TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 11791, 14 January 1904, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Excursionists who went Excursions from Auckland to RotoBy Motor-Car. run by motor-car during the Christinas holidays, found the journey just sufficiently exciting to make it interesting. Dr. A. C. iPurchas, with a party of four, made the excursion in a twelve horse-power Darraoq car. They left Auckland at six o'clock in the morning, and experienced their first troubles when they reached the Rangitiri Hills. For sixteen miles their car was bumped over rough day roads, with not a trace of metal, Rotorua, was reached at eleven o'clock at night, the only mishaps on the trip consisting of minor injuries to the car, which were repaired on the way. Mr W. T. Gilmour and a friend, who made the same trip on a locomobile steam carriage, distinguished themselves on the journey by climbing the hill to the Cambridge Sanatorium in their car, which no motorist has ever done before. The ascent was very slippery after rain, and they had to tie clothes lines round the tyres of the carriage before the wheels would grip. The "New Zealand Herald," which records a number of enterprising motor excursions during the holidays, mentions an amusing incident in connection with Mr Gilmour's trip. As the car was making good speed down a hillside, a Maori oh horseback was notired jogging slowly along in front. Mr Gilmour rang his bell energetically as a warning to look out, and the unsophisticated native, turning round and seeing a sight which he had r.ever beheld before, clapped his heels to his horse and fled as if something supernatural were pursuing him. A Napier gentleman and his wife, in separate cars, went from Napier via Taupo to Auckland, and from there to Rotorua, in two days. Between Napier and Taupo the lady's hat blew off while she was making thirty milea an hour down a steep grade. She stretched out her hand to catch it, and at the same moment the car struck a rut, and she lost control of the handle., The car fell over a six feet bank, and lodged in a tree, but its occupant, fortunately, was none the worse for her mishap.. Thirty members of tho Auckland Automobile Association intend motoring to Rotorua during the Auckland Carnival week, next month, taking with them tents and other essentials for camping out. The motor-car as a means of locomotion has evidently got an even firmer hold in the North Island than in the South.

Opinions differ as to the Is desirability of long life. The Long Life Psalmist laid it down that a Boon? "the days of our years axe threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is vheir strength labour and sorrow." ■ This view, consecrated byage, is confirmed by & more modern author, Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton, -who, in conversation with a representative of the "Pall Mall Gazette," described how Mr Swinburne, the poet, -wae often despondent when tha subject of longevity was mentioned, because he thought it was better for a writer to die at the height of his career, and thus prevent the critics from saying that his last, work would not compare with earlier ones. "The last time I met Tennyson," said Mr Watts-Dunton, "he was in his eighty-third year, and be : said he felt keenly; such a persecution r,f absurd comparisons." Mr George Meredith, too, in mentioning that the doctors '•had pulled him through" an illness, declared that it was "an ill.service to a man of seventy-five." But perhaps the average literary mind is unduly pessimistic. Mr Watts-Dunton himself deprecated his fel-low-author's melancholy, and expresses his own conviction that "the proper age for a man to live to is a hundred." In this he was confirmed by a doctor, described by the "Daily Mail" a3 well known in the meuical profession "because of his cleverness in keeping old people alive." "No one," said the doctor, "is so happy as a healthy old person. An old person enjoys a joke, a book, or a piay more than anyone, while the same person is often so dead to suffering that he can bear the loss of a child with perfect equanimity. Old age ha 3 many compensations. It Is so easy to enjoy and so difficult to suffer." Another medical man described the period between seventy and ninety as the moist delicious part of a lifetime. A healthy [ and comfortably-situated octogenarian, he ! declared, could enjoy life as well as ever lie could, but he had not- the energy to I worry about anything. On this, r,s on other subjects, doctors differ. One, whose aged patients were almost alvray* peevish and irritable, regirded long life as no blessing either to those who attained it, or to those who had to live with persons of advanced years. The old adage, "Many men, many minds," may be applied to the discussion, which has been canvassed in all centuries. Lewi? Co::e.ki, a Venetian conunarian, who died in 1566. retained to the last "a clear understanding, a sound judgment, and goctl spirits," and regarded old age as "that time of life in which prudence can be best ex-rcised •and the fru:ts of all the other virtues enjoyed with the least opposition, the senses being then subdued." The other day, a London centenarian, who attributed iiis longevity to regular living , , a, contented mind, and hard work till he was sixty, celebrated his hundredth birthday by dancing a hornpipe before a reporter. A boy, who is alleged to have j broken into a house in town, and stolen Si in cash and articles to the value of I 7s, was arrested yesterday.