NEWS BY MAIL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 292, 4 December 1908, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL

AMERICA'S •'SMART SET." MRS. CORNWALLIS WEST ON "SENSELESS FESTIVITIES." Paris, October 14. According to a New York telegram to the. Herald, Mrs. Cornwallis West has published a two-column article in the World in which she scathingly criticises the New York smart set. .She declares that the eccentricities of these people are due to a desire to attract attention as a means of getting into the best society by a display of wealth. Shu adds:— " The empty lives and ostentatious, not to say vulgar, entertainments of ecrta.itt would-be fashionable, women are naturally condemned by all sensible and right-thinking people. ' The glorified detailed accounts of some of these senseless festivities have brought blushes to the cheeks of their compatriots abroad, who have been mercilessly chaffed on the strange doings of', their countrypeople." Mrs. Comwalils West says that in England individual merit is more .ippreciated in the most exclusive circles ui.iu rank or fortune, and that the English society woman Ims the advantage over her American cousin in mixing in politics, thus giving her an additional outlet for her energies. She expresses the belief that the mistakes some American society women are making will soon be eliminated by their own good sense and intelligence.

JJIOU AEROPLANES. AERONAUTS PROPHESY' OF POPULAR I'RICES. London, October 13. Air. Frank Hedges Butler, the aeronaut who returned yesterday from Le Mans, where he took part as a passenger in. one of Air. Wilbur Wright's aeroplane flights, declares that the problem of aerial navigation has been solved, and that all that remains now is to improve and perfect the Wright machine. "Lighthouses on land will be erected by the Trinity Board to mark the way at night," he says. "Lamps on aero- J plans or flyers will be used. ■; "The speed of the .smaller planes will be tcrrilic—2oo miles an hour. Xwentyone miles across the Channels means a very few minutes. In less than ten years the cost of a machine will be.CIUO. Alay the brothers Orville, and Wilbur Wright live for many years to continue and improve their great invention."

BACHELORS TO BE TAXED. RELIEF .FOR HEADS OF FAMILIES IN GERMANY. lierliii, October !). The Gerinan Emperor's reference made ill a speech delivered some time- ago to the desirability of improving a tax on biii'lielors. turns out to have been something more than a joke. During the forthcoming session of the Prussian Diet, the Government will propose, a modification of income tax in favor of married men with children, wliieh will dill'erentiatc taxation in such a way as to impose a greater burden on bachelors and also on married men without children than on the heads of families. It will be proposed that all those paying income tax on incomes not exceeding ;C4OOs I hall be entitled to deduct CI for every child. A di/l'ereiitiation in favor of married men with children already exists in Prussia, so that the new law will merely bring about an extension of the present system.