CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11554, 15 April 1898, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

Mark Twain has recently the contributed to Harper's

Austrian Magazine, a graphic account parliament, of the recent disgraceful scene in the Austrian Parliament. He has a good deal to say of Dr Lecher’s great speech, on which the fate of the Government hung and describes it as an almost superhuman effort. Dr Lecher was on his feet for twelve hours, and during that time his friends fortified him with three glasses of wine, four cups of coffee, and one glass of beer, which, in the opinion of the genial American, constituted ‘"a most stingy reinforcement of his wasting tissues.” When he had been speaking eight hours his pulse was seventy-two; when he had spoken twelve, it was one hundred. The eloquent and flowing peroration closed with the words i “ The Germans of Austria will neither surrender nor .die.” The expressions used in debate were gems of politeness, and some of tha more select ones may he printed :—“ Ton cowardly blatherskite, say that again;” “You’ve no business in this House; you belong to a pin mill“ Contemptible cub, we will bounce thee out of this“ You are behaving like a street arab“ You are a wholly honourless street brat“ Fire the rapscallion out;” “ Political mountebank;’’ “ Drunken clown “ Shut up, infamous lonse-brat.” The curious thing, as Mark Twain observes, is that nearly all tha authors of these expressions are university doctors! The final scene appears to have roused the writer’s indignation ; “ a free Parliament profaned by an invasion of brute force,” he calls it. It seems to have been too serious for joke, . “ Sixty policemen,” says Mark solemnly*

“ascended the steps oi the tribune, laid their hands upon the inviolable persons of the representatives of a nation, and dragged and tugged and hauled them down the steps and out at the door; then ranged themselves in stately military array in front of the ministerial estrade, and so stood. It was a tremendous episode. The memory of it will outlast all thrones that exist to-day. In the whole history of free Parliaments the like of it had been seen but three times before.” The shipping statistics, the compiled by Lloyds’ for the British year that closed on Dec. 31 mercantile last, have just been pubjleet. listed, and show that the r period was a fairly active one in the shipbuilding world. The total steam tonnage added to Lloyds’ Register for the year amounts to 736,274 tons gross, while 49,676 tons of sailing tonnage has been added during the same period. Fully 90 per cent of this increase consists of new vessels, and it is a pleasing and noteworthy fact that not one of the vessels has been built abroad. The largest items amongst the other additions to the Register are those of vessels transferred from British colonies and from foreign countries to the British flag. During the same period the gross deductions from the Register amounted to 777,344 tons, made up of 577,217 tons of steam and 200,127 tons of sailing .tonnage. About 40 per cent of the steam and 4'6 per cent of the sailing tonnage included in these figures have been removed on account of loss, breaking up, dismantling, and so forth. In 1897 the tonnage sold to foreigners reached the large total of 387,794 tons, which is a very considerable increase on the figures of the two previous years. The great majority of the vessels transferred to other flags were, however, very old, and their loss should not occasion much regret. The greater strictness of the English laws, as to repairs, &0., make it difficult for shipowners to run these old craft at anything like a remunerative rate, and hence they are sold to foreign owners, who are not hampered by the same stringent regulations for the safety of those who "go down to the sea in ships.” In proof of this it may be mentioned that nearly 70 per cent of the vessels taken by the foreigners were built prior to 1885. On the whole, during 1897 the increase of tonnage on the register has increased by 8627 tons, although the number of vessels has decreased by 290. The number of steamers shows an increase of 68 vessels, of 159,057 tons, while sailing vessels have decreased by 358 vessels, of 150,430 tons. Steel, as a material for construction, still leads the way, the new construction for the year being 98'5 per cent

of steel, and about 1-2 per cent of iron. The average size of the vessels shows verylittle alteration from those of the immediately preceding years. The steamers average 2452 tons, and the sailers 1741 tons.

A part of the educational the pupil- system that seems to work teacher very satisfactorily in New system. Zealand has been the subject of adverse comment for

many years in England. It was in 1839 that Dr Kay, secretary of the newly-formed ' Committee of Council on Education, drafted a scheme for the training of teachers, and it was in 1846 that the pupil-teacher system ! was established. Amendments were made.in 1861, and various education commissions have dealt with the subject, notably that of 1888, but complaints continued to be made until finally a minority report of the Commission in 1888 declared that “the pupil-teacher system was the • weakest part of the educational machinery,” and that “ pupil-teachers, taught badly and were badly taught.” The agitation at last compelled the appointment of another special committee, and its report has now been published. Some of the recommendations will indicate that our New Zealand system is in advance of that of the Old Country. “'We are agreed,” runs the report, “in thinking that for the present the system is established so firmly in the economy of national education that it would be impossible, even if it were admitted to be desirable, to sweep it away or to make any violent and revolu-

tionary changes* But we are satisfied also that, although it is the main.

yet it is not the only nor even ultimately the cheapest, source of supply; and we wish to record as emphatically as pos-

sible, at the outset of this report, our conviction that the too frequent practice of

committing the whole of the training and teaching of classes to immature and uneducated young persons 'is economically wasteful and educationally unsatisfactory, and even dangerous to the teachers and taught in equal measure.” The committee suggests that pupil-teachers should not be admitted under the age of fifteen in rural and sixteen in urban schools; and that they should produce certificates of health, containing special reference to the eyesight, hearing and teeth. Certain

restrictions should be set on the number

employed in each school, and on the general conditions of employment. Teachers should be properly instructed at least five hours a week, should be examined annually, and should satisfy the inspectors that they have facilities for

private study. The report is very complete, and if the proposed reforms should be adopted the results will he looked for with some interest.

A lady writing under this deaths heading in the March numtotdeb her of the Nineteenth Cenchlobofobm. tury, calls attention to the frequency with which deaths occur under chloroform, and the regularity with which they are attributed to the action of the anaesthetic upon a weak heart. She contends —with what justification we do not, of course, pretend to say—that a very large proportion of the fatalities are really due to the gross ignorance of medical men, who have not taken the trouble to study in any sort of detail the properties of the marvellous drug that has been placed in their hands for the alleviation of human suffering. In support of this contention she quotes from the report of the Hyderabad Chloroform Commission, which maintains that there should be no deaths from the use of the anaesthetic, and explains how its suggestions are given effect to in India. There the primary consideration is that nothing shall in any way impede the patient’s breathing, and the operator consequently takes care never to place the pad or handkerchief very close to the mouth, but holds it at a distance of some inches, so that the chloroform may be freely diluted with air. In this way it may be taken without the slightest distress; indeed, it produces a soothing and agreeable sensation as long as consciousness lasts. In England the usual practice, according to the writer in the Nineteenth Century, is quite different. At first the anaesthetic is held eomftrdnches from the -mouth, but directly;

it begins to take effect the pad or handkerchief is placed over the face, and if the patient happens to bo suffocated during his struggles for breath, he merely furnishes another newspaper paragraph to be headed “Death Tinder Chloroform,” and the public are told by a sapient coroner’s jury that the catastrophe was due to the “ failure of the heart’s action.” It would be reassuring to learn that our local medical men are acquainted with the recommendations of the Hyderabad Commission, and that they are careful to observe them in their own practice.