BOYS' CLOTHING

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 8

BOYS' CLOTHING

HOW DID THE MAORI SURVIVE?

(To the EditoM)

Your "M.D." correspondent writes an interesting letter,- but I am astonished that the necessary corollary to his assertion has not been the subject of your news section, and editorials—-namely, that there are no longer any Fijians, Samoans, Papuans, Australian, aborigines, Africans and Indians left in the world, they having all died off with eonsumption, tonsilitis and adenoids caused through not wearing ■ clothes. My father took me abroad fifteen months ago, and I observed that these peoples were very numerous then and apparently very healthy in their sunbrowned and black skins—l admired their physique. I am very sorry for their decease. It 'is very tragic. We must certainly muffle up from neck to ankle like the Victorians, the learned doctor mentions, of which he must be one. Would the doctor recommend doctors' red flannel around the neck and nose to protect the tonsils from the nasty air and sun? (What there is of it.) Then being a boy and student with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, will the good doctor tell us how the Maoris managed to survive practically naked until the pakeha came with his clothes to clothe them? And for that matter, how did they get on without doctors? It must have been terrible! BOY.