The Washington times., 1901-09-30
FOREIGN TOPICS.

revolution in Japanese manners and Gus
toms 1t may well seem strange that the
sentence on the murderer of Hoshi Toru.
the eX-Minister, should be Imprisonment
ior Ife with hard labor. They might have
| expected something with boiling oil in
H. Sir rutherford AIcock the first Brit
/ lsn Minister to Japan, writing some forty
years ago, dwelt upon the severity of
the Japanese laws. The code is prob
ably the bloodiest in the world, for death
Is the penalty of most offences. The
japanese seem to proceed on the prin-
ciple that he who violates one law will
violate any other, and that willful vio-
lator is unworthy of life Under the
regime IT was considered special prlvi-
| lege to be allowed to execute oneself and
| commit hara-kiri but this was reserved
for people of rank. The common people
had to be content with the executioners
sword.
Under the new criminal code which
came into force in 1852, and which is
founded on the Code Napoleon. death by
hanging is provided as penalty for GER
| tein offences. but Of recent years it has
become Tarer and may now be consid-
cred obsolete. Probably the japanese,
with their traditional contempt for death,
regard penal servitude for life as a great
er punishment. Formerly no conviction
was made except on confession by the
prisoner and there was an abundant use
of torture. That, Of course, was offi-
cially abolished many years ago, but It
| was practiCed occasionally at much
later date. and case is known in which
! torture was undoubtedly applied by the
| police at one of the treaty ports In 1871.
| The British War Office, which has for
| the last year been experimenting with
various foods for horses in transport,
which, while occupying a small space,
/ should sufficiently nourish the animals,
has recently readopted for general use
an invention of colonel Graves, late
! Twentieth Hussars, which consists Of
corn cake" made Of crushed grain, with
about one-quarter of a pound of hay
chop to give it binding and flrmness.
Hitherto various forms of compressed
food have been tried. none of which has
| been deemed entirely successful, although
there is now being used to a considerable
extent hay brick" which is a cake
made of chopped hay and crushed oats,
but this has been found inadequate when
the period of transport has been of long
duration. In writing on the subject, Col
onel Graves says that the corn cake
was invented by him as far back as 1878,
and experimental upon by the War Office
Forage Committee in competition with a
great number of other inventions, mostly
in the form of concentrations. He says
that on the recommendation OF the COM
mittee 1t was adopted by the Government
to the exclusion of all the others, and
has been used in every war that Great
Britain has been engaged in since. OF
its claimed advantages he gives this in
teresting description:
THE horses stomach, instead of being
very large organ, Is about the smallest
a fl IL ~4
portion TO the total mass of the animal
The horse, therefore, requires his food
on the principle Of little and often and
the ba4is of my invention was this neces-
sity. The chief value of the Graves corn
cake lies in the fact that every grain
is bruised, and when the cake is broken
up II resumes its normal bulk. and. furth-
er. having been only heated, and not
cooked, the horse receives, as nearly as
possible. his natural focd. Oats in bulk in
storage. ON board ship, etc, occupy so to
49, cubic feet per ton, whereas rny cake
occupies but 81 to 40 cubic feet. Conse-
quently. the saving of transport is
enormous"
The encouragement which Lord Rose
berry Enthusiastically gave the scheme of a |
tunnel from Scotland TO Ireland, while !
speaking at Stranraer, will quite naturally |
cause revival of interest in the scheme |
which was discussed at length at the En-
gineering Congress held in Glasgow early !
this month. Besides, the intimation of the
ex-Premier's address was that future |
Liberal Government might find itself bold !
enough to face the problem.
At the congress in question Mr. James |
Barton. a member of the Council of the |
Institute of Civil Engineers. read paper |
dealing exhaustiveiy with the practical |
details of the scheme. The line proposed 1
in the plans begins at Stranraer Railway |
station. and. passing north. enters the |
tunnel at five miles and descending one |
In seventy-five. passes under the shore
line at the Ebbstone Beacon at nine miles. /
1t passes round curve of mile radius /
at the head of Beaufort Dyke, at sixteen
miles, and reaches the shore line at the
Island OF Magee, County Antrim, at thir-
ty-four miles. Rising one in seventy-five,
and passing out of the tunnel at thirty
nine and one-half miles. it joins the Bel
fast and Northern Counties Railway at
forty-one miles and runs ten and one-half
miles along il into the terminus at Bel
fast. The total length from Stranraer to
Belfast is flfty-one and a half miles. of
which thirty-four and half is tunnel and
twenty-five of this under the sea
The working OF the line from Stranraer :
to Belfast would be by electric motors
from installations near the main shafts ]
one at each side Of the channel. and it is
sixty to seventy miles an hour so that |
the time in the tunnel would be n little Z
over half an hour, and the whole distance
traversed from Stranraer to Belfast under
an hour. The cost of the tunnel is estl-
mated by the engineers and by "a contrac- !
tor at SO 900. 600 exclusive Of interest dur /
ing construction, and this leaves a con-
margin for contingencies.
Following Mr.. Bartons address Sir
Douglas Fox said that he would face this
tunnel with more composure than either
the Mersey or the Severn Tunnel. While
as to the cost he believed that it would be
at least low as that for the Simplon
Tunnel which was about ECO per linear
yard for single tunnel.
Lord Lonsdale is as nearly as possible
the Admirable Crichton of the sporting
world. in the true sense of the word
sporting" There is nothing in the sport
ing world which Lord Lonsdale has not
done He has been nearer the North Pole
than any man with a title, save that royal
Italian explorer, the Duke of the AbrUzzi.
He is master of the crackest pack of
hounds in England and a master in the
noble art of self-defence, and he can ride
and drive Nothing shows the strange adj
mixture of English life more than the
fact that Lord Lonsdale, hunter. driver.
explorer. as he Is. Is patron
)f no less than forty iivings. In that re-
spect of patronage he comes first among
private patrons in England. The Duke of
comes next with thirty mine.
After Verdi. the great musical compos-
II. Italy now loses her greatest modern |
,ainter Dominica Moreui, who died at
Naples, full of years and honors He
vas a Senator and the president of the
Academy of Fine Arts In early life his