Clippings.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume II, Issue 106, 8 February 1900, Page 2

Clippings.

Her Majesty the Queen, who has always taken the warmest interest in literature, and has numbered many men of letters among her personal friends, is said to be elaborating a scheme for establishing a " literary order of merit for the recognition of those who, both as journalists and as writers of books, have done good work." There are to be three grades, the

first consisting of twenty-four Knights of the Grand Cross, the second of one hundred Knights' Commanders, and the third of two hundred and fifty Companions. It will resemble the French Legion of Honour in some respects, but will be much more select, and limited to one profession only.

Mr Paul Bourget, in his im» pressions of America, tells a story of the Yankee reporter. Last; summer, he says, I was passing through Beverley, near Boston, at the time of the death of one of the most distinguished officers of the Federal aiiny. The corpse was to be carried to Baltimore, and a funeral service was first celebrated in the little village church. In the midst of the ceremony a young man entered, drew near to the coffin, gently raised the pall, tapped the cover with his finger, and said soi'tly : " Steel, not wood." Then he disappeared, in the midst of universal surprise. It was a reporter.

General Bonlanger's son-in-]aw contributes an article oa militarycycling to the ".Revue Moderne '* which is arousing much attention in France. A cyclist corps would bo invaluable, he think. 3 , in linking the various corps of tins army together, and the fact that th*» cycles require no food is a point of great advantage. The particular form of military cycles he favours' ia the invention "of Captain Gerard, of the 87th Infantry, which can be folded and carried as an ordinary knapsack (being only 251b. in weight), and yet which is quite rigid, and is so built that an officer, without quitting the saddle can survey the country through his tieldgiass.

Mr Joseph Collinson, who professes to possess the means of producing rain at -will, has been moved to make a suggestion. He did so two years ago, and promised rain on a given day within a given arua, but something wenl wrong with his calculations, aa the rain did not put in an appearance then, nor for a long time after. Mr Collinson, however, is not anxious to interfere with the drought in England on the present occasion. He prefers leaving that to Nature. Lt is the drought in South Africa which is troubling him, and hi 3 suggestion- is that Mr Chamberlain, as Colonial Secretary, should make the rule of Great Britain in that part of the world doubly acceptable to the native races by sending there a number of rain makers. Before Africa was endowed with European civilisation it was "providentially blest by having among its inhabitants families of persons known as rain-makers." But these have apparently found their occupations gone in the presence of British civilisntion, and Mr Collinson thinks Mr Chamberlain has a grand opportunity for increasing the prestige of this country in Africa by supplying showers whenever required. The Colonial Secretary is no doubt a very clever, as he is a very astute man, but the task Mr Collinson sets him is rather beyond his ability. When Mr Collinsoncan himself apply his Ody'ic Force to overcome the drought, and make good the shortcomings of the skies in this country, more faich .will be placed in his theories, and then, perhaps he may himself be sent on a rainmaking mission to South Africa.