Topics of the Day.
DROUGHT IN ENGLAND. REASSURING NEWS ABOUT CANCER. SUSPICIOUS HOTEXKEEFERS. (Continued from page 13) CFrom Onr Special Correspondent.) LONDON, July 21st. I-ONDOWS ' DROUGHT.'' London, and indeed the country generally, is at present suffering from drought. In England fourteen days without rain is, oiiicially, a '"drought," and as for the past twenty-one days there has boen no "official" rain in the metropolitan area, we reckon it to be quite a severe visitation. It is not au unprecedented occurrence for Jupiter Pruvins to go on a three weeks' holiday during our summer, but it is, to say the least, of it, a most unusual procedure on the part of the rain-maker. He has
done so only five times in 54 years, his longest spell being in the year of Jubilee. 3887, when he absented himself for 25 days. And onee in the early spring he allowed his watering can to remain idle for 29 days. This was in 1803, and is the record drought within the memory of even '"the oldest inhabitant." Apart from the lack of rain, which is spoiling the beauty of the flowers and vegetation in our gardens, parks and open spaces in town, and doing considerable mischief to the crops in the country,
London is at present a place to get out
of. The hot, muggy atmosphere has a • terribly depressing influence on the mind «md nerves of those tied to town. The mental lassitude and physical torpor, >with the absence of appetite and lack of enthusiasm for action of any kind, which have been .produced by hot. windless days, pre felt even by the most vigorous. Indeed, it seems that the weather affects the strong more adversely than the weak, who seem to derive a certain amount of extra energy from continued heat and sunshine, whereas the average healthy Londoner seems quite unable to thrive and do his best work with the temperature anywhere above 75 degrees in the shade. "But it is an ill-wind that blows nobody good, and our "drought" should mean good times ahead for Antipodean producers of butter and cheese, and maybe for fruitgrowers, apiarists also.
Almost everywhere in the country cows are suffering from the lack of pasturage, arid the supply of milk is showing a marked decrease; already they are being fed on cake, at a season when they should yield milk without it. Harvesting has started, and whilst oats and barley show a great deal of straw, the grain is small. The swedes are suffering from mildew, while the green, fly and black spot that have come to orchards and vegetable gardens in the past few days in myriads are an added danger. The honey dew is making its appearance on the trees, to the great disgust of apiarists, for the bees will accept it when nothing better offers, and the result is unsaleable honey. THE CUBE OF CANCER. "For the first time it is fully demonstrated that it is wrong to make statements of a disquieting nature about the increase of cancer in general." That is the most remarkable thing that has been said for years about the. most dreaded of all human diseases, and it is Dr. Bashford, the general superintendent of research and director of the laboratories of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, who says it. Such a declaration, coming ' as it does from the highest authority, should demolish the widespread impression that cancer is a disease which is increasing its hold on the race. This is the good news contained in the report on the progress of the Cancer Research Laboratories towards the discovery of a cure for this, the most horrible scourge of mankind. Though we are .assured that the investigations of the past years have been of the utmost importance, it does not appear from the report that any particular progress has been made in the direction of discovering a cure for the disease. Certain facts, however, have been established, which aTe no doubt, of the greatest importance. For example, to use the scientific jargon of the report, it has been proved that "the relation of each malignant new growth io the affected animal is a new one, parallel to that obtaining between the organs Of the body and the organism as a whole."
' "More precise conceptions have been obtained," Dr. Bashford states, "of the in/uence of heredity in place of -the indilSrsite and contradictory views previously current." It has been ascertained that during the period .1901-1909 the increase of deaths attributed to cancer was referrable to certain anatomical regions, and not to others.
Among men, the main increase was in the alimentary tract, especially .the stomach, whilst among women it was also mainly in the stomach and intestines, but also affected the breasts, while other parts showed little or no increase. Moat of the increase chiefly affected the ihigher age periods.
It has also been established that the practice of peculiar customs, involving the subjection of particular parts of the body to chronic irritation, provokes the disease in situations and organs from which it is absent when these customs do not obtain. "So definite." writes Dr. Bashford, "i 3 the evidence of the mediate causation of certain forms of cancer by chronic irritants, that the possibility of variations in the cancer deathrate must be admitted as regards particular organs and regions of the body. The possibility of a variation of the main incidence of cancer, in conformity with chnnges in certain customs, must also be admitted. As the result of the most elaborate experiments, Dr. Bashford claims that "the individuality of cancer would thus appear to have been placed at last beyond all further discussion. ... A
long step has thus been taken in defining the direction in which the future investigation of cancer i 3 alone likely to be profitable." A number of cases of natural healing of spontaneous malignant new growths has been observed in mice affected with spontaneous cancer, and Dr. Bashford concludes that the changes leading to natural cure appear to depend, as propagated cancer, on an ahered condition of the cell and its contents, rather than on an alteration in the general condition or constitution of the affected animal.
"Means must be devised," he states, "for elucidating the nature of the change in the Cell befort earatrve measures can be discovered." THE K.UGGAGELESS TRAVELER. As travellers from your part of the world are well aware the ways of the English hotel-keepers are often akin to those of Mark Twain's heathen Chinee. They set great store by a man's luggage, and the tourist, who '"travels light," ofttimes meets with a reception in which suspicion takes the place of cordiality. j Indeed it has been the habit of many hotel-keepers to treat the luggageless tourist as a person to be openly treated as a probable "bilker," and to demand from him in advance not only the price of the accommodation and food he may ask for, but a deposit on account of things that he may possibly require as -tt'sl!. Recently a visitor to London, who was staying with friends in the suburbs, lost his last train home. He therefore sought shelter at a well-known Strand Hotel, and asked the price for a bed and breakfast. Eight shillings and sixpence was the sum demanded, and this amount the belated traveller tendered. But the manager demanded from him a deposit of half-a-sovereign as he had no luggage. Being a man of spirit and a valiant champion of public rights, the traveller refused to make the deposit, whereupon the manager refused to entertain him. So he went away, and next day instructed a solicitor to sue for damages. And he won his case, the judge deciding that a hotel proprietor cannot claim as deposit more than the value of the accommodation required.
The defence set up by the hotel-keeper was that this traveller might, having paid his 8/fi, have gone in for all sorts of extraneous luxuries, such as early morning tea, or a bath, or oven invited guests to breakfast, and then failed to settle for the additions to his bill.
The judge, however, said all he had to decide was Whether the proprietor refused accommodation to a traveller who tendered the amount sufficient to pav for at he entertainment which he required. In his opinion he did so. "The plaintiff was ajsked to lodge something as security for what he might want, but for which he did not stipulate." he stated. "That cannot hold in law, and there will be judgment for 25/ damages and costs." As regards the defence the hotel proprietor mipht eaisily secure himself against the would-be "bilker." If the hotel manager were so distrustful he might preven't the bath or the breakfast guests until they had been paid for in ndvance. like, liquors at a restaurant without a license.
The decision may do good, but the case leaves unexplained the mysterious value attached by hotel-keepers to luggage. A few old books or magazines, or even bricks stowed away in a travelbattered, muoh-labelled trvnk has many a time stood guarantee for a week's board nnd lodging. But with the botelIceeper luggage is the passport to «steem and regard, and the devil who seeks to "travel light." or whose bags have gone astray, becomes an object of | grave suspicion when he seeks to lay his wearv head in a decent hostelry.
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Bibliographic details
Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 209, 2 September 1911, Page 16
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1,565Topics of the Day. Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 209, 2 September 1911, Page 16
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