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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16479, 24 March 1919, Page 6

In giving evidence before the Influenza Commission in Wellington the other day a mddical witness, referring to the manner in which the outbreak of influenza had "apparently" been, checked in New South Wales, pointed out that the pandemic had attacked Australia in summer, when the seasonal tendency to pneumonic infection was absent, and that Australia had yet to face the effects of a winter epidemic. Some time has yet to elapse before tho Australian winter sets in, but already, both in Melbourne and Sydney, sharp increases in tho number of influenza cases have occurred, and Sydney's record for the past week is, we believe, the worst for any similar period sinco tho disease was first noted. It is possible that the breaking of the drought may have had some effect in producing this result, and also that the relaxation of the strict precautions, including the wearing of masks, which had been enforced up to a week or two ago, was premature. As we showed the other day the too early relaxation of similar precautions in San Francisco was followed by a marked increase in the mortality caused by the disease, which began to abate as soon as the regulations were again enforced.

A recent Australian visitor to Samoa reminds us that the late outbreak of influenza experienced there was by no means the first visitation of the kind from which the islands of the Pacific had suffered. Some twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago they were swept by the scourge, the natives dying by thousands, and we are referred, not to the pages of some official report, but to a work by a master of fiction, for a description of the suffering that was caused. "Tho Ebb Tide," by Kobert Louis Stevenson, opens with this dreadful picture of conditions in Tahiti: —

"Not long before a ship from Peru had brought an influenza, and it now raged in the island, and particularly Papeete. From all around arose and fell a dismal sound of men coughing and struggling as they coughed. The sick- natives, with the islander's impatience of a touch of fever, had- crawled trom their homes to be cool, and, squatting on the shores or on the beached canoes, painfully 'expected the new day. Even as the crowing of cocks goes about the country in the nMit, trom farm to farm, accesses of coughing arose, and spread, and died in tho distance, and sprang up again. Each miserable shiverer caught tho suggestion from his neighbour, was torn for some minutes by the cruel ecstasy, and left spent and without voice or courage when it passed. If a man had pity to spend, Papeete Beach, on that cold night And m the infected season was a place to spend it on." '

Similar primitive methods of treatment were adopted by some of the Maoris in the North Island, with fatal results.

—♦— Australian journalism lost a notable! figuro when, as recently announced by cable, Major Oliver Hogue, much more: widely known as "Trooper Bluegum," j of tho "Sydney Morning Herald," died in London. He had been on active ser- j vice for more than four years, and had ■ survived the perils of Gallipoli, the : Sinai campaign, and subsequently the advance in Palestine right up to the ond, only to succumb to influenza a: week or two after reaching London. He enlisted as a trooper in the Australian j Light Horse a few weeks after war j ! broke out, and throughout all his years ' of campaigning he managed to make ' time to contribute to his paper a number of articles that were equal in power ' of description and literary skill to anything published in Australasia. Previ- J ous to entering journalism, which he ' did a3 a junior reporter, at the age of 27, he had been a commercial traveller, ! and in that capacity seems to have ' visited every part of Australia from West Australian goldfields to the pearling ports of the North-AVest, the coastal farming country, and the sheep and , cattle stations of the interior. ColI leagues who mourn his death speak of I Viim a» fearlosr and cool, possessing (

groat charm of manner and boundless generosity, and kindness of heart.

! One of the consequences of the "entente cordiale" now existing between the United States and Great Britain is that the American educational authorities liavo been led to consider the desirableness of revising the history text books used in American schools. . "Wo gather that at least some of these j have been compiled to suit tho ideas of I people possessing very biased views as 1 to the part played by England in tho ! world's history, and especially as re- : garded hor relations with tho States. The American child was in many cases brought up to look upon England as his forefathers of revolutionary times : looked upon her—as a brutal oppressor. : These opinions liavo been strongly modi- ; fied by England's attitude throughout tho war, and the Superintendent of Schools in a large district near Chicago, probably tho most anti-British city in tho States, has decided that the text books have not sufficiently emphasised England's contributions to tho upbuilding of the United States, nor impressed upon tho children sufficiently that the early settlements in America were little sections of English life transforrod to the 6oi! of the new world. Emphasis, ho argues, has been laid upon the wrong things, and, in future, the teachers will present a truer view of tho groat part played by England in the creation of America.