ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12862, 10 May 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

THE AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS. The Russo-Japanese war will have a in id struggle to hold its interest in the. minds of Australians now. It is eclipsed. To-., and Oyama, Kuioki and Xogj are the Australian heroes no longer. Trumpet- and Clem. Hill, and Noble and Darling, are the names on every tongue, The offices of the newspapers will be haunted every day by thousands eager for the latest score of Australia's "flannelled oafs.." Cricket has been Australia's passion ever since her teams managed to beat the best in the [Motherland. Great crowds go to the football matches and enjoy them, but football is not the national game, and does not. appear in (he national iceotds. li is natural thai the Australians should fake first interest in their cricket team, for the team's success or failure is personal io every Australian, It has something to do with patriotism, and in the absence of greater ] issues .helps to vitalise that sentiment. What j iticket- is to Australia, football is to New i Zealand. The fortunes of the Rugby j heroes who will do battle for the colony 1 in Britain within a few months will be f..d- i lowed with as anxious an interest as are- ! those of the ciiekeiers by Australians. The war then may no! come first with us. We ! have already had a despatch from the i New Zealand Commissioner (Mr. Donne) > on the L'uglaud-Scottish match. It was j sent to his chief, and displayed a lmutfilv ! grasp of the subject. Xo official despatch ! would be more widely read man was that ! sent to Sir Joseph Want, on the chances I ot New Zealand's team. Mr. Donne's <ie- ! [•patch places football definitely upon an j international pedestal.

INTEREST IX THE WAR. The world to-day is heguusiiig to regard •war as a familiar* subject. A year "ago every Japanese victory was received with astonishment ami admiration. There was the keenest eagerness for the latest new?. Now great battles are taken as a matter <>! course, and the losses become little more than statistics. The honors and the heroism of Xaushau stirred the Mood, but the battle of Mukden, with its talc of nearly 200,000 killed, wounded, and prisoners, made no very deep impression. People get used to stories of carnage, and possibly in many eases hardly realise what slaughter on a battlefield means. Au ingenious calculator has put it. in :i new light. , He says that there were at least. 50,000 men killed in that battle, and the dead placed side by side, two occupying a yard, would make a line of corpses nearly 15 miles long. it is. a grim idea. War would lose what charm it lias if its honors could be visualised to '.he leader. Those horrors are wrapped up in figures of killed and wounded, ami the dead and the maimed are no) our kith. It was very different when our own men were lighting in South Africa, and when the names of men we knew came through on the wires. The Russo-Japanese war has now been proceed: ing for 15 months, and interest lias begun to flag. If a great drama .like that in the East can become stale to us. supplied as we are from day to day with news, what must have been" the state of mind of the people in olden times, when wars dragged •■a for many years. Perhaps they were better off then. They did not hear about the preliminaries, but of the battle. The mail coach carried the news of victory through England, the church bells were rang, and then the people must have ceased to care about "Bony" until the maildriver had news to- tell months later. Possibly s !'we make as much fuss over a football match or a cricket match to-day as they made "of a battle. ICO years ago. Tho point of view changes. " GITE MASSEY A TURN."

T do not know whether many people noticed the lapse in the Premier';; explanation of the "give. Massey a •ruin" telegram. First came the explanation as to Mr. Alpin's grievance, and then he says: '"When Mr. Alpin threatened to hand the correspondence to Mr. Ma.ssey. I replied, ' Yes. by all means, give Mr. Massey a turn." Probably when Mr. Massey is going through this batch of correspondence I shall get a rest." From the way the statement rends, the sentence beginning " probably where Mr. Massey" seems to belong to the context of the telegram to Mr. Alpin. That was possibly the mental comment of tho Premier when he penned the telegram, but it certainly was not sent to Mr. Alpin, unless telepathically. Some people profess to be still sceptical about, Mr. Alpin's grievance, and still more sceptical about the Premier's being brusque with a supporter, with the general election in view. Hut those are evil-minded, suspicious people. What mure ran they desire'' Does not the explanation fit the situation to a hair'' If it is not the right explanation, it ougTit to be. and it should, therefore, pass.' With the Premier's "own mental comment as he dipped pen into ink actually supplied, where is the room for doubt? What I do doubt is that the wore? "Mr"" was in the telegram at all, though Mr. Seddon punctiliously puts it there. " A YANKEE "CORNER." They-do things in a wonderful way in America. Last year the name of Mr. Daniel Sully was on everybody's lips, and it appeared frequently in the newspapers. He was making a comer in cotton. So ruthless were his operations that Lancashire manufacturers ceased buying at the high-ruling prices, and thousands of work-people were thrown into distress. For a time it seemed that Sully's comer was going to ruin British, trade, and there were angry demand? that . cultivation of cotton in the colonies should be fostered. Sully seemed safe, for there wore reports from "all directions of the ravages of a. cotton pest. Then came the crash. Nature in » bountiful mood had beaten Mr. Sully. The harvest was to be a record one. and it was. The name of Daniel J. Sully and Co. was dragged through the Bankruptcy Court. Tie failed in February, 1901. for 4,600.000 dollars. The trustee paid 25 per cent, in cash, and there- was more to come. In these circumstances, Mr. Daniel J. Sully obtained his discharge the other day. Answering the inevitable interviewer on the day of discharge, he said: '■ Yes, I am free! I think the adjustment has; been satisfactory to all our creditors. I'll get into business right away, and I am going back into cotton." lie said that cotton would vet sell high, and he would be a hull on the market. We shall, perhaps, soon hear of Mr. Daniel J. Sully with his millions making a corner in cotton. If he succeeded he might become, a. multimillionaire, which is to-day the ambition of the American. Not long ago the simple millionaire was the man. but millionaires now are common as blackberries in New Tori:. To-day the multi-millionaire is the man, and tie millionaire is striving as hard to "get there" as many men strive to.save their first pound. PATENT MEDICINE REGULATIONS. The parent medicine regulations of New Zealand ate by no means new. The idea- is borrowed from America. For many years the patent medicine proprietors of the United Stales have been threatened with a law obliging them to print the formula on the bottle." The difference between New Zealand a.nd the United States is that we make and enforce the law, stupid or otherwise, while in the United Stales the tiling never gets beyond the threat. The March issue of the American bulletin of Pharmacy, shows how the affair is worked there. It says the Patent Medicines Dill has l>ceit brought forward many times in New York State, and also ill the National Congress, and that the proprietary people have "administered (he, chloroform at- the proper moment." Fortunately, things do not work that way in New Zealand. I have no doubt that some member of the Government heard of these futile attempts at "reform," and decided to show the world that he could succeed where America had failed. lie must have innocently thought that the Yankees were anxious for reform, when all they wanted was "chloroform." The G]ii\*£R.u.