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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9229, 17 June 1893, Page 4

It would be of some public benefit if some of our rulers would look into the question of whether or not it is necessary to continue the medical inspection of tho mail boats when they arrive. It seems to be merely a survival of something which never probably •was of any use, and which is continued simply because it is nobody's business to see that it is put an end to. There is a story that Bismarck one day found a sentry marching up and down in one of the public gardens of Berlin, and ho endeavoured in vain to find out how lie came to be there. The officer in charge of the post could only say that when he received the district a sentry was mounted at that place, and he had never had any orders to discontinue. A prolonged research led to the discovery that some- 1 where about a century before a sentry ii

had been put at that place to keep the orowd away from a rare plant which •was blooming there; the officer who put him there had forgot to remove him again, and so the sentry had been regularly posted over nothing for a hundred years. Something of this kind must have happened with the mail boat health inspection. Some time ago, the cholera was very bad in Hamburg, and it was thought that the disease might be imported here by goods brought from that place. Hence arose the medical inspection. We have never heard that this extended to the goods and packages, and indeed it would require some one possessing extraordinary skill to look over a ship's cargo for bacilli and microbes. It would take twenty revenue officers a whole month to do it with the aid of a . compound microscope each Science has not yet advanced so far that a medical officer standing on the deck of a big steamer can tell whether there is a cholera microbe in a package at the bottom of the lower hold, but somehow that is the idea which the authorities seem to have been possessed with. As a matter of fact, we believe that any goods which come here from Hamburg arrive by way of Australia, and not by San Francisco. However, let us come to the practical working of the law. It lias the effect of keeping back materially the sorting of the San Francisco mail. Our readers are aware that in this matter of the mail every minute is of consequence. The master wants to land the mail as soon as possible, because there are certain benefits attaching to exceptionally speedy delivery; it is of importance that the Southern mails should be sent out to Onehunga at once, because the steamer is there waiting, and an hour may save a tide. The mail before last reached Auckland in the "middle of the night, or rather in the short hours of the morning. The mail carts were on the wharf, and every preparation had been made to sort the letters at once, so that they might be sent out by the early morning delivery. The health officer was telegraphed for, but he had gone to bed. Ho knew that it was exceedingly injurious to break the night's rest when it had been fairly entered upon, and as health officer it was his duty to show an example to the community of how hygienic laws should bo observed, The steamer had, therefore, to lie out in the stream till the official duty could be discharged by good broad daylight, although it could nave been quite as well done in the dark. Lav I; mail arrived about seven o'clock in the eveniug. The health officer was telephoned for, but somewhore about two hours elapsed before he made his appearance, it being against hygienic rule to hurry about the dinner hour. What we would like to know is, if the inspection is not an entire farce, and if it is worth while to keep up that fare©, seeing that it is productive of considerable inconvenience ?