TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13104, 1 May 1908, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

According to a -writer in Worry the "Daily Mail," there is and. something almost pathetic height, in certain popular fallacies concerning our "weight. According to him, much of the anxiety experienced when the pointer of the weighing machine moves round to comparative stoutness or thinness is quite needless. The loss or gain of a few pounds should not worry us; it is only when we feel sure that we are getting below our standard weight that wo need feel alarmed. Every person's weight varies from day to day, and from hour to hour, and except when he is eating or drinking, a healthy person is always losing flesh- An ordinary healthy man is at his lightest just before breakfast, and at his heaviest just after dinner. There is a drop of from 21b to 41b in the night. Mental and physical exertions liave surprising effects on weight. Examinations have been found to take pounds from the weight of a candidate. The loss of i weight dv« to physical exertion is | surprising. Mr Eustace Miles astonished an audience by telling them that he liked to lose 61b in a game of tennis. Aβ a matter of fact, lio has lost as much as 81b in a game. Burgess, in attempting to swim the Channel, lost lib an hour, though he took nourishment in the water. • Running pulls a man's weight down rapidly. A famous runner who put up a record for the hour, lost over 61b in the process. It ts easy to lose about 21b by taking a turn at a home exerciser, and a brisk walk may involve a loss of 31b or 41b. Any ailment, even the common cold, acts immediately on tho weight. In prisons, where doctors have to be constantly looking out for malingering, loss of weight is taken as a conclusive proof that a man is ill. Until recent years there was no infallible test for malingering, but now, if there- is no falling off in weight, it is useless for a man to protest that lie is ill. Some tnon starve themselves to reduce their weight, but it is very hard to avoid detection, owing to the difficulty ot disposing of the food. Sometimes food is crammed into them, to the failure of their carefully-laid plans.

The sweating of home Sweating workers is <nofc an evil in, confined to England, and Paris. the "Song of the Short , ' * might have been wrofcten of, other capitals than London. The French Statistical Office has issued some, returns., which ebow that appailing sweating exists in Paris. The average earnings of over 500,000 working women are given , , and, accordirng U. the Paris correspondent of the Telegraph," iho returns show th&t the earffings of a whole lifetime of one of those umf ortnmate creaitiwos would hardly amount to the price of a single dress purchased by a fashionable sister at Worth's or Paquim's. Seamstressee making undercHothing earn from three to five eoue an. hour (from lid to 2i<l), but a largo number make less than Is 6d a day, by working as much as fifteen hours, . A poor woman working in a garret on a eirtih. floor told a visitor that she made *wo shirte in ten hours, and got abowfc a Rh.flli.ng for her labour. Another woman was discovered making chains for children's toy watches, articles which delight the hearts of hundreds of thousands, of children. Yet what misery goes to ihe making of theml In this case the chain was supplied, and she had to out it into lengths of about two inches, e/btaeh brass trinkets, and finish tihe ch«,iTift off with, a ring or clasp. By beginning early in the morning, and working till late at might, she was able tc make 'twelve dozen., for whsdh. she received 6d. Sometimes fine had only j the bars or clasps to make, and then she must turn out 3000 a day before she earned the same sum. At tihe end of such a day she was unable to raise her arm from fatigue. Women w*bo mafoa artificial wreaths wdtih ware and glass beads, mey earn fiom 6d to Is a day, imt those who make- sacks or bags for the Post Office h-are to K<ve om less. A halfpenny a bag is the nxagnificerut sum paid them. Some dressmakers are little better off, as they heve to mako four pettdooate a day. witih nine flounces irotmd each., involving 1000 yards of stitching arid sewing, before they can earn a shilling. But in spite of t3i«ee starvation wages nore and more women come to Paris in search, of this knnd of work. The lure of the oity is too strong, and tihe ranks of the sweated are being steadily swelled.

Some months ago we reGolden ferred to an article in the * Soil. "Daily Mail" explaining why small holdings were a success in France and a failure in England. The "Daily Mail" now tells us that a French gardener in Berkshire is showing English market gardetners that English soil can be as profitably cultivated ac French soil. This man's methods of intensive cultivation are very remarkable. He has for many years sold £500 worth of produce in a yeaT off one acre near Paris, and he is now demonstrating the possibility of this being done in Berkshire. He ie employed by two women who started an. experimental farm on five acres ot land. Though they employed, besides the French gardener and his family, a number of students, the five acres were actually fouud to be too much, and now they are working only half that aroa, j and making enough profit for all. The Frenchman, when tie "Daily Mail's" representative visited the place, had •three-quarteTS of an acre of vegetables under fcell-glasses or frames. In many of the frames, 4 feet square, were thirty lettuces, carrote, and cauliflowers, and the temperature, though it was snowing, was up to 80 degrees. ''Within half an acre were more vegetables and frnits, including melons, which are one of the most paying crops, than a good gardener would get into six or eight acres." Every inch of ground bears at least three crops a year, each of them anticipating the season,. "The soil will do all this if it is properly made. It is wholly a questiofi of economy of space and of rich close, intensive culture. The secret— .in the shortest phrase—is stable manure, glass and French industry.

. . . . The ground is so precious that they do not allow""sp"ace for a wheelbarrow iiut carry their loads,.

and they will not leave a square four inches vacant anywhere." Tho writer omits to state where the gardeners put their feet when they walk about their plots. It is worthy of note that the French gardener and his family live in a comfortable cottage put up by themselves at a cost of loss than £70. If Bngllsu small holders- will loam, thero is no reason why they should not get similar results.