TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 141, 14 December 1908, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

'Manfully the bandsmen played on Sunday, nobly the thirA Poor ty ladie& toiled on Hospital Effort. Saturday with the boxes, gloriously the Highlanders and Navals "held up" tho people m the street, but with ail the zeal of the faithful few the "Hospital Saturday and Sunday"' movement was a failure. Two days' campaigning in the flourishing capital produced £263 6s 9£d, a sum only a littje more than half j of last year's tally. We are aware that special circumstances helped to discount the takings, but we are convinced that the principal causo was the faint-heart-cdness of the preliminary organisation. The people had not been sufficiently worked up to the pitch of giving. Wellington people have proved often, enough that they are not close-fisted when a good cause invites them to open out, but like other folk, they require rcomo manipulation. Why is it that Dunedin's hospital appeals produce three- or four times as much as Wellington's? The simple reason is that energetic citizens, m«n a lus women, go into the work heartily, and organise. The plans aie well laid, and the money arrive? as a matter of course. It is Wellington's misfortune' that it possesses few enthusiasts eager to "bustle" tor the improvement of the city's aspect or its institutions (except the "Zoo"). • That is why the alleged art gallery is a barn, and that is why the Town Belt is mostly a wilderness. It is vain for the shepherds to blajne the sheep. The sheep look up and bleat: "Where are the shepherds?" • Onoe more Wellington has a reminder that there are some Milk and people in the oity or .Water for 4d. adjacent districts who .„ , desire 4d. a quart for milk and water. The formers who supplied the fluid were blamed, and it was alleged that the Health Department's test was too high, but these and other spacious pleas received no sympathetic hearing from the magistrate. It is some time since the last batch of prosecutions, but the public know well that in the interval all the alleged milk retailed in Wellington has not been above reproach. Most of the defects which caueed considerable outcry a few months ago remain in the present system of miljc distribution, but other matters have arrived to distract the public .. and the City Council, and tiie milk-and-water persons have been mostly left in peace. Indeed, the_ City Council seems to have abandoned its attempt to assure for the people the much-needed betterment in the average quality' of milk intended for human consumption. The Milk Committee, after many extensions of time to finish its deliberations, pathetically brought in one report and breathed its last Tho corporation has a list of new projects for the absorption, of nearly a quarter of a million pounds, but public markets and milk have no place in the category. The Council is giving considerable attention to matters of secondary importance for the comfort of citizens, but like other public bodies, including the Government, is apt to overlook some of the things which should have first call, and milk is one of them. What is society to do with old age pensioners who use The Drunken their funds to make Pensioner. the last lap of life an "amber-tinted pathway" to the grave? If they are prone to drink, should their pensions be cancelled? Representatives of charitable bodies have been conferring with Dr. Valintine at Dunedin, and tho result was a resolution that in cases where a pensioner received a sentence of not less than one month's imprisonment <or drunkenness or any other offence, then the administration of the offender's pension should be left with the local charitable aid board to use "for the benefit of the said pensioner and his dependents." The old regime by which a veteran could be fined practically £150 for a glass of beer has been changed. The law now makes it clear that magistrates i must use reasonable discretionary j powers ; but obviously it would be futil6 j to put into the hands of a man, prone to alcohol, £2 a month tp enable him to become a nuisance to himself and a still greater nuisance to the persons with whom he lives. Where it is dear that tho pensioners cannot be trusted with money, the funds should be administered by an authority determined to protect the weak against themselves. j A statement made by the chairman of the Southland Charitable Aid Board is worth some thought. He mentioned that _ the institution had a farm where pensioners capable of manual exercise were- able to make pocket money of 2s a week. The board, it seems, takes charge of the inmate's money, and grants cash for little luxuries according to the behaviour of the old folk. Once more the Hon. G. Fowlds, Minister of Education, has some The Bacillus amusing critics to ansBogey. wer. He is the head of a. department which proposes to allot £3500 to Education Boards for the purchase of school books for children, but it is almost hinted that he is the head and front of a conspiracy to turn £3500 worth of deadly bacilli loose among the little ones. Prior to the general election there was much clamour for free school books, but the friends , of the "poorer parents" are now mostly silent, and the captious critic has much to say. It is gravely represented that the vote of £35U0 is not adequate, and in any' case would be better tpent I on writing pads> drawing tablets, and so. on. By their argument, if the sum 0f£3500 for "frea books" was doubled or trebled a new horror would be added to life, for malignant bacilli would find their way from children to the books which, passing from hand to hand, might send' a dread disease through the whole school, or a whole town, or a whole couh-ti-y for that matter. That possibility ib too awful. We can survive the touch of money that circulates who knows where, and the poisonous dust of the street after the non-prosecu-ted expectorators have defiled tne footpaths, but free school books will at once usher in a reign of terror. There are some risks from bacilli — germs of spu- ■ turn, ejected with impunity on the sidewalks by unhealthy folk, and the bacilli on public library books that are taken into disease-infected places — and these are not bogeys, but the microbes conjured up about those free school books are almost phantasmal. If people are ' sincere in their fears about bacilli, let j them first tackle the sensible work that j awaits them — inducing the local authorities to enforce their by-laws against unclean and thoughtless individuals who ppattsr the f ootaathftt