Miscellaneous.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 289, 30 July 1908, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

A sad story of altered fortune comes from Milwaukee. Mr C. J. Meyer, a former president of the Chicago and North-Western railroad, and once a millionaire, is r owing to the overwhelming force of circumstances, in a very reduced state, and has applied for admission to a local almshouse. Mr Meyer is 77 years of age, and. in indifferent health.

In connection with the unveiling of the monument to the Russian dead at'Port Arthur, the Japanese press declares that on the field drenched with the blood of so many brave soldiers has grown up between Russia and Japan a lasting sentiment of profound mutual respect, which has obliterated every sentiment of hostility and which constitutes a guarantee of permanent friendship between the two nations.

American Government tests of both the Wright and Herringaeroplanes are to be made in August, and both parties (says “ The Times ”) are under contract to deliver a “ heavier than air ” machine which will have a minimum speed of forty miles an hour, will carry two men, and will remain in the air an hour. Mr Herring is confident of his ability to fulfil these requirements, and acknowledges the success which the Wright brothers have achieved experimentally. M. Henry Farraan has challenged the "Wrights to a contest in France.

Excitement has been created in French art circles, states the “ Daily Mail,” by the action of M. Claude Monet, the leading impressionist painter, who has just destroyed a score of his paintings, the fruit of three years’ labour, and The market value of which was probably about £20,000, on the score that they were not worthy of him. The only other incident of a similar kind which the present generation can recall is the destruction of his own works by the veteran painter Degas, who is now living in poverty as the result of his habit of destroying all of his work which did not reach the standard he had set up. He made several fortunes by his brush, but spent them all in buying back pictures which he considered unworthy of his name.

A conference of newsagents, held at the Franco-British exhibition, passed a resolution in favour of the formation of a national federation of the associations of retail newsagents. Mr Di J. Shackleton, M.P., said the federation would be able to keep a watch on the penny dreadfuls which were sold to youths with such bad results. Mr Grill, M.P., and Mr Henderson, M.P., also alluded to the power which the federation would wield over the sale of baneful and impure literature.

A man who was eating an orange on Tower Bridge threw the peel into the water, and a diamond ring, worth £2O, slipped off his finger. Without any hope of ever seeing the ring again, he gave information of his loss to the police. A few days afterwards he W’astold that his ring was at Rochester, and he went there to receive it. The ring had fallen’on to a passing barge, and the bargee, guessing what had happened, gave it up to the police. He received a reward of £5.

In 1904, when Lord Northcote became Governor-General of Australia, his wife, who was to preside over Australia’s social destinies, naturally came in for her share of the world’s attention. The English’newspapers recalled that half a century earlier a homeless mite had been left at the door of George Stephen’s home in Montreal. The Stephens took a fancy to the waif, a pretty blue-eyed girl, and adopted her. Years later Stephen became president of the Canadian Pacific Railroad and afterwards Lord Mount Stephen, one of the two peers of Canada. The little waif he had adopted became, in course ©f time, Lady Northcote, Lady of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India.