TOPICAL NOTES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7965, 16 February 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL NOTES.

The telephone service in Sydney ba9 of late assume! such large dimensions that additions to the plant and apparatus hav9 been urgently needed for some time past. A new switchboard is of the latest pattern, and has a capacity for 3,599 lines. It automatically indicates to the operator in the exchange when a speaker has rung off, so that it obviates the necessity of the man in the exchange asking every now and then the question, "Waiting, sir?'' The new switohboard has worked excellently, and the operators find it much easier to work than the old ones. It is only a matter of uime when the substitution of the latest for the oldfashioned switchboards will create a revolution in the telephonic service of the Common wealth. ' I ' "Red Moscow" was lively enough one day in 1571, when Giles Fletcher, an English traveller, saw it tired by an army of Tartars, in the absence of Czar Johu, the Terrible. He writes:—"There was nothing but whirlwinds, and suoh a noise as though the heavens would have fallen." Aooording to Fletcher, numerous people were burned to death, while crowd's struggling to escape from the flames met, and the ensuing orush resulted iq thousands of fatalities. He assorts "there perished at that time by the fire and the press the number of 800,000 people or more." (This estimate was excessive). As a means of getting fid of the dead bodies, says Fletcher, the Czar John ordered them, on his return, to be thrown into the Moskva, and the corpses dammed the deep and rapid river and oauaed it to overflow its banks. The unfortunate dyspeptics who sat round the festive Christmas board and gazed with hungry eyes at the blazing plum pudding, may take heart of urace. • Aooording to Dr Andrew Wilson, the indigestibility of Cbristiras pudding has been grossly exagcerated. It is in his opinion both nutritious and sustaining. In this opinion Dr Andrew Wilson has the enthusiastic support of the late Sir Henry Thompson, the distinguished surgeon and expert on . diet. His view was that plum pud ding was in itself a nutritious and harmless article of food. Taken alone it would form a really valuable meal. The danger, he used to say, lay in eating a good oourse of plum pudding after a generous helping of roast beef, goose, or turkey. The two combined might lead to overloading of the stomach, and hence to indigestion. From the dietetic point -of view, Christmas pudding would in itself form a sufficiently nutritious dinner. Comments in the Auckland Press unfavourable to the further nrosecution of the Otago Central Railway in general were briefly referred to at Monday night's meeting of the Otago Central Railway League, says the Otago Daily Times. One speaker who mentioned the matter said that during the sixties money shovelled into the Auckland district from Otago, to aid and protect the tettlers against the Natives. No word was ever theu heard against Otago, but now, because Auokland wanted to fnrthei its own ends by securing to itself almost a monopoly of the railway expenditure, no word was too harsh to use against the southern province, whilst at the same time it stood by and saw thousands squandered in its own district iu marble baths for a few diseased foreigners. The injured tone in which the member spoke showed that he at least was in dead earnest in desiring the Otago Central line to be pushed ahead. The ways of the Native Laud Court are free and easy, and indicate a refreshing confidence in human nature in this suspicious age (says the Napier Telegraph). A public meeting held at Hastings assembled in the, Council Chambers, which had been oooupied all day by the Native Land Court with the Wi Matua (Porangahau) will case, involving between £15,000 and £20,000. The Court, however, merely couteutod itself with moving its documents to a side table, leaving them-avail-able for too handling and iuapeotioa

of all and sundry. The records involved Judges' notes on important cases, documents relating to matters occupying the Courts, and, strange to say, the original will of Wi Matua, which was under the Court's consideration, and upon which so much depended. If a fire should have occurred the documents, of immense value, which could not be replaced, would most probably have been destroyed, ancHat the very least interested parties might very easily absiraot documents upon which the success of their opponents depended. Two families arrived in Sydney by the Ortona recently in the hope of being able to make homes under suitable conditions. Mr Jone9, a Welsh farmer, and his two sons, possess considerable capital, aud then they have acquired some experience of colonial farming methods purpose investigating if the conditions are favourable. Mr Jones holds commssion from a namber of his ooun trymen to reprt upon th prospects of farming in the State, the terms under which laud can be acqiured, and the treatment exteudod to immigrant farmers by the Government. There are thosands with capital, Mr Jones says, waiting for his report, and should it be favourable there will be an influx of moueyed Welsh husbandmen. But Mr Jones insists that the Government will have to make the conditions easier, or it will miss the opportnuty. The payment of interest, which is not required of settlers in the other States, is objectionable to the intending British agricultural immigrant. « The Australian claimant to the Portland estates is about to begin nis long-deferred campaign with an application to a judge in chambers for authority compelling the Highgate Cemetery trustees to give access to the coffin in which "Thomas Charles Bruce" (the name alleged to have been assumed at intervals by the eccentric Duke of, Portland)" is supposed to have been buried. If, as the claimant, 7 Mr G. H. Druce, expects, [jtbe coffin is found to contain nothing but lead, it is pointed out that this will be strong presumptive proof that Thomas Charles Druce and the Dnke of Portland were one and the same person, and that "the mock funeral was a ruse on the part of the Duke when he deoided to drop his character as Mr Druce.' The legal advisers of the claimant appear to be satisfied that they can secure an order to make this teat, and, if its result be favourable, they will proceed boldly to claim the income from the Portlaud estates, which at present goes to Lord Howard de W aid en, and is estimated at between £250,000 and £30,000. The following is, according to Count von Reventlow, the pan Gerraanio dream of Empire:—"All the Moorish coast line and hinterland, as well as Bohemia and Hungary, with a diminished Austria as a vassal State antler a German Prince; Trieste, of course, and the Adriatic littoral, Luxembourg and Holland and Belgium. Outs'de Europe pan Germans aspire to Brazil in the western hemisphere and Mesopotamia us a foothold in Asia. When it was suggested to Count von Reventlow that the rest of the world might object to this drastic alteration of the map he said:—"We shall see. In any case we do not fear France." Prince von Arenburg and his party are more moderate in their demands than the "whole-hoggers'' of the pan Germaniotype. Germany must have, be says, sea bases and coal depots along the highways of the world. She has no intention of robbing anyone, but of the waste [spaces •still to be conquered and organised she demands her share. "We have Bhips," he said, "on every sea, the fastest and fiuest mail steamers afloat, and we must have German ports for them to go to. Salt water is common property, and the Mediterranean and the Atlantic cannot be closed to us."