GENERAL NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 110, 30 October 1911, Page 7

GENERAL NEWS

The smallest, simplest and best protected post office in the world is in the Straits of Magellan. It has been there for many years. It consists of a small painted keg or cask, and is chained to the rocks of the extreme cape in s,uch a manner that it floats free, opposite Ticrra del Fuego. Each passing ship sends a boat to take out and put others in. This curious post office is unprovided 'with a postmaster, and is, therefore under the protection of all the navies in the world.

English papers to hand contain the special, correspondence columns conducted by various members of the Sheffield Choir on their visit to New Zealand. There is strong evidence in the articles, which deal mostly with New Zealand scenery, that the choir's visit was a very hurried one, that in many cases there is displayed much ignorance of the subjects dealt with. A special correspondent of a Sheffield paper states that "there are only two sleeping cars in the .whole of New Zealand." In all sincerity the same writer says: "It is very strange to see all the cattle in the fields wearing coats, but as they are outside all (he year round the covering is an absolute necessity." In another portion of tlie article the writer says: "In Auckland we saw a specimen of a very horrid native bird called a rea (presumably a kca), for every dead body of which'the Government offers a reward of £4.' Mr. "Rose, editor of the Natal Witness, has exposed in the Times a gross relic of. the anti-British obscenities of the South. African war. He has found in the so-called South African Museum at Dordrecht, in Holland, a notorious colored cartoon which represented Queen Victoria and King Edward with shameless ind-ecency, now carefully preserved usder, .thick'glass. In the same room were pictures from the French, ficrman, Italian and other comic papers, showing our generals and soldiers in a variety of degrading, and indecent postures. Apart from the conduct of the Dutch authorities in permitting this, Mr. Rose says that .certain' Afrikanders propose to transport the show to South Africa, and open it there. The High Commissioner a'Ml Trade Commissioner for South Africa intimate that such a show will not be sanctioned. As Mr. Rose says, the exhibits would' certainly not survive 24 hours after the visit o'f the .first South African party.