The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-04

only lou miles TO the south pOle. lie
offered, amid loud cheers, to lead party
to the cape, winter there and go with dogs
and sledges to this pole. The tales which
he told of novel forms of animal life and
the specimens of mineral quartz which he
exhibited evoked great enthusiasm, and
the congress unanimously voted Antarc-
tic exploration the most important thing
now remaining to be undertaken, and
| special committee is to appeal to the
scientific bodies of the world Tor help to
carry the work out.
| England's peculiar passion for referring
everything to commissions of inquiry and
for placidly disregarding all their recon-
mendations has often been dwelt upon.
Lord Davey's committee to examine the
workings of limited liability companies
and suggest improvement in the com panies
act evidently laid this to heart, for they
report nothing. Itmay not with safety be
entirely ignored that there are over ST.
000,O 900 of paid-up capital involved here,
which exceeds the joint stock investments
of all the rest of Europe, and the present
law gives such cruel scope to sharpers and
swindlers, big and little, that its reform
is probably OF more actual practical
land. This committee OF judges, eminent
lawyers and accountants, after a long
study of the subject, report practically in
favor of doing nothing. Four definite
proposals were considered. The first that
that every company must have some pro-
portion of reserve liability like a joint
stock bank was rejected on the luminous
ground that it would make the company
shares less desirable as an investment.
The next that the State should have an
official charged with the investigation of
the companies, as the friendly societies are
now examined was rejected because 1T
would throw responsibility properly be-
longing to individuals upon the State. The
third suggestion, which was not to make
the registration final till after the first
meeting of shareholders when they were in
position to know what the affair is like and
whether they want to go onor not, has been
recommended by a parliamentary COM
mittee for twenty years, but this COM
mittee throws it out; while as to the fourth,
which deals with the most vital point of
how to secure an exact and trustworthy
computation of the profits, it advises that
this be referred to another authority for
further consideration. The chorus Of con-
tempt with which the report is received by
the press borrows an added point from the
memorandum issued by Justice Vaughan
Williams, one of the members OF the COM
mttee, who is in no pains to disguise his
disgust at its foolish conclusions. He is
the Judge whose rough handling of fraud
ulent company promoters already shines
by contrast with the "Laissezfaire" atti-
4,,J - 4I,1 1f J., Ifoh ar,a
and the hope is publicly expressed to-day
that he will himself draft reform bill
which Will give to the papers something
tangible to rally round and make fight
for.
In the otherwise ephemeral brochure
just issued in Paris on the Franco-Russian
relations there turns up a personal letter
by Queen Victoria to that oriental ruffian,
Dbuleep Singh, dated Windsor, July 6, 1886,
which / fancy the royal biographer will
shy at when the time comes for him to get
his volumes out. If the most accomplished
satirist of our times should have exerted
himself to compose letter which carried
the burlesque of all the Queens little lido
syncracies of tact, good taste, political
sense and literary capacity to unkindest
perfection, this is surely what he would
have written. Only one English paper re-
printed it, and that with no comment save
that it is of extreme interest.
Every person of Welsh blood in America
has heard of Llew Llwyfo, who began to
figure in Eisteddfods fifty years ago. Sew
eral times during the last dozen years these
dispatches have chronicled his final disap-
pearance from public view. Once, l think,
he was supposed to be dead; later it was
said that he was poor, old wreck, exist
| ing somehow in great obscurity. This
week he burst forth at Eisteddfods in
Llanelly to everybody's surprise in first
rate form and walked off with the prize
for an epic poem amid roars of applause.
He is now over 20, but he talks iauntily of
the career still before him.
A unique piece of testimony to the
power of popular fiction deserves record.
There is part of Western London
abutting on Kensington called the Shep-
herds Bush, which is an eminently re-
spectacle semi detached villa neighbor-
hood. It's inhabitants have long been dis
satisfied with its name, which they have
desired to change for something or other
to Park Chester or Addison for choice.
The agitation at last reached the point OF
memorial and of discussion of their griev-
ance with the authorities, who thought
that Shepherds Bush fine old historic
name. Then the reason for the objection
emerged. 1t seems that Miss Braddon all
ways makes all her characters of lowly
position reside in Shepherds Bush and that
other novelists have fallen into the same
habit by unthinking imitation, with the
result that the locality is in fashionable
disrepute and the rents have dropped
heavily. HAROLD FREDERIC.
RESIDENTS NOT IN DANGER.