TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14307, 19 March 1912, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

It is sometimes remarked Health that this ago knows too Talk, ranch about microbes, and talks too much about i!- 1----ness. Food reformers enlighten one uneasily about the internal economy of the digestive organs. Appendicitis clubs advertise abroad the fellow-feel-ing that originates in like operations. Health fads., from nut browsing to mud baths, keen the idea of tho various ailments thoy alleviate well to tho front; and even tho onco unrceondito nrtion of opening a bedroom window cannot now bo performed without a mental reference to ugly little disease insects, and probably a proud allusion to your precautions against them as often as the conversation drifts that way. Judging from letters and biographies, however, tho bygone generations talked just as much on tho health subject, only talked differently. Thoy accented illnesses rather than sought specifics against them; but still found a dismnl pleasure in detailing symptoms of their own afflictions, or giving minute accounts of things suffered by their friends. Mrs Earle's last book, "Memoirs and Memories," is a curious illustration of this. Family letters in her young days, or earlier, were permeated with dreary items about bleeding, leeches, blisters, etc. Hardly anyone, maintained the German Baron of the "Caravaners," is well without stopping during a single whole- day. Seventy years ago, when anyone felt less than well, had an Indigestion, or took a- liver pill, he promptly mentioned it. Even a lovecrossed girl, writing of her sorrows to a. family friend, includes the more unsentimental complaint, "My heart palpitates, and my head aches, and my food disagrees with me.' . But her case was not so bad as that of an aunt, who, in 1826 or 1827, was ill in consequence of a love affair. The letters of this period thrill with heartrending

I accoun£s of poor Theresa's state, which appears to modern wisdom to have been a fit of quite excusable hystoria, aggravated by tho remedies of tho period. Hero is one bulletin her mother writes : "The leeches were increased by eight last week, but this week thero havo been only sixteen, which is a diminution/ Even as late as 1864, a mother reports a tumultuous morning when tho doctor had been sent for to bleed ono daughter just when a young man arrived to proposo for another; and her attentions had to bo divided between tho fainting invalid and tho happily betrothed, who answered, according to emotional etiquette, by "weeping and sobbing in his arms." Certainly, theso annals of a large family convey rather a gloomy impression of old-fashioned health. Wo do not appear to bo much worso off, although Ecienco has discovered, as tho small boy stated, that "if corners aro left uudusted, microbes breed in them."

Miss Vida Goldstein, For the well-known Victhe torian suffragist, wholeDefence, heartedly defends tho

recent proceedings of the extremists in London. She recently returned from England, and her dcfenco is tho more interesting because sho speaks with personal knowledge of the leaders and their methods. Her argument is that these tactics have been forced on tho women by tho refusal of the men to give them justice. "Militancy was necessary in order to -wring Magna Charta from King John; tho despotism of the Stuarts was destroyed, or the Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, 1884, would not havo been possible. When mon havo fought for political freedom they havo not been content with smashing windows. Besides damaging property worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, they havo resorted to bloodshed." Miss Goldstein compares tho "Women's Social and Political Union " with a well-drilled army, which "can be directed to any course of action in an incredibly short time, coming from every part of the United Kingdom to enter tho fighting line." All the members aro volunteers. Mrs Pankhurst, tho founder and leader of this militant movement is " a genial, fragile woman, with soft wavy grey hair and burning eyes," and Miss Christabcl Pankhurst is " a slip of a girl," but "one of tho people who aro born once in a hundred years." Mrs Lawrence, tho treasurer of the Union, was a worker in tho slums before sho took up tho cause, and was idolised by the poor. Theso three women, in Miss Goldstein's eyes, are worth tho wholo of tho. Cabinet. Miss Goldstein givos some interesting information about tho suffragists fighting fund, which was stated in yesterday's cables to stand at £115,000. Tho money, she says, cornea from tho rank and file, and nearly all the subscriptions are in small sums. Amongst the many small subscriptions given at a meeting in tho Albert Hall last year was ono from an old woman who wrote saying that sho had always wished to subscribo to tho movement, but had never had tho money to do co. She had that week received her old ago pension, and sho sent tho wholo of it—ss —to the Union. Thero has been so much The exploration in. tho North Northern of Australia lately, tV.at Territory, a member of ono of tho recent expeditions si>\s that adventure is at an end, the country has all been covered, and development must now begin. This explorer, Mr R. H. McPhcrson, was ecccnd in command of the Barclay expedition, which was despatched to select sites foe r.ew wells on tho stock routes, to report npon tho Territory along the 132 nd meridian, and to see whether a port could be readily mado in the Gulf cf Carpentaria for the eastern tableland. He brings back glowing reports of tho richness of the country in this tableland. Ho considers it assured of a great future as sheep and cattle country. Tho expedition passed within sight of 5,000,000 acres of jrreon meadow land. "Room for 100,000 men? I should say that is a low estimate." There are some fine stations up there; at Anthony's Lapoon, 18,000 cattle wero dipped for the tick last yepr. But tho population is very scanty. "Wo counted heads up there the other dny— the battery manager, linesman, raid myself, and wo discovered that oast of the telegraph line, within an nrea of 1200 square miles, tho whites number just 44. And only one white woman -

at Arltunga. This total includes the fivo men -working on tho Arltunga. battery, and the five supplying minerals from the White Range. It is tho whiti? population of 1200 miles of good stock country, and of all that rich minwt.l district of White Range- "which is bound to become a big gold proposition some day." Life in that romoto part of tho world is not so bad as ono might think. The telegraph linesmen, on which much pity is bestowed, have "horses, comfortable homes, wives and families, and tho beauties of the bush, and they sigh vhen added salary means removal to dusty capitals.' . This is very interesting, but the problem remains—how '■an Australia get population for these isolated lands when she has difficulty in filling more attractive parts?