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l | y l .k, . - ., _ "a I _-... has 0? s_0uni AFRICA BATTLES {if LONG-1'? A00 WHAT THE NEW COUNTRY RE- TERRIBLE SLAUGHTER‘IN THE News By MAIL ABOUT JOHN QUIRES MOST. WORLD’ S WARS. Boers Gave Kindly Welcome to How the Russo-Japanese War Their Conqueror, Lord Roberts. The long tour in South Africa from which Lord Roberts has Compares With. Former Conflicts. Sixty thousand men, we are told. I'N‘lliiill [OLD .ENGLAND BULL AND HIS PEOPLE; u...â€" Occurrences in the Land That ;Reigns Supreme in the Com- mercial World. Mr. Balfour believes that a special just lhave fallen victims to the warâ€"fiend;session of parliament to deal with returned, though it was made in a during an engagement lasting over a lthe problem of the unemployed Would strictly private capacity, may be of great educational Value if the imâ€" pressions which he there recei'x‘ed are allowed to have due weight in our dealings with that part of the em- pire, savs the London Standard. . It. was in accordance with the best traditions of our race that the suc- cessful general should have been everywhere received with frank and sincere cordiality, even by men Who had been sent to imprisonment and exile as the result of his victories. Once in the Free State he was driven (War a long distance bv. the very man who, owing to his knowledge of English, translated Lord Roberts’ messages to General Cronje in the laagcr at Paardeberg. This Beer, 3. Free Stator, and one of Cronje’s stalwarts, who was imprisoned after {the surrender, may be taken as ty-. pically representing the feelings of the presentâ€"day Dutch farmer. WELCOME TO ROBERTS. Long before the war was over he had recognized the hopelessness of the struggle, and now he is perfect- ly willing to live on good terms with the British, though he quite naturally put in a plea for represenâ€" tative government. He shOWed no animus nor was there a trace of any-such feeling in theattitude of any of the fighting Boers, who wel- comed Lord and Lady Roberts. on their stops. But Lord Roberts‘would be the Past person to overrate the political Qignificance of such a welcome. It fis true that the power of the Bond is for the present largely extinguish- ed; it is true that in Cape Colony, the pivotal v-section of the country, .‘the Progressive Party has gained the upper hand. But there are still Dutch organs of the press in Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Petroria, ready'to stir up strife; the prediâ€" kants are as fond as ever of preach- ing sedition; and well-known Boer leaders in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony are not so anxious as they might be to assist the Govern- ment. RAILWAYS FOR FARMERS. The great hope, therefore, for the future lies in securing for the Boer farmer, who really wants peace, such an opening for his agricultural in- dustry and such a consequent mea~ sure of prosperity that he will no? be tempted through idleness or dis- tress to listen to the voice. of the predikant or the political agitator. The one practical method of obtainâ€" ing this object is the rapid extension of railways. The Dutch farmers are only too willing to extend their industry, but are sadly hampered in the matter of railway facilities. If the war has brought about no other good, it has taken many Boers abroad, and Shown them how other countries are thriving. One prominent Boer has brought back the latest invention in machinery from America. He succeed- ed in getting a lower rate on the Natal Railway for his implements, but eVen then the cost of carriage from Natal to Ermelo was greater than the whole freight in America to the coast and from New York to Natal. Other farmers near the Wayside stations cannot get their produce carried by the railway, which'caters only for the throng-11 trafllc. Cattle disease is also fatal to agricultural development in a country where there are few rail- ways. At the present moment neiâ€" ther cattle nOr mules are allowed to come into Pretoria from the West'- ern Transvaal, and the Rustenburg farmers have to use donkeys as their- sole means of transport. ANOTHER REASON. It is not too much to say that the. 5 whole future of the country depends upon the rapid extension of railways and the improvement of the existing service. If our Government would expend a- few millions in construcâ€" tion, the capital sunk would return a rich harvest. in peace and content- ment. The great peace-making value of railways is well, known in India, and more especially in Burma, where the extension of the line to Manda- lay did more than anything else to get rid of dacoits. From the mo- ment the; work was taken in hand the unrest in the country began to vanish. The importance of railways is far greater in South Africa, since We have so much more at stake. For {there is, not only the Boer question ever present with us; there is a danger well recognized in South 'Africa of a rising of the blacks against the scattered and compara- tively small white population. This danger would be largely obviated by a rapid improvement of the means of communication. Lord Roberts will have' rendered another great service .to his country if the strong impres- sions which he brings back from South Africa are allowed to have due weight with the public in this country. _.- .._'+___ .. In the "Petrified Forest" of lAriâ€" Iona there is a natural bridge across a narrow canyon, consisting of a petrified trunk of a tree. 111 feet in length. - Borodine, 1812 week, How do these figures compare, it may be asked, with the slaughter in the great campaigns of the past cenâ€" tury.” 'A glance at the figures of the big battles of the past will show that so.far the Garbage in the Russo~ Japanese ,war has many times been equaled or exceeded iii-battles in which not many more than half thel present forces were engaged. Take, for instance, the wars of the, French Revolution and Napoleon, which surged back and forward over Eur- ope from 1791 to 1815. Allison, the historican, estimates that the French lost two millions in 'killed alone in these campaigns. In nine of the battles in which Napoleon - himâ€" self took part the losses were as folâ€" lows : NAPOLEON’S OWN BATTLES. Men > Killed and Battle, Engaged. Wounded. Austerli’tz, 1805...111-8,000 25,000 Jena, 1806 98,000 17,000 Hylau, 1807 ,...133,000 42,000 Friedland, 1807 “111-2,000 34:,000 Eckanuhl, 1809 ...145,000 15,000 4.4.000 Wagram, 1809 .370,000 75,000 ....268,000 Leipsie, 1813 ....... 440,000 Waterloo, 1815 ..,.170,000 42,000 It will be seen that the casualties frequently numbered a quarter or even a third of the opposing forces. If there be about six hundred thou- sand men fighting in Manchuria toâ€" day, this Napoleonic proportion of 'dead and wounded would give a stu- pendous total. Yet the fighting went on year after year for the better part of a generation, and the suffering, disease and death caused to the peaceful populations of the ravaged countries must have been incalculâ€" able. In the Peninsula War, which, was merely a little byâ€"play compared with the great European campaign, England left fifty thousand‘dca‘d and the French a quarter of a million :beâ€" hind them in Spain. At Salamanca we lost 15 per cent. of our troops, and at 'Albuera 65 per cent. In the Crimea the total losses of Russia, and the Allies \vere put at 480,000, and Britain lost 22 per cent. of her men; but there wer‘e‘no great decisive battles with enormous‘slaughter. Tl'-.'O THOUSAND BATTLES. Never in modern history has there been such rapid waste of human life as in the American Civil War, with its two thousand battles and skir- mishes. From 1861 to 1865 it raged over the whole of the Mississâ€" sippi Valley and thronghout Georgia and Alabama, taking in an area larger than Europe, and in those four years six hundred thousand men were killed. In a frontal attack b leneral Grant at Coldharbor in 1864: ten thousand men fell in less than ten minutes. Here are some typical specimens of the two thousand battles of this war fought for the liberty of the negro slave : ‘ Men Killed and Battle. Engaged . Wounded. Sharnsburg, 1862.128,000 21,910 Fredericksburg 1862.190,000 16,971 Chickamauga, 1863 .128,000 35,100! Gettysburg, 1863 ...163,000 37,000 Wilderness, 1864;” 179,000 26,000 Here again it will be seen that the losses in a single battle often came nearer to 20 and 05 per cent. than 10 per cent. of those engaged. - The campaign of Sadowa,â€"in which tended for the supremacy of the Ger- man Confederation, lasted only seven weeks, but the casualties numbered 57,000, or over 8,000 a week. The chief‘battle was that'cf .Koniggratz, whenthe forces engaged were 417,- 000. . SEVEN MONTHS OF WAR. In the seven months of the Fran- coâ€"German War, 1870-71, the killed and disabled numbered 371,751. A million Germans .~ and 710,000 Frenchmen took the, field. ‘Coming to the-Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8, with ,its total loss of nearly 200,000, the only notable battle was before Plevna, when in the course of a protracted siege there fell in a single day 18,000 out of 80,000 Russians engaged. ~ - In the case of unarmed races conâ€" fronted by modern arms, there have been some instances of tremendous slaughter as when Lord ..Kitchener's. . forces shot: down- ten thousand Der- vishes at Omdurman. But proba- bly Omdurman was the last of these easy victories over the barbarian. The'Italian experience in Abyssinia, our Tirah adventurers the French View of Senussi, and the German en- counter with the Efereros all tend to show that savages will not again meet the European in open battle without 'first having secured his weaâ€" pons. And‘then there will be some- thing very different from the procesâ€" sional marches of the past. .__..__+__..... Teacher (to pupil)â€"â€"”How old are you?" Pupilâ€""Six." Teacher â€"-â€" “When were you six?” Pupilâ€"“On my birthday." Sheâ€""They say there are microbes in kisses.” Pieâ€"“Nonsense. What dangerous disease do they develop into?" Sheâ€""Marriage; sometimes.” 92,000 l 000 and the king“ and wounded 26": caused considerable annoyance by do more harm than good. Lord Avebury, presiding at the inaugural dinner of the Institute of Directors, said the access to money seemed to blunt a man’s sense of honm , , A Spalding chemist stated at an inquest that he had sold more land- anle and opium during four years in Spalding than in. twenty years in other places. . l‘leighteen fires occurred in London ginning 4 of last week. Five lives Were lost, and many persons Were badly injured. Enville Hall, the famous residence of Catherine Countess of Stamford, has been destroyed by fire. The hall contained many priceless relics of Lady Jane Grey. The annual report to the Home Office on drunkenness shows that the Igreatly increased totals of admisâ€" sion to special reformatories Were largely due to girls and women. Excluding naval vessels, 13,716 ships of all descripti0ns, with a tonâ€" nage of 4,929,364, belonging to the United Kingdom, were totally lost 3in the twentyâ€"iive'years ended June 1903. ‘ Speaking at Exeter, Mr. Rider Haggard said he had seen people herded together in England under conditions to which I‘Larlirs‘ or wild African tribes would not submit. The Kent Education Committee has adopted a new scale of salaries for the teachers in the county, which will entail an increased expenditure of twelve thousand pounds a year. Trinity Presbyterian Church, Newâ€" castle, erected only eight years ago at a cost of £17,000, has 3 been gutted by fire caused by the fusing of an electric wire, which set fireto .the roof.- ‘ Mr. Hugh Il’obs‘on, who has just died at liourne, Lincolnslure, was registrar of marriages for the dis- trict for upwards of sixty years, and i in that' capacity he attended over' 1,500 Weddings. A terrible all‘ray with firearms oc- curred near Scarborough, between three poachers and four gamekeepers. One gamekeeper was killed and two were seriously injured. The poachers, riddled with shot, Were subsequently arrested. A.- E. Jen's, a pauper, was found clad in his nightshirt, in the streets of Coventry. He was a somnambue glist, and in order to get out of the workhouse he'had to climb over a spiked gate, and slide down a roof. I Senora de Leon, a gentlewoman in 'reduced circumstances in London, who was forced'to part with a paint- ed portrait of_ her grandfather, made :the discovery that the picture was a genuine Goya. It fetched £2,400. The Admiralty have released from Portsmouth Prison Private Brooke, iRoyal Marine Light Infantry; who was sentenced by a naval court- martial to nine months’ hard labor for throwing a piece of bread at a llance corporal. A Birmingham tin Worker at- ltempted to commit suicide by drinkâ€" ing hydrochloric acid. A policeman who was called in concocted an emeâ€" ‘tic by scraping some whiting from the ceiling, and mixing it with water; The medicine acted- promptly. and the man’s life'was saved. A leading Calvinistic minister in North Wales has gone mad over the revivalist «.movoment, and a miser .has become a philanthropist. In Llanelly a well-known inhabitant has been removed to the asylum. il'e has singing and’praying the whole night through, and he ’had not touched food for se/veral days. At-Amanford' and Lougliorfsome persons are being kept under restraint in their own homes. V ’l'l’ collecting dog, “Cimbledon Nell, 'V dropped dead at Wimbledon Station‘the'other day. With her red collecting barrel on her back, she was Com-mending herself and her commission to the passengers. Neil’s method was to smuggle her head inâ€" to their hands and wag her tail as they gave their tickets up to the collector. ‘80 popular had she be- come, that in pennies she .used to average a receipt of nine shillings a day. THE FOOTSTEPS . Quick steps are indicative of en- ergy and agitation. ’1‘iptoewalking symbolizes Surprise, curiosity, dis~ oration or mystery. Turn-inâ€"toes are often found with pre-occupied, ab- sent~minded persons. The miser’s walk is represented as stooping and noiseless, with short, nervous, anx- ious steps. Slow steps, long or short, suggest a gentle or reflective state of mind. When a revengeful purpose is hid-den under a feigned smile the step will be slinliin'g anid noiseless. The proud step is slow and measured, the toes are conspicu» ously turned out, the legs straightâ€" ened. If the directidn of the step wavers, and follows every changing impulse of the mind, it inevitably betrays uncertainty, hesitation‘ and indecision. within forty-three hours in the be: SEVEN TlME_S_ A wnown JOHN MACFARLANE HAS TAK- EN AN EIGHTH WIFE. "There Are Seven Oddly Painted Memorial Rooms in His House. John MaeFarlane the “Lake Ains- lie widower,” of Cape Breton, has painted one more room of his house in mourning and has married again. Several neighbors who have seen the room say it is a duplicate of six other rooms, and that the sight of them gives one the creeps. The new Mrs. MacFarlane, who was Ruth McDonald, daughter of Donald McDonald, is‘ the eighth misâ€" tress that has ruled over the house of 'MacFai-lane in the last forty years. She is 20 years old and pretty. He is 61 years old, and handsome only in the size of the cheque he can sign his name to. The disparity in their ages seems, to have no dampening ef- fect upon their happiness. MacFarlane is the oddest character in-the Lake Ainslie district, a set- tlement made up of Scotch Presby- terians, who are so orthodox that they will not allow even an organ in. the church. He is rich as riches are accounted there, and has made a goo-d husband to his successive ines whom he dressed and bonrteted to the enVy of the rest of the community feminine. FIRTS OF THE SERIES. ' He Was married at the age of 20 to Mary McLean and lived happily until the first heir' to the house of MacFarlane was born, co-incident with the mother’s death. He imme- diately went into deep mourning and remained a recluse until a year from the day his wife died. He ';celcbratâ€" ed his return to society .by'inviting all his neighbors to a banquet. Dinner was served in the death chamber. .The walls -were papered in pure white and the ceiling was White also. But every bit of woodwork was painted deep black. Six epitaphs adorned the walls and all about were pictures of flying angels. The host attempted to dispel the gloom cast by these surroundings-fry recitâ€" ing‘ anecdotesof his‘ departed Wife and' otherwise making himself enterâ€" taining. " He made, no allusion to or explanation of the decorations. Shortly afterwards MacFarlane married Margaret Elfatrick. Prior to the wedding he required her to make oath before. a notary'public that she never would go into the refer to her in any way. He took a similar vow. Two months later the by trying to row across the lake in a storm. " Again the widower went into seclu- sion, but this time only for six months. Then he gave a second ban- quot, and guests were served in a second room decoratbcvd after the man- ner of the first, In addition, how- borders and bearing hand sketched tombstones, upon which epitaphs were inscribed. When the-guestsleft the house, after listening to witty stories relating to Mrs. MacFarlane 2, they observed that two 'black stripes had been painted on a white hitching post in front. ' MacFarlaue married a third time, and for three years. his life was com- monplace. '--When on a visit in Hal- ifax his wife died of diphtheria and MacFarlane was so upset he took to his bed. When he got well he decorated an- other room in mourning and invited his friends to a strawberry festival. As usual, he ushered his guests into the chamber occupied by the most recently departed. He delivered a funeral oration before a morsel of the dinner was served, and then tried to enliven the evening with'more an- ecdotes. The whole affair was deâ€" pressing in its tendencies, but the , dinner was excellent, and the guests, who had now become accustomed to MacFarlane’s ways, took things as a matter of course, and when they left looked to see another stripe on the hitching post. Shortly after his next wife reach- ed. the house and found three chamâ€" bers locked; \her curiosity got the better of her. She broke into one, and the sight so shocked her that she went home to her mother. While she was taking steps‘ to procure a legal separation she died of pneuâ€" monia, and another room in MacFar- lane’s'house was decorated.- This was half in black and half in a bril- liant red, as MacFarlane said the young woman had made but half a wife. ' ONE COMMITS SUICIDE. tural deaths and the third com- mitted suicide. The memorial room for the latter was decorated with crude pictures of Dante's “Inferno.” This tragedy occurred four years ago and ,McFarlane has said he had become tired of married life. This was before he met Miss MacDonald at a funeral. ' r _ Before the cermony the bride-elect had to make several agreements. She promised: ' ._1 To decoraterieach week the grayes of her seven/predecessors. To make no referencé in conversation to the dead wives. To“ see that the hitchâ€"' ing post with its seven black. bands SQCCharine room his first wife had occupied or! second Mrs. MacFarlane met death over, were menu cards with black Three other wives followed in fair- ly rapid succession. Two died naâ€" WRlTlNG DELNE BY WIRE MARVELLOUS SPEED OF A NEW INSTRUMENT. Telegraphic Invention Shown in Londonâ€"Photography Used. ‘ The average person can write about thirty to thirty-five words a. minute, says the London Express, of a recent date. A good typist will. turn out about double that amount. There was exhibited at the Charlâ€" ton Hotel a telegraph instrument that can transmit. messages and write them out in the most legible of handwriting at the rate of more than 40,000 words an hour. This is the latest, and it would seem, the greatest marvel of electic telegraphy. The fastest telegraphic instrument at present in operation is the Wheat- stone Automatic, *which transmits telegrams from city to city at the rate of 200 to 250 words a minute. But messages when sent by this sys- tem will have to be translated from the Morse tenleg’l‘aphic language in- to ordinary language, and this can be done only at ordinary writing speed. The new Pollak-Virag tele~ graph instrument transmits mes- sages at nearly "four times the speed, and delivers them direct from the in- strument written in the plainest of ordinary copyâ€"book handwriting. METHOD OF USE. How it is done is a technical mar- vel that takes an electrical expert to grasp completely, but roughly simplified the system is a common- place. First, the message to be trans- mitted is converted into tele~ graphic dots and dashes on a per- forator that looks like an ordinary typewriter. This perforator punch- es in a slip of paper a complicated series of holes that correspond in electrical impulses to the form of letters. _ ' By passing this slip over a series of cylinders, electric waves find their way through the perforated holes. quick as a lightning flash, and are transmitted instantaneously to the other end of the Wire, however far it is, and come out at the other end in the same sequence 11;! which they entered: The manner in which the letters are recorded is the marvel. - ‘ 'PHOTO G RAPHY ' HELPS. Photography is called in. The elec- tric waves are conveyed to a little mirror, and they make the mirror move in two directionsâ€"horizontal and verticalf Electric light is fo- cused on the mirror, and" then di- rected from it too. slip of sensitised paper. The mirror moves only about the hundredth part of a millimetre, and the exposure of the sensitized paper is only about the thousandeth part of a second; but the lightning flash is quicker, and though the eye can- not follow the writing, yet it apâ€" pears, plain as a pikestaff and with- out the possibility of error, at the- rate of almost fifteen ‘words a secâ€" ond. ' . The two motionsâ€"vertical and her- izontalâ€"with the motion of the pa- per being ‘drawn before the 'finger of light, Supply all the motions of handwriting. If produced slowly they would, of course, be angular, but'the’spced "makes them practical- ly curved. Developing 'and fixing the photographed message takes ten seconds later than its transmission. AHEAD OF THE AGE. The system is so fast that it real- ly_ is ahead oflthe age. Very few towns, let alone individuals, want. to telegraph 40,000 words an hour. Indeed, 'Austroâ€"Hungary, the home of the inventors, while enthusiastiâ€" cally endorsing the invention, could not make use of it, because no two telegraph offices in the empire have enough work to keep it going. They would have'to save up telegrams for a week to keep the instrument go- ing ten minutes. It ought to prove. of_immense value in transmitting speeches from out of the way places, where few wires exist. _......._._+._____. THOSE DEAR OLD LETTERS. Only a bunch of faded letters, Yellow and worn and old, Letters he penned in his amorous youth Ere the love in his heart grew cold. Letters that whispered the old, old tale, . V Told since the world begun, Of the golden, halcyon days to be, When'tWo should be joined in. one. Carefully treasured, those missives old, - Guarded with jealous care; (You may take it from me that you could find No flies on this ladye fayre.) Only a bunch of faded letters, Yellow and Worn and old, But they proved when the case came into court Worth more than their weight in gold! A new system of manufacturing peat fuel in the form of briquettes by a chemical process has been de- vised. The raw peat is mixed with lime. nitrate of p’otash, soot, and matter, by which means was kept clean“. To visit once a year ithe Water set ff'ee iron" the cellular some relative .of some one of the (lo-l ceased . - On his McFarlane promised :~ To the soot absorbs the on of. the peat. To make his wife his sole heir. take her to Boston once a year. To give up smoking a pipe and to smoke dition to the house. cigars. To build a sevenâ€"room ad- you are telling him a funny tissues of the peat mm by the ac- tion of the lime and nitrate of pot- ash is absorbed by'rlthe lime, while If a man looks at his wutch while story, cut it short. ‘r.