The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-27


 London, October 28.-(Special Cable.)- "Straws shows which way the wind blows" and tremendous advance Tn thought is often indicated in very small ways.
 At meeting of the council school man. agers at Rockingham, in Nottinghamshire, the head teacher was told to discontinue the use of Mrs Alexanders hymn, All Things Bright and Beautiful" on account of the third verse:
 The rich man in his castle, the poor man
 at his gate,
 God made them high or lowly, and ordered
 their estate.
 It would certainly be a great step to- ward the realization of social reforms if it once be recognized that while the laws of the universe are 'ordered,' the application of them rests with ourselves, and that in human and not in divine ar arrangements we must look for the wrong and error which result in the inequality of wealth, which is perhaps the most ter rible problem of modern civilization, and consequently that the responsibility for their continuance rests in human hands. parliamentary paper, just issued. gices particulars of 4S persons who died of starvation in London, the richest city in the world, last week. Those who think that God ordered this should at least be quite sure that they have not misinter- preted the ordersi
 Truly the folies of smart society" are many and various The latest craze among women Is nerve scents,' which is perfume heavily charged with ether, chloroform or ammonia, carried in the lit tie reticule in an innocent looking stop pereu bottle. The new form of drug can be inhaled at any time, with what dis astrous effect on the brain only doctors can tell. Possibly it is only the brainless who in this way play with their health and endeavor to make up by continued stimulation for the enervating effects of lives full of excitement but destitute of all serious interest.
 An essay by the venerable Count Tol- stol, Thou shalt kill no one" which was prohibited in Russia, has been translated into England and appears in the Tribune. How far the doctrine of none resistance which it breaches is a counsel of perfec- ton, or one which could be possibly ap- piled to present-day affairs, may be hard to determine, but one cannot but admire the man who, on September 19, celebrated the fifty-hfth anniversary of the publica- tion of his first story There is a tre- mendous pathos in the words with which his essay concludes:
 'Ah! this is the old story of non- resistance once again. l hear self confident, contemptuous voices remark
 "But what can a man do who sees the crowd crushing and destroying one an other, push and press against a solid door, hoping to open it outward, while he well knows that the door only opens inward?'
 So like the voice of one crying in the wilderness he continued to utter his mes sage of peace. surrounded by all the hor- TOTS of crime and bloodshed, of which Russia is the scene, and of which only the merest fraction is ever reported to European ears.
 It is some comfort to believe that even Russian autocracy which bans his writ ings, seem afraid to lay hands on the brave old man himself.
 Another brave man who has the cour- age to hold to what he. believes to be right is the President of the French re- public. Almost without exception the newspapers have joined with the public In protesting against the communication of the deati. sentence on the murderer Soleil- land to one of penal servitude for life. Possibly President Falleres believes with ToIstei that in every human body there dwells ane and the same Divine spirit, and that therefore, no man. and no body of men, can have any right to violate that union of a divine spirit with the hu- man body by depriving man Of his ufe'' Possibly he holds simply the sci