CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 13949, 4 January 1906, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

The latest triumph of science in the prevention of disease is reported from Panama, where the American Medical Commission has succeeded in stamping out yellow fever. The history of the campaign is similar to that of Major Ross’s anti-mosquito campaigns in West Africa and at Ismailia. Yellow fever, as most people know, is an exceedingly fatal disease, prevalent in certain tropical countries during the hot season. Negroes, singularly enough, escape it, although it was commonly supposed to be carried by slaves. It was at Havana that men learned first how to deal with it. As long ago as 1881, Dr Charles Finlay, of that city, suggested that the epidemic was connected with the season of activity of mosquitoes. His suggestion bore no fruit until 1901, when British medical men had proved that malarious fevers were actually conveyed by mosquitoes. A full investigation showed that yellow fever was not directly infectious, that contact with the sick was not dangerous to the healthy, and that the channel of conveyance was a species of mosquito, which obtained the infective element from the blood of the diseased and carried it to the healthy. Probably enough the infection was obtained from imported negroes, whose blood carried the parasites, although they themselves were immune. The Havana campaign followed the now customary lines, the destruction of mosquito larv® and the protection of infected and susceptible persona from the bites of the insects. The average annual mortality for forty-five years in Havana had been 736. In 1901 the deaths numbered but eigtheen, and in 1902 there were none. Similar results, we are told, have followed the campaign in Panama, with the result that the isthmus has been rendered habitable by white men all the year round. If De Lesseps had been able to spend money on such sanitary measures, instead of bribing politicians and newspapers, the Frenchmen might have been able to complete the canal.

TROPICAL MEDICINE.

In quarrelling and disputing about a site for the Federal capital Australia is only following the example of Canada. Quebec was the capital of the old province of Canada until the Constitution Act of 1791 was passed. The old province was then divided, Quebec remaining the capital of Lower Canada, while Toronto became the capital of tipper Canada. An Imperial Act of 1840 reunited the province, and the Governor-General was directed to choose the site of the capital. Lord Sydenham, who was in office, fixed it at the new settlement of Kingston, but the Legislative Assembly promptly disapproved of the choice. In ,1843 the decision of the Parliament fell upon Montreal, which consequently became the capital, but six years later an excited mob in the city, disagreeing with some legislation, sacked and burned the Parliament House, and insulted the Governor-General. Montreal could not be deemed a fit place for a capital after that episode, and Parliament met for four years in Toronto, and for four in Quebec. In 1857 an address was presented to the Queen praying her to select a capital for the colony, and acting on the advice of well-informed men she chose Ottawa. The decision was made known in 1858, and it at one© created intense hostility in other sections of the province. The Legislative Assembly made the matter worse by passing a resolution on July 28, 1858, to the effect “ that it is the opinion of this House that the city of Ottawa ought not to be the permanent seat of government for the province.” But Parliaments are sometimes fickle. In the next year the same Assembly, by a small majority, affirmed her Majesty’s decision, and Ottawa has ever since been the Canadian capital. When confederation became an accomplished fact the public buiidingjs were taken over by the Dominion Government, the last session of the provincial Parliament having been held in them in 1866.

A FEDERAL CAPITAL,

''The art of elopement is described by a modern writer as being essentially French, probably because the “marriage of convenience,” which is so common in French families, is an ■ incentive to the practical rebellion of elopement. But even eloping has its practical side, nowadays, and is no longer conducted with the aid of postillions and all-the picturesque accessories that used to make Gretna Green the most delightful place within the borders of the kingdom. Instead of these romantic surroundings, people elope to-day in motor-cans or "upon bicycles, in the most prosaic manner in the world. A case in point is reported from Paris, where, a few mouths ago, a young man who passionately loved a' young lady arrived at her father’s house in a motor-car. He had a friend with him, and was disguised as a chauffeur, in a bearskin overcoat and big blue goggles, which rendered him completely unrecognisable. ‘ The young lady entered the car, ostensibly for a 1 short run,, but when they were crossing Versailles the friend asked that the car should stop while he purchased sonie post-cards. During his absence, the young couple motored over the horizon, and got married. This particular elopement, however, had its humorous side, for the young man and his father-in-law were quickly reconciled, and the funny son-in-law forwarded to his more responsible relative the following elopement bill: £ Hotor-car hired for four days .... 20 Damages for two dogs injured .... 50 Tho sams for an old woman 10 Picture post-cards to friends and acquaintances 2 Eau-de-Cologne, violette, heliotrope, for Suzanne (who could not bear the smell, of the engine) 5 £37 10 per cent discount since I married Suzanne. This, of course, was an example of tho elopement that did not fail, but the decencies of modern domesticity demand that all such naughty experiments should be frowned down in tho most severe manner possible. And, as a rule, when elopement is shorn of its

THE AET OF ELOI’EMEKT.

romance, it is not any more successful than the well-beaten matrimonial path.