TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10410, 29 July 1899, Page 7

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

.. '; l '•' r The growing danger to the ■-;< " ". The Increase community from the rapid '->' .},,;^CSancer. increase of the mortality - ■'IJ'' from cancer has led to the ~"***' on to London of an organisation unrather forbidding title of the Cancer ~ ?**ty. The need for some such body to ?*'s« hand every possible means for lesseuV'; WTages of a disease which sets mcdi- '•?'-. *■ •cisnce at defiance, was shown by some i ■!_____ tmi ■* th * in * a « UTal meeting. These V -'ILl 1 * **** m 1864 *** «"»cer mortality in ,i/. and Wales was 8117; in 1874, • in 1834, 15,138; in 1894, 21,422; h *jd in l<8?> 24,*»S {males 9673, fenule* ; Jzp o, The n*"" o* deaths to each, rail- '■"" vOtA* P BTlSons living had risen from. 385 in S?* 0 m » 1897 - Among the expressed ''-: °* c *** *^ c following: — % . '"'PWvwment of technical medical edu- ; F e **?°tt; to give popular instruction in ele- •; ; ,_,«Witsry health laws bearing upon the prer' ; v***» wneuoration, or cure of cancerous *A _*****> the institution of prises tor original ••' i, "'2* r ' W kvestigatiobs; *"• delivery . of h **** m ** a o * o * o * scientists pro- '' #» Ibundatfon of a special labors- * wioer w *earch* *h* utilisation-of '*V{Zi* apecial hospitals for. teaching pur* reposes; the promotion of Parliamentary in« .-^fi* 3r into **• «<"■"■ of tne mortality, and i whsequent legislation thereby indir *** coHection publicatura of re* % .!'2£~ ,tatirtic «- - Such a programme, if pros•''2?' cawi ** «**» «•>» only result beneficis;'f£** onl r*oEngland, but to the whole , for eail i ci * *» increasing every?i ?___**' ■ Hw » *»> New Zealand we axe at k*r*7 ««»*Hjr jsminded, ia to* pages

of the returns, of- the growing prevalence of this, one of the most terrible ills to which we are liable. In 1889 there died from cancer in this colony 260 persons; by last year the mortality, steadily tacreasing year by, year, had risen to 47L The life insurance offices have taken a step whitui shows that they are alive to the danger. They suggested to the Regiatrar-General that he should embody In his next annual returns particulars as to the part of the body most affected by cancer, and the age at whi<& deaths from that cause occur, and the request has been mat by a promise that he will supply as much of the desired information as possible. Possibly when these details have been available for a series of years some facts may be deduced from them -Wuich will strengthen tbe hands of those who have to fight this dreaded disease.

Tihe statement that it is less The First than seventy years since the Australian first steamer entered Sydney Steamer, harbour is no doubt as true as gospel, but it nevertheless seems hardly credible that tbe huge steam shipping trade of Australia should be of such recent birth. The story of the beginning of that trade is one of the most interesting in the whole history of Australian development, and it is well told by Mr Walter Jeffery, a literary coadjutor of Louis Becke. The pioneer of the floating hotels and warehouses which link Australia with tne Mother Land was an odd little craft called the Sophia Jane, which was built at Home some time in the thirties, and gained much renown as one of the first steamers running on the Thames. She was at first used as a ferry boat between London and Gravesend, then she ran from London to Calais, from Portsmouth to Plymouth, and from Liverpool to the Isle of Man, eventually being sent out to Sydney. She arrived there on May 14-th, 1831, after a voyage of all but three"months, her route having, of course, been by way of the Cape of Good Hope, ior it was long before the days of the Sues Canal. The Sophia Jane was not exactly an ocean greyhound. She was 126 ft long, with a beam of 20ft and a draught of 6ft loaded, and her burthen was 256 tons. Her lines were, therefore, rather tubby than graceful, and the utmost speed her 50 horsepower engines could drive her was eight miles an hour in smooth water. But she was Btaunchly built, and her 54 passengers no doubt thought her a marvel of mechanical and engineering skill. After having achieved so -ong a voyage it was rather a comedown for her to be put to tugging vessels. out of Sydney harbour as soon as she got there, but her usefulness in this capacity..was the admiration of all benolders. 'She battled about, up and down the coast, for a number of years, until bad weather and worse navigation left her bones on a rocky Snore. Before this happened, however, she had seen the Bteam trade firmly established. Enterprising colonists had turned out several small steamers. Three or four were built near Newcastle, and one of these, sold subsequently to the Chinese Government, had a Jong career on the Chinese coast. From Home the Sophia Jane had been followed by toe King William, and the Clonmel, of 524 tons, which would have been the first steamer to visit the infant city of Melbourne, had she liot been wrecked near Port Phillip Heads, while trying to make the harbour. A year or two earlier the first iron steamer was built and launched in Sydney. The Rapid was little more than a harbour ferry boat, and her principal duty lay in running from Sydney up the Parramatta river to Parramatta. S&e was followed by several others, the pioneer boats of the Australian Steam Navigation Company. It was not until 1852 that the P. and O. Company took the course which had often been urged upon them; and ventured'into Australian waters. We described, some time ago, the voyage of the Chusan, to' Sydney with the first regular steamship maiL It was a great event, but it was thrown in the shade before the year was out by.-the arrival in Australia of tne largest steamer then afloat, the Great Britain, with 800 emigrants for the goldfields. She continued in the Australian trade for twenty-two years until past hard work, and was then sent to the Falkland Islands, where she was condemned, and made to do duty as a hulk—a sad fall for a vessel which had once held so proud a position. But still she had begun life when steamers were very common objects. We like best to remember the Sophia Jane, exThames ferry boat, panting -and puffing through latitudes till then unknown to steam. That was, indeed, a voyage of adventure.

The interesting notes which Old have been supplied by seveYew Trees, ral correspondents about large totara trees on the Peninsula give one an idea of tbe giants which in other days must have towered above their fellows in the untrodden hush, and accentuate the regret everyone must feel that so few have survived the settlers' axe and fire- ; stick to charm our eyes to-day. But huge as some of these monarchs of the bush must have been in their lusty vigour, there are | trees to be found in many an English village to-day which are not much smaller. A correspondence which has been going on in a Jjondon paper has brought out a wonderful list of yew trees, noteworthy from their size and Teputed age. Ruins some of these trees are, but they are magnificent in their dying, and seem indeed to set Time at defiance. They 1 are mostly to be found in such quiet oldworld churchyards as Gray wrote of, where, beneath their spreading ehade, uncounted generations of the village folk have been laid to rest. Many of them have an honoured place in the books of tree-lovers, wherein their girth and spread of foliage, and their history, are noted. Among theaj are such veterans as the two yews in Cudham churchyard, in Keut, each more than 28ft in girth, the Selborne yew, which wheu Uilbert White measured it, was 23ft round, and has since grown- to more than 25ft, with a spread of sixty yards, and the Alvechurch yew 23ft. Still more noted are the yewsinDarleydale, measuring more than thirty-one feet four feet above the ground, and the great yew at Church Preen in Shropshire, which has been declared by a great authority to be one of the finest trees in existence. Ten years ago its branches covered nearly eighty yards, and its girth at one foot from the ground was 32ft -7in. Many <of these trees are hollow. In the trunk of the last-named twenty-one men can stand uprigut, yet it is still growing. Several others win* hold from twelve to twenty men. Some of the most famous yew trees are not the largest That in Crowhursfc churchyard, in Sussex, is declared by tradition to be three thousand years old, and others in the same county are said to have been there when tbe Vikings were raiding that part of the coast. The Iffley yew, probably one of ithe most widely known, from its prmdmity to Oxford, is said to be as kid as &c church, and that is believed to have been built before the Norman Conquest. The Fortingal yew in Perthshire is supposed to be the oldest surviving specimen, but there is more than a suspicion that it is in reality two trees growing together, and thus the calculations of those who would estimate Hs age by measurements and lines are set at naught It is hardly to be doubted, however, that there are yew trees still growing at Home which are from six hundred to

nearly a thousand years old, carrying back one's .thoughts to those distant days when .English archers with yew tree bows were fighting and winning great battles for "the land where the yew tree grows.''

The reading of the MatheMind „ matical Tripos list this year

and at. Cambridge produced more Muscle.' sensation than ■ usual, for a I native Hindoo wis bracketed Senior Wrangler with a Lancashire man, and Ausbraha supplied the third and fourth wranglers. Baghunath, Purushottom Parasjpye was born in the Ratnagiri district of India in 1876, and was educated at Fergusson College, Poono, and Bombay University, whence a scholarship took him to St. John's, Cambridge, three years ago. In taking so high a position in mathematics he has .done what none of his countrymen have ever done before. Most of those who enter English Universities take up the law, in which several have distinguished themselves, one of them eight years ago being first in the Law Tripos. The 4hird Wrangler, Mr S. B. M'Laren, Trinity, was born and educated in Melbourne. The fourth, Mr P. V. Bevan, though born in London, is a Melbourne man by residence and education, being the son of the well-known Congregational divine, Dr. Bevan. The ladies did not figure so high in the lists this year as they have done at times in the past, the highest, Miss Lapthom, of Girton, being equal to the twentythird - Wrangler. It is , always of interest to note how the men who do not devote themselves solely to reading, but keep a sound mind in a sound body by athlet"c exercise come out in these great examinations. This year they have done very welL Mr Birtwhistle, bracketed Senior Wrangler with the Indian gentleman with the peculiar name, does not seem to have earned any fame for himself outside the schools, though he h&a had a brilliantly successful career since he attended a Wcsleyan day school in Burnley, winning a number of valuable scholarships. But Mr Bevan, the fourth Wrangler, is one of the best athletes Cambridge possesses. "He is equal," we are told, "to 16isec for. the hurdles, is a fair sprinter, and is fairly good with both the hammer and the weight." If this, added to 'his Wranglershlp, is not fame, what is? Rowing can claim the sixth, twelfth, , twenty-eighth, and thirtieth Wranglers, and a number of those below them, some being noted oarsmen. Tennis has at least two representatives of some repute in the list, cricket has two others in Messrs Tabor and Sills, while Messrs Workman, a three-mil|o runner, Young, and Kemble are'good athletes. Another man is a 'Varsity lacrosse player. The Light Blue athletes and sportsmen have this year onoe more shown that the cultivation of muscle does not necessarily preclude a man from success in less agreeable fields of exercise.