failed to 'keep on, the winning side.’ ; (Such men .do .not usually office i (themselves ‘on 1 fine-■ ground 'of their political convictions. Possibly 1 .Tuan Shi Kai is..waiting .until, the establishment of a republic is assured jefore he finally cuts himself adrift from the monarchical cause. But whether the National Convention dmoses a republic,; as seems iffow'hiost likely, or a constitutional monarchy, which appears to bo favoured by a strong minority, the emergence of filing, as a new world-power is assur-, : The. direction which the forces levolopod l in "that 1 , -neW 1 workLpdwer, nity take in the future will lib a master which the inhabitants of Australia will watch with the closest concern.”. ml I- ilv