Here and There.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7714, 17 January 1905, Page 3

Here and There.

There are about eighty ships in the British Navy which are too weak to fight and too slow to run away. They ought (says Vanity Fair's military critic) to be called the Lamb, the Mouse, tho Blue Ribbon, the Darby and Joan ; not the Wasp, tho Porcupine, the Pallas, the Pincher, or the Plucky. The man responsible for the creation of the class "should be tried by a jury of matrons, for no sensible housekeeper, with a knowledge of the elements of naval warfare, would have spent the national resources upon ships that would have to be laid up in war-time. There arc no fewer than 9000 men employed on the non-fight-ing ships.

In her almanac for 1905 Madame Do Thobes (the French Zadkiol) gives divinations of the future. In the early part of next year (according to the Telegraph) she predicts that kings and chiefs of States will make themselves talked about more than usual. The year will be a red year, following a grey one. England will traverse periods of great unrest, to be marked by deaths, among these beingisome which will startle the whole world. Germany will also have cause for mourning. Political and Governmental Europe will sustain irreparable losses in the beginning- of next year. In Franco 'there \vill be sensational disappearances, but a new victory will be gained in the domain of thought with" the aid of an unknown person, whom Madame De Thobes has studied without his knowledge. Finally, Rome will be the scene of a sudden change.

Apropos of newspaper changes and consolidations in England. Mr Lucy, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, sgys :—The announcement that an offer of £200,000 preference shares in the combined undertaking of the Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury was in two days subscribed more than three times over is testimony to the local popularity of the long-eslaiblished journals. As a rule, newspaper properly when transformed into a limited liability company, does not fine especial favour with the investing public. There are from time to time special reasons for warning off would-be subscribers. A Manchester daily paper of old renown has just been acquired by one of our octopus newspaper proprietors for the sum of £BO,OOO. Not, very long ago the family in possession easily obtained £;S10,000 by transference of their property to the public. Even in the case of more modern enterprises, understood to return fabulous incomes lo their promoters, 5 per cent, preference shares steadily hover under par. The London Evening News, tile paper that first set Mr Alfred Harmsworth's ball a-rolling, and still ■brings in handsome revenues, has its £5 preference shares marked in today's lists at 43—;. Preference shares of the Financial Times, another journalistic milch cow, stand jMst under par, as do' the preference, .shares of Sir George Newnes's prosperous, manifold, well managed papers. As things go, 5 per cent, on a moderately secure investment is a desirable thing, and its market price stands accordingly. I fancy the public, with shrewd instinct, recognise the fact that in peculiar degree the value of newspaper property depends upon personality. As long as certain pairs of hands are strong and sure in the direction all goes well. Whem they lie limp the barque they steered may fall adrift.

A case involving the privileges of the medical profession was heard recently before the Court of Session at Edinburgh, Sir Patrick Watson, a fashionable surgeon in the Scottish capital, being defendant in an action in which £2fioo damages were claimed by a Mrs McEvan and her father. Mrs McEvan had consulted Sir Patrick prior to the hearing- of a matrimonial separation case, and when the knighted medico came to givo evidence he let out the. statement that Mrs McEvan had desired him to perform an operation. The action brought this week involved the question of a physician's right to ''disclose information gained professionally. The court decided that Sir Patrick's evidence in court was privileged, but, as to his alleged statement of the matter to the husband and his agents, an issue was allowod. One judge dissented, as ho held that Sir Patrick Watson had done nothing improjgcrj