CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 265, 7 April 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

MOTOR S'KED. A New Plymouth resident took the trouble the other afternoon of measuring the s]>eed of motor-cars and bicycles going into town on Unit sect'*n of Devon Street 'ying between llobson Street and the To Henui bridge. There is a decided incline at this point, and it will be admitted that the test was in favor of the motorists, who on the flat would have developed from 15 to 25 per cent, more speed. He took the speed of six motor-cars, the rate per hour working out as follows:—21 miles, 25, 30, 30, 30, 34. The motor-cycles, with side-cars attached, or double-banked, gave the following results:—27, 25, 32, 23, 22, 32, 21, 21 miles per hour. The resident was careful in his arrangements for taking the speeds and calculations, a»d feels certain the results are accurate. It is for the- Borough Council to say whether it is in ,tho interests of public safety that motorists 3hould be allowed to go through the main thoroughfare—and uphill, into the bargain—at such excessive speeds. THE ROADING PROBLEM. An indication of the urgent need for better roads existing in tlie back blocks of Auckland Province is afforded by the proposal, mad« by Mr. G. K. Wilson, M.P., that two millions sterling should be borrowed for roading purposes. The sum appears huge, but the need is greater still, and the soundness of the investment cannot be questioned. More than two millions was extravagantly sunk in the Midland Railway and the Otago Central Railway has cost nearly three-fourths of this sum, while neither pay —or are expected to pay —half the interest on the loan-money thus expended. The North Island lias to make good the annual burden thus laid upon the railway earnings of the Dominion, and would bear its burden much more easily and cheerfully if its settlers could reach their markets without crushing difficulty. It would require £IOO,OOO annually to provide interest and sinking fund upon two millions sterling. The value of the improved roading which could thus be provided is incalculable, for it would not merely aid the struggling settlers already on the land, but would tremendously assist closer set ; tlemcnt and desirable subdivision, and would be a most powerful incentive to more scientific agriculture. The proposal is so far from being unreasonable or extravagant that it deserves the cordial and sympathetic consideration of all local bodies, who have an unanswerable case in any practical claim they utav make upon the Government. —Auckland Herald. EXPLORATION IN PERU. A British explorer, Captain .1. Campbell Besley, has returned to New York from Rio de Janeiro. after finding the head waters of the Amazon River and discovering truces of the Seljan and O'lliggins • exploring expedition, , which disappeared in the wilds of Peru two years ago. Captain Besley entured the Peruvian wilderness with a party of lfl last, summer to tramp across the South American Continent. Tlie expedition found the last camp made by Seljan and O'lliggins, who were Chicago scientists. Unman bones were near the camp. The natives explained Unit the explorers mid been attacked by Indians and had perished. Captain Besley kept on and secured a valuable cinematograph colloclion of pictures of the lost Incas' capital of Machupieehu, which was discovered two years ago by Professor Bingham, of Vale, who estimated its age at many thousands of years. The city is in a wonderful state of preservation. Cinematographs were also taken of boa-con-strictors and other tropical reptiles and animals. After the source of the Amazon had been discovered the party built, a raft and floated down for 30 days, their chief protection at night being the ruse of constructing a fire on one bank to deceive attacking Indians and then mooring the boat a short distance away on the other bank, miles from any village. The expedition Dr. Townsend, who has isolated himself in the wilderness to study an Indian disease known at "uta," caused by a flesheating 11 y whose bite causes a wound like cancer which slowly kills. THE "WIRE" OF VICE. ' Vice is the sturdiest thing in the world. Why do you think it so alluring"; You must think so, for you protest against having anyone know anything about it. The only way to keep away from it is to know all' about it, to realise just what.it is, and what it is not and never can be. Pull -down the dirty curtains there in front of the opium den. Tear down the heavy door that shuts out the daylight, throw open the dark blinds—and what is there to see? Dirt, disorder, dismal loneliness trying to pretend to be gay. Elderly women trying to look happy, sodden men trying to look sober. The lure of vice? Why, it isn't vice that alluresit is the mystery we make of it that docs the mischief!- —Winifred Black. RICHES. The more cold coin a fellow collars, the hungrier he gets for dollars. When he is young and short of troubles, he says:—"Some fifty thousand roubles will be a fortune quite imposing: when I have that X won't go nosing around in search of extra kroners, like some o'd greedy money loaners. Uy that time I'll be old and whezzv. so I'll sit down and take if easy."' Hut. when he has that bunch of guilders he says:—•■ Oh. choc: the fortune builders would laugh to scorn my paltry savings—niethinks I hear their jocund ravings! So I'll go forth anil nail a ■million--1 will, so hid]) j me Colonel Lillian:" Then through the |clanging maris he wanders, and all INe sunny years he squanders, and travels at a pace that's killing to get the kopeck and the shilling. And when he's old and frail and buttered, his heart worn out, his system shattered, from toiling up Gain's crooked trackage, he looks upon his handsome package, and sighs: "It is a measly bundle, and my old hones I'll have to trundle until m'v meagre roll is padded with other millions to it. added." Then Death comes up. the doom that, wrecks us, and soaks him in the solar plexus, and in his shroud morticians wiiul him. and all his scads arc left behind him.—Wall Mason.