GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2158, 14 August 1907, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS.

According to the Minister of Customs, (Sir William Lyne), a move is being made in the direction ol building Commonwealth offices in London. He resolutely declined to say what pi happening with iLgard to the option ho obtained over a block ol land in the Strand. That option, unless ho obtained an extension of it, oxpired recently; blit Sir William will say nothing about it. 11 1 can tell you this,” lie said. “Tho Homo Affairs Department is preparing plans to lot mo see what their idea of a Commonwealth building in London is like.”

Tho agitation against the costume, or rather lack of costume, in which it was proposed tjiat “La Milo” as Lady Goiliva should ride through the city of Coventry has been successful. The Mayor, who threatened to resign fro-m the committee if tho costume were not modified, has consented to remain a member of it in consequence of the following message received from “La Milo”:—-'“Kindly assure the Mayor anil others that they need have no misgivings. A large wig will practically cover all the body, and a plentiful supply of chiffon will leave only the arms and ankles showPlease contradict report about appearing ,in enamels. Fiilf "pink combined attire will be worn.”

Sir Patrick Malison, the distinguished physician and medical adviser to the Home Office, who was chosen te act as medical attendant upon the King of Siam during the latter’: visit to England, is the celebrated doctor who first enunciated the theory that malarial fever was principally due to the bite of the mosquito. He is was who organised the expedite ion under Major Ronald Ross to the Roman Campagna for the purpose of establishing this fact, and it wa: hie eldest soil who allowed himself to be inoculated with the mosquito poison in order to demonstrate till truth of liis father’s theory. Sir Patrick is a fine-looking man of sixtytlnee.

San Francisco can employ all-com-er- for at least five years, and the population thus added will remain in the State. California has received an impetus through the fire that has sent it ahead by leaps and hounds and more people have come to settle on its farms and handle its agricultural possibilities than ever in any year o’ its former history. It lias been estimated that, as far as the business district is concerned, and excluding the lodging-houses, hotels and residences, the city has been practically one-half rebuilt, and that in another year hut little trace of the fire will remain in the business district of San Francisco.

Dr. G. H. R. Dabbs, a literary

medico, whose writings-have brought him into prominence in London, recently gave the following remarkable testimony, from his own medical experience:—“As for the fear' of death,- 1 must confess that I have never seen it. I have heard meii i health protest such fear, but- once within the margin of the true shadow and all fear disappears. Something happens, either spiritually, or physically. which may make the approach of death almost a satisfaction. It wmild „seoni. paradoxical, perhaps: to say that death appears to become an inevitable incident of life which has in its central issues a kind of wondering curiosity.”

Peru will no longer he a sanctuary or refuge, to tho defaulting trustee and to the embezzler. Persons wanted by the police in the British Empire are now liable to he returned to the clutch of justice from Peru as from other civilised countries. The

British Government has made a treaty o r extradition with the Peruvian Republic. It was concluded on January 26. 1904, anil ratified at Lima on November 30, 1906. On May 10 last this treaty was gazetted, and from ten days after that date it came into force. It is to remain suspended within the Dominion of Canada so long as a Canadian Act entitled “An Act Respecting the Extradition of Fugitive Criminals,” passed in 1886. continues in force.

King Frederick VIII.. of Denmark, who recently visited England, and who is the brother of England’s queen, has a more than usually interesting consort. Queen Louise is

one of the tallest and also the richest of European royalties. Only child of the late King Charles ot Norway and Sweden, and granddaughter of Bennadotte, Napoleon’s famous Marshal, she inherited a fort une of £3,000,000 from her parents. Living with the greatest simplicity she has given Denmark many orphanages, hospitals, and homes for the poor. But in spite of her great generosity her fortune is said to have increased, and is now estimated at £5,000,000. Deeply religious, and a strict Lutheran, Her Majesty is a patron of art, literature and music.

A French cook who had gone out to Hue—the capital of Annain —where they had offered him the post-' of chef in the Royal kitchen, has returned post haste to Paris. According to him. Hue is a terrible place for cooks, on account of the legislation regarding kitchen officials. If the meat is burned, or otherwise uneatable, the cook will bo carved. If the dishes or plates sent to the Royal table are not clean, then the coo'k will be whipped. If the cook is caught dipping a dirty finger into the sauce h.» will he imprisoned. The unfortunate official cannot even make a purse for himself, because if the cook makes any overcharge when purchasing food for the Royal table he will 1,0 hanged. And yet there are always many candidates for the post of Royal chef. But they are all natives.

The long-lost “John Orth” the oxAustrian Archduke, has not “conic back to life” after all, writes the London correspondant of the “Lyttelton Times.” Even his optimistic biographer, M. Gar/.on, who came to London, now realises that there has been “a mistake somewhere.” In the absence of any definite information, it looks very much as if someone has been working off a pretty little hoax. M. Guram brought a card which the mail, who is said to have claimed that lie was the missing Archduke, appeared to handed to a fellow-passenger on the steamer Araguaya, when she arrived at Cherbourg from Buenos Ayres. It Imre the name of “Baron Adolph Ott.” Now at- the present time .there is staying in the West End a Baron Ott, who has spent many years in the Argent! ic. But, so far from being fifty-five (which would h i the Archduke’s ago if alive), he is. it is understood, not' yet forty. Moreover, he makes no pretentions whatever of being the Archduke. It seems, however, that some of his friends, by way of a joke, have suggested that he is “John Orth,” and perhaps, it was in this way that Huston’ of the Archduke’s reappearance originated.

It was whilst studying at Owens Collogo, Manchester, that Mr. Morley Roberts, the pojiular novelist, was seized with that mania for wandering which lias never since deserted him. Ho commenced his adventurous career by running away to sea and travelling liy steerage to Australia, picking up on the voyaye a sufficient knowledge of seamanship to qualify him for the duties of A.B. Arrived in Australia he became a lumper at the Melbourne docks. This was hard work for a young fellow of nineteen, says the. Reader, but to usi. the popular novelist’s own words, “I was doing something when I blight have loafed, as some of my friends did. It taught, me to stick at things, and not to give in.” Incidentally, it taught him how to perform simple surgical operations, for one of Mr. Roberts’s first jobs was to help in discharging a big load of firewood, a business which took two weeks in the doing. Most of his evenings and tho whole of 'Sundays were in consequence spent in extracting splinters from liis fingers.

Mr. Upton Sinclair, whose communistic settlement was on the verge of insolvency when an ojiportune fire completed its dissolution, has broken out ill a now book. Ho predicts tlio election of Mr. Hearst as President in 1912, when a New Industrial Republic' 'wilt~be proclaimed, anil ;.tlie nation saved from a “frightful industrial catastrophe.” Then lie dilates on the paradise which industrial republic has brought about in Australia and New Zealand, his data being apparently derived from Consul, Griffin, Leffinwell, and similar fictionists. “I have an idea,” he writes. “I do not know whether there is anything in it—that the extraordinary success of New Zealand may in part lie due to the fact that it was l convict settlement; the men whom lapitalism makes into criminals being lor the most part a very superior ■lass of people, active, independent, mil impatient of justice. Transported to a new land, and given a fair chance, I should think that a burglar, or a highwayman ought to make a very excellent Socialist.” This characteristic Uptonian theory should interest New Zealanders. Mr. SV. Heineinann is the English publisher of this fantastic volume.