CANDID COMMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 76, 28 March 1908, Page 11

CANDID COMMENTS.

(By "Rilda.")

_It appears from the recently published record of the vital statistics of the Dominion for the : past year, that heart disease caused more deaths than any other malady to which flesh is heir. Well, this should not surprise the intelligent observer of the conditions of life in this country. Perhaps the New Zealander is himself blind to the fact that the life he leads is fairly strenuous; but certainly the immigrant is soon made aware that he is to havo no "featherbed" existence," and consequently is not unduly surprised when he hears that heart disease and cancer (another "worry" disease) are the two maladies that carry off the greatest number of victims. We are always hearing about the expensiveness of living here, and that is one very real occasion for worry. ■ A large proportion of the population are actively engaged in this hard task to make both ends "meat"— and even when they have succeeded in getting the meat, there is still the Homeric struggle to masticate it! Then the wage-earning portion of the population must wrestle daily with the difficulties of getting to and from their places of business by means of the crawling train, the overcrowded tram, and the medieval 'bus. Many are obliged to live so far away from any means of transport that they must needs go on the tramp twice a day, using roads that are either too dusty or too muddy; for the New Zealand road, be it in town or in country, is very rarely "just right." In fact, one could continue to multiply examples of the wear-and-tear of colonial life, were such multiplication necessary; but just as the "heart knoweth its own bitterness," so will the reader be able to make up for himself a list of his own individual worries. These worries, however, are. after all, no more acute than the worries of a different kind that are experienced in other parts of the globe. Indeed, they are some of them such preventable worries, that something might easily be done to make existence here the really pleasant period that the country and the climate argue it should be. The question of adequate transport should receive immediate attention; roads should be laid down by .competent builders with the utmost skill and precision; and the provision of a sufficient and, consequently, cheap food supply should be the care of the legislators of the country. One surmises that candidates for the next Parliamentary election who put in as one "plank" of their platform, "Cheap meat for the people," or "Plenty of vegetables I for the masses," would be sure to secure the votes of a large majority of the electors.

Meanwhile, until the needful reforms arc effected, there is rather a marked disposition to pass on worry to someone else; as, for instance, in the case of this threatened "coupon system" which is the latest fad of the Auckland bakers. Because they cannot manage to get in some of their bad debts—it is possible they do not always go the right way to work about it—and are worried thereby, they are wishful to give the already much-troubled housekeeper a little additional worry. '"For it would be a worry to have to deal in silly little paper coupons, or else pay cash for each loaf as it came to a house. To insist upon the necessity for such a system is, besides, an imputation of dishonesty that cannot fail to be annoying to people: who are conscious of their own readiness to pay their just debts as they fall due. If bad debts are the sole reason for this projected departure, one might suggest that the bakers give all their customers to understand that, henceforth, all bread bills are to be settled weekly, with the penalty of no further supply until the past week's account has been paid in full. Personally, I am a staunch' advocate of the weekly settlement of household bills, and consider that tradespeople could easily enforce, and with justice, such a policy as I have outlined above. By such a regulation the honest "sheep" would soon be separated from the dishonest "wolves," and this without annoyance to the "sheep"! The coupon or cash-on-delivery system is an irritation that should not be imposed upon good customers. As to the promise that the bread will be reduced in price so soon as this

"reform" is established, one knows how much these vague promises are worth. Tradesmen are never very willing to lower the price of their produce, and a hundred excuses to delay the day of reduction come readily into service. The supply of wheat is short, or the cost of printing the coupons is too greats or the men delivering the bread want more pay, because it takes them extra time to gather in the cash or coupons— these and sundry other excuses will come trippingly to the tongue of the hardened tradesman, and the housekeeper will still look vainly for the promised fall in the price of bread. We must expect a marked increase of cases of heart trouble which will have been occasioned by the worry which women will suffer when, or if, they are obliged to run about and find their purses or coupons, just as sooi; as the baker makes his appearance at their back doors. Methinks it would be well if the Auckland housewives went out on strike against the bakers of the town, supposing the latter see fit to establish this irritating system.

The Auckland tramway service may surely, without undue exaggeration, be said to be, at the present time, just about as bad as bad can be, and even the car conductors arc not too conspicuous for their suavity and attention, but at least one can feel fairly confident that these men will not emulate the example of a Marseilles confrere who recently murdered a passenger so bold as to ask him for the change due to him out of the sum tendered for his fare. It appears the conductor considered it an aspersion upon his honour that he should have been reminded of the fact that he still owed the passenger anjthing! The Auckland conductor who developed such a peculiar method of asserting his honour, would put the last finishing touch upon the stacked-up pile of discomfort that has to be surmounted when travelling by the tram in Auckland. Far from harassing his clients, however, the Auckland tram conductor errs rather on the side of being too slow to collect his fares, with the result that many pennies must be lost to his company. In a full car, at the busiest times of the day, there are usually just a few who slip off, at the completion of the penny stage, with the unpaid fare held very unobtrusively in the palms of their hands. Should the conductor waylay them be-1 fore they are actually off the car, they will proudly produce the coin, and try to look virtuously indignant that their departure has been delayed. This faredodging habit seems rather shabby meanness, but it would seem that Americans regard it as quite a meritorious act of smartness when they have been able to circumvent the conductor in this manner. I That is, if one is to judge by the re-| marka.of l&dy < ~rccjeatiy j

| overheard in a local car. One of the lady passengers had drawn the conductor's attention to a fare-dodger who was I about to get off the car, and she then turned to the .American lady, evidently a stranger to to demand admiration for her officious act. But the New Yorker was not "having any." She stated her opinion that if the conductor was not smart enough to collect the fares in time, it was not the duty of the passengers to go around looking for him. "No ask, ho pay," seems to be the rule in New York, and it is perhaps just by the exercise of these petty dishonesties that the Americans can manage so successfully to accumulate the almighty dollar. Really, almost anyone can grow rich by careful dishonesty—consider the careers of the world's great financiers— and that is probably what is meant by an assertion recently made in a London paper. According to this, "only the mentally alert can hope to compete with the rich, of whom it may be said en passant, that they would not be rich if they had not originally been clever." In other words, they were clever enough to conceal their systematised dishonesty, and riches and honour were accordingly added unto them: so wags this Mammonworshipping worldl