TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12483, 20 April 1906, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Tho report by the

Wasted British Auditor-General War Stores, on the Army Store

_. Accounts for the year 1904-5 must be uncomfortable reading for the British ratepayer, since it throws further light on the extravagance and mismanagement, to use no stronger terms, that led to the investigations by the War Stores Commission. Under the present system of keeping up stocks of emergency rations, which are only made use of in time or war, It is inevitable that some waste must occur. Aβ the- whole of the present etock has been in store for more than three years, it is not surprising to learn that as the result of a care- , ful examination it has been decided to destroy all those reserve rations.l There are 350,000 of them and they coat about £23,000. In other respects, however, the waste of stores is absolutely inexcusable. In consequence of the delay in erecting sufficient storehouses at Bloemfontein many of the war stores for that station were sheltered merely in tents for a whole year, or lay cut in tho open. Large quantities of stores were lying exposed to the weather at Pretoria for tho same reason. The stock-taking that was to take place when the stores were properly housed would reveal, one would think, serious damage as the consequence of twelve months' exposure and neglect. In one case it is noted that rather more than a hundred tone of forag«, which was declared to be unusable, and was ordered to be burned, was sold to officers at 4s and Gβ per 1001b. Some one ronst have made a good haul out of that transaction. Some 70,000 bottles of wine were sold »t 15s per dozen, instead of the contract sale price of 26s per dozen. It was believed to be ot defective quality, and the price suggests that it was not of the highest grade, but a month after it had been sold the analyst, whose report had been asked for before the sale, stated that the wine was genuine Port, well adapted for hospital use. Large sales of animals and stores had been made to private persons, including officers, throughout the year, which possibly account* for the deficiencies in the stores at some stations, and for the fact that though the army animals numbered, on paper, 113,000, there were only 83,500 in existence. A favourite method of bleeding the taxpayer seems to consist of the South African Military deciding to sell surplus stores. These are bought by contractors, sold by them to others, and by the latter to tho Military authorities, who have sold them in the first place. It need hardly be added that the price paid by the Army in the latter transaction beans no relation to the price it received for the same goods. The new War Minister seems to have a line large field in which to exercise his capacity for putting army transactions on business-like lines.

• A scri«s of articles in tlio Ghoap "Daily Expmss," on the uniLiving. versal and absorbing queer-

tion, how to live cheaply, has lod Dr. Josiah Oldfieid, the wellknown expert in dietary, who believes that man can live an fourponoo a day, to suggest an experiment by which a certain number of men fiha.ll lire for three months on a diet which will cost no more than this small sum. Dr Oldfieid declares that the -poor ere living on weetrel food and feeding their children on what is little better than offal, but that they can bo fed, and well fed, on the highest grade of food at 4d a day, or even lets.% Ho suggests that the 'Express" should take four or five men of varying ages and occupations, feed them on his dietary, keep them under strict supervision and observation, give them re-

gular daily work, and let tnem lx> tested at the beginning and the end of a three months' experiment. ''If, like Daniel and his comrades, fed on. a similar dietary, they become better and stronger and healthier, you will have established a. scientific precedent for all who are working at the problems of national physique and physical solvency to learn from. An Engli/ihrnan should l>e a valuable asset and not a troublesome problem. Instead of coating 3s a day to keep and earning an out-of-work nothing, every man should as a minimum Ik> able to 'live on 4d a day and earn Iβ.'" The "Daily Express" has accepted the suggestion, and when the last mail left London arrangements wero being made, with the aseietance of the Church Army, to carry it out. Another interesting suggestion made in the course of tho preeent inquiry into cheaper lirins is that the mai£as, especially

under-fed school, children, snails. All tho hungry ones have, to d 6 is to go out into a gardener a field aftor a ehower, collect the enaila and eat theni. Should one dislike' them raw, boiling water will transfer*; them into compact and toothsome mbreels. This fare is especially recommended for growing school boys; and we are told J that if one wants to enjoy a steak and kidney pudding in its highest degree of perfection and flavour, ono has only to add a number of large snails. But somehow or another the public hesitate to adopt his cheap and luscious diet. Tho march of the The Vanishing motor 'bus in London 'Busman. . is remeving an interesting and picturesque type from the streets of the greatest city—the London 'bus driver. "He knows !his wo-rth,"' writes "An Outside Faro" in the-Daily Telegraph," "and it is not for nothing that he weans a ha.t such as Mr Pickwick maghit. have owned, and never forge-t« his daily buttonhole. . . . Unlike a hairdresser, he rarely starts a conversation, but then it is part of his business io give tips—in the nhaps? of stable morey—instead of receiving them, and as he drop*your proffered cigar into his "hat. you feel convinced that the favour is as much yours as his." How do these, veterans of the road regard tho oomim© of the motor, and what will become of them? The writer put these questions to a driver ho know well one. day as a motor whizzed by, amd ho fancied hie frieoid's faoe fhowed signs of annoyance. The company, explained the driver, were teaching their men how to handle motors, and he supposed that, old as ho was, ho would some day tackle the new work. Ho confessed that lie did not wanifc to desert tho heaitlhy air of the driver's seat on tho horse'bus for a seat on a motor, "down araouj the oil and things." Besides he loved his horses, whom he ialked to, but never whipped. The writer laments the day on which his friend will desert his lofty perch to dwell among "tho oil and things." "Even, by fanning his speed to the point of law-breaking the motorist; cannot cover his oilskins w'rth. romance. To the lover of the picturesque the new 'butimam, is degraded ni> a double sense by his descent from a commanding position to the level of the inside fare. Regarded, as a symbol of professicn.il pride, a spanner ir a grotesque sufetir tute for a whiip that curves like t!he neck of a swan., nor could he bear it aloft unless he were endowed with another hand." Then again, the friendly rmfcercoiiTß© between fare and driver, which is such a feature of the horse 'bus, is impossible on 9ie motor. "Huddled over has steering-gear and his levers, he is fenced away from inside and outside passengers alike, and oven if he were not-, the anxieties imposed ty the mechanical monster he directs would foiibid all friendly intweowree.' . But the whip is the greatest loss. If the "gnvWrV daughter is married, where could the motormam display the traditional white ribbon to anything like the same effect as on the whipP -