TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10763, 17 September 1900, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

An address at the annual Nerves gathering of the British Medical and Association which attracted Work, some attention outside was one by Dr. P. H. Pye-Smith, consulting physician at Guy's Hospital. It was entitled "Medicine as a Science and Medioine as an Art," but the portion of the greatest public interest was that in which bs controverted one of the most popular beliofs of the day—that modern life is more productive of mental strain and nervous tension than was the life lived by our grandfathers. Everything seems to point to this view being the correct one—the undoubted increase in competition in business, the straining after amusement, the rush and j hurry which is so different to the comparatively quiet life that as we know and read was the rule in by-gone days. Yet Dr. PyeSmith declares this is not so. He holds that modern life is easier, safer, and smoother than was life a hundred years ago, "and that our young men and maidens are healthier, stronger, and better grown, less hysterical, and sounder m mind and body than their great-grundparents."' One has become so accustomed to regard "nerves" as an almost purely modern affliction, that it amazes one to be confronted with such a statement. Idleness, and not hard work, is the ca/nse, in Dr. Pye-Smith's opinion, of much of the nervous suffering of to-day, wihile he attributes a good deal of it to the effects of gambling and drink, which sound better when disguised as "nerve prostration from worry" and "brain tension." This may be true in a number of cases, but it is undoubtedly hard upon many others, genuine victims of "nerves," to be thus branded as gamblers or drunkards, or both, while the charge of idleness fails equally when applied to patients to whom possibly a faw weeks of icß&ness might be the best medicine they could take. Dr. Pye-Smifch, however, advised liis fellow-physicians to prescribe regular and steady work as the best cure for a thousand' nervous ailments. He was anticipated by the Cliristchurch doctor who prescribed a course of potato-digging to a neurotic patient. But this was merely ■change of occupation and am out-door life for one who had been no idler, though he had tasked hie brains rather than his muscles. Dr. Pye-Smith's advice was certainly disinterested, but, as a contempo.rary points out, it was .perhaps safe enough to' give it, for the' people who needed it most were the least likely to recognise their symptoms or to profit by the advice. It may ba rash to set up an opinion against that of a leading physician, but we cannot help thinking that Dr. Pye-Smith's assertions were rather too sweeping. Much of the nerve trouble of the present day does, we believe, come from modern conditions of life, though we are quite wf ling to believe that a good deal more comes from tha imaginations of people who, though not idle, spend a lot too much time in thinking about them- ! selves.

During the war one has Scouting become tolerably familiar in with the value of scoutSouth Africa, ing, and the qualities requisite in a good scout. The scout, above all soldiers, must be born and not made. "They have to be built for the'business," as Mr A. Q. Hales, who loves scouts as he despises the average British officer, says in the "Daily News." H-e-him-self knocks about South Africa a good deal with the scouts, and he has come to the conclusion that men fresh from the Old Country are seldom any good at the game, but that Americans soon pick it up even if they know nothing about it to begin with, and that Australians, Canadians, asid colon-ial-bom South Africans are as good as the American. Yet of the two scouts upon whican Mr' Hales lavishes bB. the adjectives of pxaisci at his command, one is an Irish' man from Cork, and) the other a Welshman. Driscoil, Captain of Driscoll's Scouts, ia the Irishman, Davis, another captain in the same corps, is the Welshman, and these two axe the pick of a body described as the eyes and' ears of Rundle's army. Driscoil went to South Africa from Burma, where for years he had had the reputation of being the most deadly rifle and revolver shot in all the East. He is said to be the sort 6f Irishman Charles Lever has drawn so often, with a heart of iron and a face to- match, who thinks nothing of his own pluck, which is superb, but a great deal of his looks, which would not entitle him, says his biographer, "to take a prize in a third-class beauty show." Davis, hie crony, is not picturesque, but he is "a real white man—a rather good-looking, well set-up young fellow, who always looks as if he hod just had a bath," a characteristic whiich alone would mark him as singular in the army in South AMoa. "Di>lscosl almost weeps over him to mc sometimes," says Mr Hales. " 'He's the devil's own at close quarters,' says the Irishman. 'Never want a better chum when it comes to basting the enemy. If he could only s-boot a bit stbxaiighter and talk a bit swe&ther to tiie colleens he'd; ba perfect. , " Mr'Halea, however, has his ov?n opinion about the "colleene," and thanks that many a smile which Drisco-11, the lady-killer, appropriates to himself, is meant for the quiet lad riding alongside him. Hβ doesn't mention this to Driscoil, because it ia more polite, and a lot safer, to agree with that gentleman. One of DriscoH's feats, when he was at the head of the scouts with Brabant's division, was the capture of Rouxville with only fifty men. He divided his little force and attacked the place .from four sides at once; then dasthing in as if the British army was behind the nearest kopje, he demanded, and received, the immediate surrender of the place. Hβ has fought the Boers by night and day for many months, and has had many single encounters with their sharpshooters As a result he esteems the Boer as a fighter so highly that if he wasn't an Irishman he "wouldn't mind being a Boer." He doeen't blame his brother Boer for his dislike of cold steel, and says that "for the clever tactics he's a devdl of a chap." Driscoil has . only had one experience of Boer treachery under the white flag, but that cost the lives of two of his band. The farmhouse still stands where this took place, "but if Driscoll's name is Driscoil, it's going to burn, and the cur who flew the white flag .in it, if I can get him," adds the scout.

We have not yet heard

The the end of the trouble in New Hebrides the New Hebrides with Mission. the ferocious natives. The

disturbances broke out in Erromanga, the particular district of the Rev. Mr Kobertson, of the Canadian Mission. While in Sydney Mr Robertson received word from the high chief and others that fifteen people had been kilted, and that bis native teachers were driven to holding their services in caves. On receiving this news, he hurriad back to his charge. Before leaving he gave a, newspaper representative a brief history of the mission. The island of Erroinaßg'a "holds a name of horror in mission work," because of the deeds done there. Mr Robertson is now the only white man. on the island, bis station being

at Dulon Bay, where ships can anchor • good weather. Every missionary wlioV* settled on Erromanga lms taken his li* "•' his band, and one after another h'a a aj\ the death of a martyr. In 1839 the "ApJ? of Polynesia," the Rev. John WilW sailed from Samoa in the mission h> , ' Camdibn, and landed at Dillon's Bay. •*'* natives received him with a show friendship, , but afterwards ' clubbed him to death, and carried of body to be devoured at a cannibal ■ In i 857 the Rev. G. Gordon and his w& i from British North America, settled in i\ \ same place, but in four years' tim-s jC! I were murdered in their own home, and 7{ I mission was again broken up. I Mr Gordon's brother arrived to take v' > place, but after a few more years his i worker, Mr McXair, died of fever, aniU \ himself was tomahawked by the rjutiv Within a few months of this murder''u Robertson and his wife settled in the « n ,y? rious and bloodstained island." g • they found a small community of nay" Christians living within a stockaded p} s ' to defend themselves from tho heathens ou? side. Mr Robertson took up his reside' amongst them, training a staff'of t jj£ > native teachers and their wives. It j* «!■ i settlement that has now been attacked n expressed the belief that the troubie wo ß u soon be over, but one would almost some tragedy from the record of Erromana