TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8584, 11 September 1893, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

A sentence in a recent One Effect issue of the London of Times reads as follows: — the Drought. "One of the more

serious effects of the dronght . . . . . has been the great reduction in the yield of milJc over the whole of the Midland, Southern and Western counties in England." At first sight this appears to be a first-class libel on a much-maligned class of men, bat it is explained that, the reason for the reduced milk supply is not due directly to the want of -water in the wells bat to the almost total failure of pasturage and of the hay and root crops, together with the very short straw crop, not only in England but generally throughout Europe. Aβ therefore it is certain that for some time to come the cost of producing milk will be largely increased, farmers will be obliged to charge more for it than they do at present, and to the credit of some of the large dairy companies in London it must be mentioned that at the beginning of July they were prepared to offer to pay to farmers who had contracts to supply them an additional Id per imperial gallon or 2d per barn gallon. They were, however, prevented from, putting their intentions into practice by the refusal of the small minority of the trade to follow the same course. As showing the enormous quantity of milk supplied to London it is estimated that the addition of Id to the present price of milk, per imperial gallon, would mean an increase in the receipts of the farmers of between £5000 and £6000 pec week. The Times points out that if they only knew it the matter is in the hands of the farmers themselves who could insist on their own terms and the higher prices which the difficult season warrants. The fodder question was then (July 10th) becoming a serious matter. In one county alone, Somersetshire, it was stated that about 250,000 acres of land were given up to hay, and the lost this year would be something like a ton per acre, which, allowing £4 per ton as a fair price for hay, means a dead loss in the first place to the farmers of Somerset of £1,000,000 sterling. To this has to be added the cost of the food which has to be substituted tor the hay, and this is estimated to coat up to £3 per ton. Farmers all the world over are good grumblers, but taking his position all round, the English farmer seems to be in decidedly hard case just now, and, unlike King Gama, cannot be said to find things dull and fiat because " there's nothing whatever to grumble at."

With all due deference A Remarkable to the recently enfranWoman. cbised portion of the community, we think it will be acknowledged that Australasia has as yet produced few remarkable women. The list of remarkable men is not a very long one, we admit, but there is tbat about the settlement of a new country which tends to bring out the varied qualities

which go to make a man prominent &faev% his fellows, whereas women of mark are th» product of a subsequent and higher civilisal tioD. Bat after reading aa account in the Argus of the experiences of Mrs Eu» Rowan, an Australian artist, one is forced to admit that the subject of the biography must be an unusually courageous aoj gifted woman, and some day w« hope to read an account of her travel* written by heraelf, for few women can have so intimate a knowledge of many of the most lovely and most interesting porticos of Australia. Mrs Rowan, who is described ia different places as being frail and little, and who is unable, owing to her health, to bear the severity of Victorian winters, jg almost solely a flower painter, of such skill as not only to compel admiration from the lover of flowers, but to enchant the bigwigs of the scientific world—Baton Mueller, t* wit—with the absolute fidelity to nature of her work. This rare power of pleasing both the general public &a& theme a of science, who ralue flowers simply as botanical specimens, Mr* Rowan ascribes to her late husb&ad. who was a keen art critic and an enthusiastic botanist. The ill health which we hay» said makes Mrs Rowan fly from the southern winter, sends her to the tropical north, %nd all her rarest studies have been made ia the Queensland bush, on the islands of I Torres Straits, or along the far north* I western coast of Australia, her favourite spot being Cape York, at the extreme north ol I Queensland, where she has spent many ! days painting in the bush overlooking th* J Straits, close to the spot where the Qaetta sank. There 13 one settler there, and only one, and as the steamers pass northward they always dip their flags to that lonely I outpost of civilisation. The place is said to look like a fortress, and with good reason, for Mr Jardine, the owner, has time after time had to repel the onslaught of savage blacks, and of his pluck and and ad* ventures many tales are told by those who know the Gulf country.

Is collecting her seven

Dangers by hundred sketches Mrs Flood and Field. Rowan, seems to h&ra

gone wherever there was any new Sower or anything picturesque to be seen, and no danger or discomfort hu hitherto deterred her from pursuing her object. She has seen dugong lulling and tnrtle spearing in the Queensland seas, and pearl fishing off the West Australian coast. She has painted the Barron Falls, perched on a dizzy ledge to which she was lowered by ropes. She travelled over the C&irn3 railway before it was finished in a variety of ways, at one time on the contractor's engine, then oa navvies' trollies, on a railway bicycle, and even on the cowcatcher of a locomotive. To appreciate this one mast remember that this railway, the construction of which is places is an engineering feat, present* v appalling variety of sharp corner* and steep precipices to the view of the nerroui traveller. Airs Rowan has narrowly escaped drowning in the Johnstone liter, when she was caught in a tropical flood and the river rose 30 feet, the small boat she was in being in great danger from floating trees, and on another occasion she was so ill that she was landed at a West Australian pearling station ta die, but managed to poll through, by sheer pluck. She has sketched the "pelicaa dance" of the Northern blacks, when they dress up in the feathers and beaks of pelicans, and has made a long night rid* from a Queensland sugar plantation that sht might depict the corroboree of a particular tribe, while yet another long trip was made to the Western coast for the sole purpose of painting the kangaroo's foot flower, which is said to be nearly, if not qnite, black. Mm Rowan has won gold medals at many European exhibitions, besides those held la Sydney and Melbourne, and has just gained similar recognition of her skill ac the Chicago Exhibition. So talented and daring a worker in the field of Australian art deserves her success, and she ia a woman of whom all fellow artists may well be proud.