ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11433, 25 July 1900, Page 3

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

•:••■-'.:■■ ■:-;!•: : -.-..:- ■:.>■■ . -. ■■:>•■.'■;-.-.' ■ •■• ■'■■ ■■"■■ ■ •■•-. ,--:.'.■.-. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE PRESS. ■'•■"■■ ; 'go rapid has been the marvellous extension ■of the power of the press during the last de'cade, that even, its conductors have not yet fully realised the great change which has. '• taken place in its position. ■, The public new look to the newspapers as Governments formerly looked to their Ambassadors,. and to a limited extent do so. still, to keep them' posted lip in all that is going on in the vari- . ous countries of the world. But this im- • portant duty'is only imperfectly performed ■"•'■ .'■■'.-• Hitherto tbo press, with a few notable ex- '- . ceptions, has contented itself with chroniclI"'' ing events that startle or interest the world, ;V : without attempting to give its readers an 1 " intelligent appreciation of the causes which !'■■-.' are steadily making for the developments f| themselves. -The war in South Africa was ' the culmination of a long series of intrigues, ' stratagems, and secret preparations, but be- "' fore the cloud burst little or no attention was riven by the English press to the true in- ' wardness of the movement among the Boers - ' 'aid their Dutch sympathisers in South I 'Africa, which had for its real aim the over- • throw of British supremacy in that part of the world. It is only now that the tore character of that gigantic and seditious con- "- ; spiracy, the 'Afrikander Bond, is beginning ■ Y to be understood by the English people, though it was plainly avowed in Dutch news- . papers nearly .20 years? ago. And so with :.•'■ China. .The present crisis in that country has been in train for years. Shrewd observers on the spot have noted and dreaded the drift of affairs, but scarcely an echo of ■ the coming storm has appeared in the Eng- ' lish .pries?.,.. China has been as a sealed book ' ' to the 1 rest of the world, and treated as a ■ negligible quantity. • And now we are amazed "to find the whole of China seething with rebellion or war, and wonder what it all meant,. It may be that the press is not altogether to blame for the policy it has pursued"' in ignoring the smoke until it burst into a lurid flame, lighting up the whole i heavens. • Just as the drama's laws the drama's patrons give, so are the functions of the press prescribed by the tastes of its readers. The public demands news, and the more startling and sensational the news is the better it likes it. The sober, informing article, showing a sound appreciation of coming events.'is usually voted dull. 'the events themselves are alone wanted. -And the interest of the reader is constantly widening in its range. He takes the whole world for his survey, as Bacon took all knowledge for.his province. As has been said, he locks to the press as his ambassador, and ex- ' cents to receive each morning reports of everything of importance or interest that has happened during the previous 24 hours. Even Governments now look to the press to keep them informed of what is going on in political circles abroad. The result of all this is to add enormously to the responsibility and duties of the press, for it must now'have its representatives in every part or the world. Within the next few years every leading British paper will appear each morning with a complete resume of the news of every country on the globe. - " THE RIVAL ROUTES. ; Wo in' Auckland seem to have a happy knack of disagreeing just at the moment when we should all hang together. Son;; times, it- is true, we do see the good .-onse of setting.aside petty differences foi a ci.no and working amicably for the common gonl. The present altitude of our members of i'ar liament on.the railway question is, I suppose, the outcome of one of these happier moods. They have already taken a firm stand, and have shown that they meat; to let no apple of discord thrown in among them distract their attention from the main object. I hope, therefore, that the partisans of the rival routes will see how utteily suicidal it will be to 'introduce into the agitation this too debatable question ot route. ' We have the example of the past before us; we know what a stumbling-block this ques- ■ tion of route has-been; and for heaven's sale let us drop it for the present,, until the dan- ' i gerous stage-is past, and until we are able to think about it calmly. I suppose one could almost fill a book with instances of how paltry quarrels of this kind have blocked our ' progress. Look- at our water supply; another wate* famine next summer probably, because there are so many things we might do, and we cannot make up our minds to do any one of them. Then there is the Freeman's Bay Pari: hung up for months and years because of some little difficulties about terms., There were the same petty 'differences in the jubilee year about a fitting memorial of the occasion, and the same result— futile deadlock, until the Herald solved the difficulty and brought the matter to a happy is'iie. ' We have now the same deadlock about the disposal of our Exhibi- • tion surplus ; so I hope history will not repeat itself in this question of railway communication. FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND. Those troublesome pests, the mosquitoes, which disturb the slumber of many of us during the nocturnal hours of summer, are to'a large extent blamed by medical men foAhe spread of disease. In fact, to listen to what some of our bacteriologists say, one feels inclined'to believe that they have proved just as great disseminators of disease as the plaguey flea, of which we have heard so . much ■•within the course ot the past six months. In 'the districts where malarial . fever abounds there are undoubted reasons for believing that through the mosquito the largest, percentage of fever cases is due. To settle the question, two enterprising scientists, Drs. Low and Louis Sambon. both belonging to the London School of Tropical Medicine, have recently started for Roman • Campagna, with the avowed intention of finding out whether the insect is'rightly or wrongly blamed. Their purpose is to mix freely with the people of Campagna, where ■ malaria is so prevalent, and in the centre of that locality to settle in a portable mos-quito-proof house. They will lay themselves out in every other way to catfch the „ fever by treating malaria stricken patients, and by thin" means the) hope, by escaping the disease, to advance the cause of science. For fear that, in shutting out the mosquitoes, some people might say they had also excluded some other cause of infection, the doctors propose to get mosquito eggs, ;i and raise insects from them, which, at the time they reach maturity, will he allowed to feast on a malaria-stricken patient, and afterwards taken to London, where they will be ret free ho room, occupied by sleeping students, and if those students actually show symptoms' of the disease, then the argument will be proved beyond a doubt. If the truth m the belief is established, we will . probably find that this plaguey mosquito is the cause of the spread of other diseases, so prevalent in tropical and semi-tropical regions in the hot, sultry summer weathor. . COLONIAL INTELLIGENCE. Are colonial audiences intelligent? Some experience of amusements, lectures, and places of public resort, leads one to confess that they are not over endowed with a quick j™ and a nimble perception. Watch the ,a ces at a play, for instance, and as long as ; the allusion ot point is not too fine, it will meet with a reflex in the auditorium, jrom her to tier, hu" let the point be above [?, average, and very few faces show that » has been appreciated. Take the pieces '"fit Oil by the Brougl) Company, "The wars,, for instance, and you might have noweed, had you been then, that manv of the ; moat subtle, but at the same time, 'keenest :\ pulsions, were caviare to the average Opera \ nome habitue, or else they were not caught NT some moments. You might also ob- •.. serve the same tiling in a lessor degree at "•«" a minstrel show, where anything a bit I . wove " burnt cork humour" has but'a pool V> nance. Perhaps the reason is not far to i'i n , MCI my l)( ' fc,nn(l in tne environment &:■ o ~c oJ omals..who. in a young country, with,out traditions or associations, living that >V «e lite which such conditions entail, must | a certain extent" throw back," as it were, V; .>„' a become tinged with some of the inert, "' la Hi 1 m ° l, ' CT mi]l ' notwithstanding the ' ' intii foi 'ebears were men of polished en. f 1 ••' ;inf P lan t » shrub from one f '♦,; ■ '.J another, and it will undergo cer- *::•:'„? specific changes-losing some qualities ° nd gaming others. So it is with the hu- ■".- plant; and by removing it from an -at'""sphere of human association unci tradition - ' "ati atmosphere devoid of such, and it M Just as assuredly undergo well-dofined i, «">»» "; What we maw be in the future | . • ™ can-only guess at,, but in the present ff-neration a close observer must admit that , m average colonial, as judged when taking °« amusement, is not .very" quick-witted. ' The Gewjsiul.