MRS. ALDIS ON THE FOUL BROOD BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9130, 11 August 1888, Page 3

MRS. ALDIS ON THE FOUL BROOD BILL.

TO THE EDITOR. " How neat she spreads her whacks."Tom Hood. Sir,—lt is a great pity indeed that Mrs. Mary Steadman Aldis does not find other channels in -which to employ her time and talents rather than in everlastingly seeking out fresh victims for her unmerciful c titrations. This time, the promoters of the Foul Brood Bill, among others, are the scapegoats. Why on earth they should be chosen for the sacrificial altar of this lady's indignation I cannot imagine, unless, indeed, the fact that the Bill dealing with Contagious .Diseases acts in this case, like the proverbial scarlet clotli is said to do on the male of a certain species of bovine. It is remarkably characteristic of Mrs. Aldis to offer gratuitous advice and information 011 various subjects to those who are better informed upon them than herself. In the present case she asks beekeepers if they know what the Foul Brood Bill means Had she been posted on the matter, as one would suppose she ought to have been.before airing her opinions in the Press, she would not have had occasion to ask the question, she would have known the subject had been discussed through their organs by all the leading beekeepers of the colony for years past, and that 496 of them from Southland to the North Cape had appended their signatures to a petition presented to Parliament in favour of the passing of the Act. The fact that 110 opposition to the Bill is likely to occur is sufficient in itself to denote the concurrence of our beekeepers. If Mrs. Aldis is really solicitous for the welfare of the poor benighted (?) beekeepers let her come forward and do something practical for them by joining the New Zealand Beekeepers' Association, and give them the benefit of her opinions, after she has graduated as a beekeeper, and become a beemaster; in the meantime, instead of condemning all and sundry through the press, she might employ her time more profitably in attending to the poor and needy, or if this is not congenial to her taste she might study the infinitesimal calculus, or favour us with a monograph on the " palseobranchiate ocephalous bivalve brachiopod molluscs."—l am, &c., Epsom. I. Hopkins.