TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8557, 10 August 1893, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The unusual prevalence of Size largo icebergs in the Southern

of Ocean during the last year or Icebergs, two has attracted a good deal

of attention to the subject generally, and, among other things, the relative size of a floating iceberg above and below water seems to be a matter regarding which a good deal of popular misconception prevails. The subject is very lucidly dealt with by the scientific correspondent of the Melbourne Age. No hard and fast rule can be laid down to settle the question oiF-hand. It is possible that the depth of an iceberg may be nine times its height above water ; on the other hand, it is even possible that its depth below water may be actually less than its height above water. Usually, of course, the real proportions will be somewhere between these two extremes. It depends upon its shape. The only thing that can be safely said is that the submerged portion of a floating berg is about nine times as great in volume or mass as that above water. • This is arrived at by calculating the relative specific gravities of ice and water, and will vary slightly according to the saltnass of the water and other causes, bub is near enough for practical purposes. This, as we said before, gives very little clue to the height and depth, unless we know the shape of the berg. If it has a narrow base, it will extend to a. great depth below water; if a broad base, the depth will be correspondingly diminished. If shipmasters were to take soundings in the neighbourhood of an iceberg it might _?ive them some clue to its probable size. As a rule, however, they are too anxious to get out of its way to trouble themselves with scientific observations.

Why is it that modern Poetry poetry is as a rule so pessi-

and mistic? Mr Alfred Austin Pessimism, supplied an answer in a iec-

tnre which he recently delivered at the Royal Institution.. He said that during the last few years a wave of doubt, disillusion, and despondency had passed over the world. One by ono all the fondly-cherished theories of life, society and- empire had been abandoned. We no longer seemed to know whither we were marching, and many appeared to think that we were marching to perdition. This pessimistic spirit pervaded all society and all thought, aud was strongly evidenced by the contrast presented 1 between Tennyson's " Locksley Hall" and "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." In the first work the poet was an optimist, because when it was composed the prevailing tone was optimism ; in the second he was a pessimist for a similar reason. The complaint has now reached a very pronounced stage, but it has been gradually coming on for a long time. Mr Alfred Austin thought it might be traced to the disillusion which followed the French revolution. In following outthe growth of the spirit fromßyron down to our own time he took occasion to remark that true piety and pessimism were irreconcilable, and Wordsworth was too pious to be pessimistic. We are glad to note that Mr Alfred Austin himself has no sympathy with the poets who always pitch their strains in a minor key. He very shrewdly remarked that pessimism seemed to him to be a kind of disappointed egotism, and he sometimes thought the doleful bards of whom it was characteristic had never had deep distress and that they were as sad as night, only for wantonness. The poet, no doubt, had to learn by suffering; having learnt, he was then to help others, not to be miserable, but to be happy. Surely the time has now arrived for the bard who shall pipe to us once more in the strains of joy and hope; if not we shall, in selfdefence, be driven to leave the modern poets severely alone, and to bury ourselves entirely in the pages of Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare and Milton, where we are always sure of finding cheerfulness and contentment.

An important and instrucDoctors tlve State document has just and been presented to the Eng-v Inebriates, lish Parliament in the shape

of the evidence taken before the Committee on Inebriates, on which they founded their report. A large number of medical men were examined, but people who read their depositions hoping to find some new cure for drunkenness disclosed or recommended will be disappointed. The doctors all admit that where the habit has become established its cure is very difficult, and they chiefly recommend an extension of the legislation empowering the detention and treatment of inebriates in asylums or retreats provided for the purpose. Under the English law as it exists at present, provision is made whereby a person may place himself under restraint for a period not exceeding twelve months. Eightyone eminent doctors have signed a memorial to the Committee, in which they point out that this provision is found to be of limited value, the proportion of persons, especially ladies, who will go before magistrates and voluntarily place themselves under restraint being small. They, therefore, urge not only that the clause which requires appearance before the justices should be repealed, but also that there shall be compulsory restraint, under

all proper safeguards, of those men and women who cannot control themselves in thi3 respect. . They are of opinion that "much good may be done to inebriates, if compulsory detention can be enforced for a sufficient time, and if upon release and subsequent break-down they can -.gain be placed under control without delay or di_Ecnlty. ?>

Au. the doctors seem Women agreed in the opinion that Drunkards, although it is very difficult

to cure » male drunkard, it is enormously harder to cure " lovely woman" when she thus "stoops to folly.*' Sir Andrew Clark was very emphatic on this point. "I have had," he said, "a singularly large experience of private dealings with drunkards. Now I do not think that I could look back upon five recoveries in women, but I can look back upon hundreds—l am within the mark when I say hundreds—in men.*' The experience of the Governor of Pentonville Prison is that " when a woman is thoroughly bad she is thoroughly hopeless." Dr. H. R. Kerr, who at one time kept a retreat for female inebriates, told pretty much the same tale. He found his patients particularly ingenious in getting something to drink, aud related to the Committee, as an illustration, a story which would be very amusing if it were not at the same time very shocking. It showed the way in which one of his lady patients contrived to get intoxicated with the aid of a pair of curling tong3. First she pleaded for th c tongs, having, as she said, always been accustou.ed to use them for the purpose of "frizzing" her hair. Then, as curling tongs must be made hot, a little lamp was necessary, and finally, some methylated spirit for fuel. The spirit, however, never into the lamp. By various devices sugar, lemon juice and hot water were obtained from some of the maids, and although even with these concomitants the beverage could not have been very nice, it effected its ptirpose. The result was that when Dr. Kerr went his rounds one day he found several of bis patients in a state painful to witness, and not at all such as was likely to conduce to their recovery. Another medical man who had had experience of women in retreats, gave it as his opiuibn that the reason why women were more difficult to deal with than men was that they were screened for a longer time, and so had become very bad before they were brought under medical care. The fact that* they had fewer occupations to divert their thoughts, he considered, also had a good deal to do with it.