TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8150, 26 May 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

It fa reported from New York that Mr H. E. Rider, the inventor of the present system of underground trolleys, has invented a motor which he believes will propel vessels at from a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles an hour. The one-foot model which he has made travels £at a very high rate of speed. The motor consists of an open pipe running fore and aft beneath the waterline. Gas from kerosene is caused to explode therein, and is forced out at the Btern. Concurrently, the gas escaping through the pipe creates a vacuum forward, and the water rushes in and draws the boat ahead, while it is being driven forward by the explosion at the stern. Giving evidence before the Te Ante Education Trust Commission, Wiremu Erueti said there was no othei school in New Zealand so largely endowed as Te Aute. The Maoris thought that the Arohdeacou had managed the estate very well, the only obj6ction the Maoris had being that the boundaries were not the same as they originally were, and that, in their opinion, portions of land not originally given had been swept into the trust. What the Maoris desired was that the land wrongfully swept in be handed back and the boundaries adjusted. The chairman (Judge Kettle) said this was a matter whioh had not been referred to the Commission to investigate. If the Maoris referred the matter to the trustees, no doubt they would look into It. Important new regulations with regard to technical scholarships have recently been gazetted. In future senior technical scholarships are tenable for three years, instead of for two years, as heretofore, and while the holders of these are no longer required to take English, they mast follow a definite course of technical instruction to be determined by the director of the technical school. Tiiis extension of time renders it possible for any diligent student to have free technical education for five years after leaving the primary school. Junior technical scholarships are still tenable for two years only, but greater latitude is allowed in the oboice of £ subjects. One language must be studied, though English is no longer compulsory.

Mr Henry Broadharst's retirement from English political life owing to ill health, deprived the Labour Party in the House of Commons of ono of its most experienced member*. The date of Mr Broadhurst's entrj into Parliament was 1880. He had worked as a journeyman stonemason, his father's trade, from his boyhood until 1872, and he actually took Dart in the building of the douse of Commons, whiob he was later on to have a right to sit in. Mr Broadhurst, b»s, therefore, had a seat for many Tears in the historic House he assisted to build, and in addition to tbe duties imposed on a private member, he had time to do many other things as well. He was secretary to tbe Parliamentary Committee of tbe Trade Union Congress from 1875 to 1890, and Under-Seo-retary to tbe Home Office for a few months in 1886. Now that his health no longer allows him thi'se exertions' he is followed into a rest well-earned by the good wishes of al) who knew him in the House as well as by those of the working men on whose behalf be has toiled, uuaffeotedly and courageously, for so long. Jt may be of interest to recall that Mr Broadhurst, in consonance with his simple method of life, gained a great deal of notoriety in 1886 by bis vigorous protest against donning the Windsor uniform on State ocoasions as a member of the then Gladstone Government.

The value of finger-prinfc evidence was submitted to a Dunedin jury on Tuesday in connection with a charge of theft preferred against a young man, who pleaded not guilty to 'i stealing cigarettes and some money from a store at Milburn. The (Jrowa Proseoutor (Mr J F. M. Frasei) explained to the jury that the reason why finger-print evidence is regarded as the most exact evidenoe that can be given in of justice. The new-born infant, he said, had exactly the same characteristics—the same lines -—in tbe prints of the hands that it would have if he or she lived to some 80 years of age. Even if .by any mischance or aocident the skin of a finger was removed, the new sftiu that formed had exactly the same appearance and exactly the same characteristics. Mr E. W. Dinnie (son of Commissioner Dinnie, of the police force), of Wellington, an expert in finger prints, gave evidence, pointing out the similarities between the finger-prints of tbe accused and those found on pieces of glass from tbe window of the shop. After evidenoe the accused was discharged (says tbe Otago Daily Times), the jury apparently .accepting the view tbat tbe young fellow, on the day following the robbery, had innocently plaoed his fingers on some pieces of tbe broken window.