ROUND THE CORNERS

Bruce Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 2498, 1 August 1893, Page 3

ROUND THE CORNERS

When will infinite pity Iprevail and mankind learn to really care for one another's welfare and so terminate the existing wild beast struggle for existence. Still they take who have the power and the inclination is still to take at the cost of extreme grinding. That telegram from Melbourne the other day bad a distinctly sinister ring about it The tailoresses had been compelled by a certain firm to abandon their Union. ">nly , one construction can be placed on this piece of vile news, and that is the grinding of the bodieß and eouls of the unfortunate women into gold and stiver for the manufacturing cheap clothing firm, who has them in its toils And we heard the other day of a well-known clothing firm of this country purchasing the clothing and drapery department of another well-known all round firm. This transaction savors of monopoly and as the " cutting fiae " predelictions of the purchasing firm are pretty well understood, the screw is nearly aura to be applied in certain quarters where it can be used with impuaity. My word to the tailor aaie-, and every working body, is stiok to your Uaiona but avoid the mistake of tyrannising in tarn. •' Fjr defence, not defiance," bo your monto, oh, my brethern. You will gain nothing by r making raids into the enemy* ojuatry. 1 # '# # * Fair play, my masters, all round, but no anarchy or approach to it. No wretched women driven to the streets by sweating fiends or doomed to semi-starvation at home, aod such homes I what a libel upon one of the sweetest words in the language. Is ia that kind of horrid grinding that the State has to prevent, even if it goes the length of appointing a royal commission to fix the prices of certain articles by Act of Parliament. Aod, notwithstanding the many difficulties in the way, and the question does bristle with them, I am convinced it could be done, and then woe to the firm that undersells by attempted sweating. • # # # . The Victoria opurt martial has closed, and without whopping "any body." Oaly Admiral Tryon was to blame for the primal order "to tarn.'' As we have bat a skeleton ■^ cable of the court's verdict we will live in hops that when the text of it reaches us we ■hall find something in the shape of a reprimand applied to' Admiral Markham for ' forgetting what reads like a standing order, and to the engineers for not keeping the Instrument in the engine room that conveys orders from the deck in proper order and oondition. ' # # # * A majority of fools in the world indeed. Oarlyle was a wise man and right, very - right, a late illustration of the truth of his Immortal axiom having been presented by that charming family in which a loaded revolver was given to an infant to play with ! Of pourie no one knew it was, loaded is the •xoase advanoed, they would have been tooiething very much woroe than mere foole If they had. Tae folly lay in as3ooi*tiug an Infant with a dangerous weapon whioh the next moment, when in the hands of the biggest fool of the lot, went off " promisous like " and shot an unhappy creature b9longIng to the same family, in the jaw. She, poor soul, oarried away, the collective folly of the family—that m I mean, the folly ~" of that one oocasion, there was plenty left behind for another— to the hospital where I Km glad to hear she is doing well. #' # # * That Wangauui Hospital soandal has ended in something like sm)ke and ap parently through a Bort of weakness on the part of the enquiring ofnoial, Dr M Gregor, who was sent to look into the trouble by the Inspector General. The ' Wanganui Herald ' declares that the doctor's statements to the editor attached " immorality " to the nurse, whereas in bis report to the InspsotorGeneral, which has been laid on the table of the House of Representatives, be says, "I found that the nurse, whose conduct is in question, had been guilty of impropriety with one of the male patients, a Mr Blank, and had consequently neglected her duty, and also that the authorities had leaned too much to mercy's side ia judging her conduct." Now, I want to know what can be made of this. Either the nurse was guilty or she was not guilty, and what between the mercy of the authorities and the iemineutrality of the enquiry dootor the. woman oomes out of it very nearly without a stain upon her character.- Not quite, of course, but still only an impropriety which any or its might have fallen into, The laohes of Hospital officials oannot be too sternly dealt with. . . AfiJtODfiUS.