TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10422, 12 August 1899, Page 7

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

A Scout of Science,

Of all the by-ways of science few ore so pleasant for the average non-scientifio reader to wander in ac the re-

cords of the travels of naturalists and collectors. Books could, and should, be written on this subject which would rival in vivid

interest and "thrill" any of the popular chronicles of pure adventure, and though we are indebted to such. men. as Waterton, Wallace, Bates and others like them for letting us wander with them in twilight forests, along the banks of /great rivers, and among the glittering islands of tropic seas, many ! a scout of science shas lived a hazardous life in almost unknown lands and died, lonely and untended, without leaving us the record I of hie work which would liases kept his name green for a future generation. The labours of these men, the perils ihsy undergo, I'wbo knows of them t»ut a few of the inner, circle of scientific men for whom they work? One of the most eminent of them died a. i month or two ago, whose name would) convey no meaning to nineteen out of every twenty people, yet if John Whitehead had told iB print the story of hie travels in thte Far Eaet one can hardly believe that one out of twenty would not have followed the glowing narrative with absorbed interest. Mr Whitehead was a bird-collector, who enriched our knowledge of the life of tropical forests by the discovery of many new species. He had travelled in the interior of Borneo, had explored Palaiwan, one of the largest of the Philippines, and Shad done a great deal of similar -work in tibe Upper Philippines, where he made what is said to be the most sticking ornithological discovery of recent times—iJhe great forest eagle of Samar, a huge short-winged bird, half as heavy again as <&c golden eagle, and <with "combined weapons of beak and claw which are more formidable than those of every other bird." The only skin of an adult bird of this kind which (has been eeen outside its habitat is the one Mr Whitehead sent home to the British Museum, and even there it is reckoni ed too precious for exhibition. To secure this prize and the many gorgeously-coloured birds he obtained in the same country, Mr Whitehead.aiways alone except for hie native attendants, "worked for .mantis in forests under perpetual rain et a heiglht of 6000 ft." As bis ibk>grap(her says, the natur&Kst-col-lector now spends most of his time in tropical forests, in lands of mystery and twilight, ! of high temperature and torrential rains, where the natives themselves "can scarcely endure the climate." Hβ undergoes many riska to life, but that of climate is the deadliest, and it was to this Mr Whitehead I himself fell a victim. He had set out agacn to the Philippines, tut the insurrection had etopped him getting to work, so he had gone on to Hainan, off the coast of Southern China. There he and all his servants were attacked by fever, and of the whole party the only one (who escaped was a Chinese soldier, bearer of a letter to the coast, in which Mr WlhiteheaTeicpressed his fear that be would have to feave'eo terribly unhealthy a place. His words proved lamentably prophetic.

Some Good Stories.

The budget of good stoma gleaned by Mr Raymond Btet&wayt during a chat he

lately had with Mr Augustus Hare, the author of many charming books of travel, supplies plenty of evidence that Mr Hare is, as his guest says, an admirable raconteur, and furnishes sufficient reason for his presence at London dinner-tables being eagerly sought. He "literally exudes good anecdotes," covering & most remarkable range of subjects. Many of them deal with well-known names. One which he told Mr Bhitbwayt referred to Mary, Queen ! of Scots, in a manner which would hardly ■ be grateful to that unfortunate sovereign's i admirers. Sir Henry Bulwer and Mr Hare ' were both at Haifield House on one occasion. Sir Henry waiting for an audience with I Louie Phillippe, .at that time the guest of 1 Lord Salisbury, when a stranger came up and asked whom a fine- portrait of Qoeen Mary 1 represented. Six Henry told him, and then aaked why Jhe had put the question. "Because," answered the enquirer, who tainted ; out to bo none other titan Fouche, the great French detective, "it is the fewest type of criminal face known to us." The mention of Dean Stanley gave occasion for one or two t stories , . He had no aense of taste or smell, 1 and on one occasion he breakfasted with Professor Jowetfc, who laboured under the , earns disability. Both were extremely fond, of tea, «jd on this particular morning t&ey ; had bp\fc drank eight cupe -each; when rod-.

Of Poets arid Others,

Among the great people whom Mr Hare did not particularly admire was the late

Lord Tennyson. The. poet remarked once, as he was sitting smoking by the fire, that tLit was the greatest time ' for inspiration; "but I seldom write down j anything; thousands of lines float up this chimnpy." Tennyson was rather a growling sort of person, at least in his latter days, , but one of his morose fits was the indirect origin of one of tbe finest things he ever \ wrote. Sitting grumbling one day, when he was convalescent after a severe illness— j feeling, no doubt, as miserable as people ' often do at suoh a time—be was addressed by his nurse in a wholesome reproof. "You j ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr Ten- ! nyson," she said, "you ought to be expressing your gratitude for your recovery from a very I bad illness by giving us something, by giving it to the world." H& went out aod straightway wrote " 'Crossing the Bar, , and brought it to the nurse as a peace-offering." Caxlyle's "growliness" ia unfortunately the best known of hie characteristics, and Mr Blatlxwayt had, of course, to add his story to the scores that heaped on tha great man's memory. Browning had left, a copy of his new poems for Carlyle, and the latter commented on this to Tennyson in the remark, "What did that fellow mean by leaving that cartload of stones at my door?" If by this he meant to sneer at the ruggedxiess of some of Browning's writings the poet could well have retorted in kind. Mr Hare ruminated on the frequent unpleasantness of great men. Mr Blathwayt urged that they were often very tender-hearted when one got to know them. "That's all very well," was tne reply, "most people are nice enough if you get to the other side of them, but why should they take such pains to be unpleasant? Tact," he added, "is the great thing to carry you | through life." And then came a story, this , time aßout an Archbishop, who, on being asked what tact was, said it would be easier to say what it was not, and quoted, as a case in point, a letter he had just received from one of his clergymen, which began, "In | consideration of your Grace's many infirmities and failing powers." The Archbishop i gently remarked that that was not tactful. \ We have said Mr Hare's stories cover all sorts of subjects. Let us dose with one told him by Sir Charles Newton, of the British ■ Museum, apropos of spiritualism -and mediums:—"Said, he: 'I heard the other day of a seance at which a woman appeared | to her husband. 'la that you, 'Arriet'/' 'Yes, it's me,' ungrammatically replied the poor spirit. 'Are you'appy,'Arriet?' xes, very 'appy. , "Appier than you were with mc, 'Arriet?' 'Yes, much 'appier.' 'Where are you, 'Arriet?' 'In 'ell U "

Dairy-work v. Piano Practice.

"I watch with interest," writes Mrs Crawford, the writer of "Notes from Paris," in London "Truth," "the Woman's

Movement in England. Women aro right to take what they can." But she thinks they should only undertake wor- for which they are fitted—that they should not, in her phrase, "swallow more than they can digest" —and Badical as she is she is also conservative enough to think that woman's business does not lie entirely outside her home. She forthwith moralises on the decline in British dairying. "For years," she says, "in my different visits to London I never had a fresh egg or a cup of milk that was nice to drink." Everywhere she saw advertisements of Swigs milk, of butter from Denmark, Normandy, and Brittany, and was told that Devonshire cream, was being ousted by the product of French d&iries. In this particular instance "the curse of landlordism" did not enter into the question at all, for "the great English landlord is an angel to the French," with whom the rule is "short leases and the rent paid on the day it becomes due." The reason is that in France the dairy is the woman's sphere. "They rise early, they take, when they have no fields, their cows to graze on the edges of cart tracks and roads. I know a woman who supplies a whole district near Paris with milk. She has very little grass-land. The cows graze on waysides. Sometimes she hires the run of forest paths for them. . . . All over France dairy-produce is obtained in similar conditions. It always goes hand in hand with poultry-farming, because * wherever there are cows there are large farmyards." She does not argue that the English farmer's daughter should lead her father's cows about the lanes, but she thinks she might do a great deal more in the dairy than she now appears to do. On this subject Mrs Crawford wields a most Cobbett-like pen in praise of the dairy and in dispraise of the piano. "Wherever you see dairy industry prosper," she says, "take off your hat to the women. Wherever it can prosper and does not, you may conclude that the women are characterless, lazy, and feed their minds with fancies. The mind so fed is unfit for dairy work. The decline in the dairy in England dates from cheap pianos. When the piano was brought within the reach of the farm-house, the first blow was struck. What is more destructive to nerves and intellect than for a girl who has no musical capacity to strum away on a pianol'" The circulating library also comes under her ban. It had a fitting pioneer in th« cheap piano, and together they have knocked to pieces the dairy industry that once flourished in England. She 1 declares that when a young woman "steeps her mind iv fictioaal literature, her brain loses its grip on reality." The necessity of having to rise at six o'clock to look after poultry and a dairy becomes, in such a case, irkspise and degrading, and the butter and business goes in time, to France. It bfa depressing picture, all the more so because, though the contrast between English French women is painted rather there is a good deal of truth in it jrSetter would it be for England if her as-is the case with numbers in New/ Zealand, could combine business and pleasure. The piano and the novel are not necessarily the foea to the dairy that Mr* Crawford makes out, unless

they become the business of life instead of its recreation. "'""'_

It is of interest to note, in

The view of the. probable estebhsh-Fttsh-air meat here of a branch, q£ the Cure. National Association for the

Prevention of Tuberculosis, that it was recently determined, at a large meeting of Melbourne doctors, to form an Association tJhere for the prevention and cure of the disease. Dr. QressweH, in supporting the resolution, said that the work of eurih an Association would be manifold. It should include, he said, the .wide diffusion of information upon the causes of tuberculosis, and upon the means of» banishing it by preventing overcrowding, and by proper ventilation and cleanliness in the homes of tJhe people, and "She shelters of domestic animate. It should endeavour to eradicate the disease in the domestic animals as well as in man, on the lines which had been followed of late yearsj viz., skilled inspection of herds and dairies, end tfhe systematic examination of milk by bacteriologists. Legislation ibased upon an. enlightened public opinion should ibe fostered, and means provided for the proper treatment bl the poorer citizens. Dr. Springthorpe, ■ who followed him, mentioned, among the aims of the Association, the establishment and successful maintenance of sanatoria in- suitable distrietSj. in the execution of which task the example of Germany might be taken as a model. With regard to tihis, an English doctor, writing to the "Morning Post," derides the claims of what is known, as the Nordrach treatment —the open-air cure—to be considered the speciality of Nordrach. The statemertfc which (has been repeated so often about that treatment that climate is not now counted for anytihinig, he declares to be misleading. "On the contrary, climate has a very great deal to do with it, and a dry, pure atmosphere without wind, and where there are several hours of bright sunshine daily, will produce better results than can be obtained in a damp, raw climate with but little simsflune." The superiority of Nordrach over such resorts for consumptives as Egypt, St. Moritz, Davos Plate, and many others, he asserts is simply to be accounted for by tie fact tbait at all these places invalids are at liberty to disregard tike rules for treatment, diet, etc., which at Nordrach have to be obeyed under pain of expulsion. He himself is, or was, a consumptive patient. He went to Davos, spent nine or ten hours of every day in the open ah , , slept with wide open windows, ate as much as he could, drank plentifully of milk, and consumed daily over Shalf a pound of butter, the last being a most important item. A* the end of five months he had gained thirty pounds in weight, and his lung was 'healed —"surely," he remarks, "as good a record as Nordrach can boast of." He instances one sanatorium at Davos w&Ldh. shows 90 per cent, of cures of cases in the first stage of consumption, and aJbout 42 per cent, of cases in the second stage, and in asking wheUher Nordradh can show any better results, (he declares that he has proved that the success of the "open-air treatment" is not confined to one place. Which is fortunate, for it is a far cry to Nordrach, while dry, fresh air of the purest in plenty can be obtained almost at our doors. ''