TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14980, 9 June 1914, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

life of the Air. . Every now sport has its attendant dieses of more or loss serious char-' actor. We have heard of "lawn-tennis cjbqw," "cyclist's hump," "automobiljst's stare," and tho rest, and now we are told there aro complaints peculiar to aviators. The physical evils of aviation aro treated of in a special chapter of "Flying," a recent book published by Turner and Hamel, the airman whose fate still remains a mystery. Mountain-sickness and balloonsickness, the writers say, aro wellknown disorders, though their scientific explanation is not settled beyond dispute. Airsickness is essentially tho same disorder, but it appears at a flower altitude than mountain-sickness, owing to the aviator's more rapid ■accent. Its leading features are stated to be giddiness, headache, and somnolence, tho latter supervening after landing, and sometimes after a considerable interval. A suggested cause is %he want of oxygen in the upper atmosphere, and if this is so', a remedy should be for tho aviator to carry ojcygen Cylinders with him, and to inhale tho gas when attempting a high flight. Another ill to which airmen are liable is, of course, tho intense cold of flying at high altitudes, which numbs the t 'mental as well as the physical faculties, and is held to be responsible for some of the fatal accidents which have occurred. Conjunctivitis, or inflammation in the eye, is frequent, but can be minimised by the use of suitable goggles. Bleeding from the nose, ears, lips, or even from under the nails, occasionally occurs, and cyanosis of the extremities is frequent. So great aro the demands upon body and brain made ! by aviation that only a man in firsfcclass health and of sound constitution can hope to fulfil them, and it is noteworthy that Mrs Maurice Hewlett, one of the few experienced women aviators, holds that numbers of women are not really fitted for flying. On the other hand, flying is said to havfe its beneficial effects in many instances. Neuralgia, some claim, disappears Aβ if by magic during an ascent, and a sovere attack of influenza has been known to bo removed in similar fashion. It is hardly necessary to state, however, that in the latter case the patient must be a passenger, and not the aviator himself. Lord Rosebery's Plight. Some owners of large estates in England are finding it hard to maintain tho old isolation afforded by thoir ex-

ton6ivo estates. Lord Rosebery. for instance, is struggling hard to preserve the privacy of his beautiful place near Epsom, "Tho Durdans." For several years tho rural solitude of "The Durdans" has beon rudely encroached upon. Woodcoto Park, an adjoining estate, was a fine country residence with a noble- acreage , of parkland. Unfortunately for Lord Rosebery, a company has swooped down on the property and converted it into a twentysoveiirholo golf course, with the mansion as a residence for members. Close to where the well-known "Durdans' Path"'

used to run was a close-knit screen of trees serving as a dividing-wall between tho two estates. Up came the golf course experts, swept the whole ecreen away by steam-power, and constructed a bunker right under the eye of the owner of ''Tho Durdans. 1, Lord Kosebery's position is now a melancholy one. Not only has ho on one side of him one of the largest and most up-to-date golf courses in the country, but in othor directions he finds himself hemmed in by three lunatic asylums, 'an epileptic colony, a .large workhouse, a large cemetery, and a training college. And iv addition there is a fourth lunatic asylum in process of completion. Lord Rosebery is putting up a stubborn fight against these invaders of his. privacy, and has bought many additional acres of land round his estate to try to keep his "lonely furrow" intact,, but the invading forces are proving too much for him. A "Standard" representative who visited the site of tho "Durdans' Path" recently, noted also an airship and a noisy biplane manoeuvring gaily in the air directly over "The Durdans, ,, and realised that Lord Rosebery's fight for privacy was a fight against heavy crtds. Lunatic asylums, however, have to bo built somewhere, and if golf-courses inconvenienco owners of adjoining land, they bonefit scores of other people.