THINGS IN GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14676, 10 May 1911, Page 9

THINGS IN GENERAL.

- _ E AN THE FAR SOUTH. - FAN Ii difficult to know what to If *a f II Z reserved -and unobtrusive ' V* Itodition, which a short while - Japanese 6 fc P ffom N w Zealand to try to ' «•**£& South. Nothing but a **■" I Za » of what ho has to face ; ' full M no i«Ss■<* man in ' loading an :..; i ,hoDld jusu J h t . fic dangers and ! > <°hanlshi 1 that beset Polar exI' ' wckl " and no man with Mich a knowI' PJffSd attempt battle with the hard- < g f L ales except' ho wore armed at { accordance with the rules that ■ 811 0 ' „ has laid down. Yet the JapaI • •<? set out with a band of men in I ■ BCS ? -lie-that she and they seemed to '"tin to bo foredoomed to failure. nDl °°S was ill-fitted, weakly built, and Jhe ship "d- X -king'in comfort, ihe C t P Thin- which seemed strikingly th 9 1 .id effective being the instruI "fteying and other scientific •• suggested that the I Ilv and silent Japanese, knowing himself I !» be "rmed at all points, was concealing I , 5 ren«th from onlookers j such a course I ■ lt2 unnecessary, especially with men St reticence and with an himself I L armed at all points, was concealing from onlookers, such a course lt2 unnecessary, especially with men Wld in reticence and with an easy rei fTin the harbour of no-savee. New 1 'Sirs. especially the South. Island I S Sve „{,:♦,„ a warm corner m thenffifK Antarctic explorer*, from per- ■ tf acquaintance they know a good deal SIS and they derive a great pleasure I V l i!mfertainine them, and bidding them H® rtv farewell, and a still greater one . Welcoming 'them, back with honest ■ St of congratulation or success. That fire would be little if. any, less, were "K. explorers Poles, Russians, Japanese, Martians, or any other people than if they i re our own fellow Britons. So when ffjapanese ship sailed away, she.earned Sd wishes for every honest intention she Sad of grappling with the hard hands of he South, but a fear that if those intenions were carried out she would not reIV There was prophecy enough that - he would quickly come back without ! ' having done anything in the Polar regions, and she has come back, her officers reticent ' and sleepy, her stores asking for more Divisions, and her leader announcing that L will make no mistake next time. We nave heard uncharitable rumours that the expedition is a dishonest expedition, made up of spies, and sent out with an ulterior motive. That is , most probably incorrect. H it were true, the harbouring of the ves- ' «i in Australasian ports seems a less profitable system of spying than could be ■carried out by a few capable men resident ashore. It is more likely that the expedition is the outcome of somebody's honest desire to take part in an international race,,where the competition is open to. all, the 'entrance fee is a large expenditure, 'and the stakes the lives of men against a . - little passing fame, and perhaps some paltry 1 book royalties. - , IN TOUCH WITH NATURE. A correspondent has lately drawn attention to the grave risk to which the community -will be subjected if the proposal to establish a Zoo at Onehunga is ..carried out. He points out that the hous!lng of wild animals, which will make night hideous with their roars, besides smelling ''abominably and leaving objectionable food remnants about to add to the nuisance, -will threaten the" locality with a source -of plague, and will give a living to a ~' /norde of rats. This is a perfectly proper protest, and a little more enlightenment -upon the customary methods of housing wild animals will enable people to. judge for themselves. Lions are particularly . Ecisv beasts, and, their terrific roar can j be Beard many miles, with the aid of a good glass. The system of feeding them . in captivity. is unpleasant. For each pair of lions, twice a day, three bullocks are , yoked together after being first stupefied y , to'some extent with an opiate, and are • 'driven into the cage. . At; once the rats, I which invariably reside under the floorf 'boards come out, > and, as the pilot fish "ministers to the shark, conducts the kings of beasts to their prey. The lions fell ; each bullock with .blows of their paw, ■ tad dine luxuriously upon the carcases. There is always far too much, and ; the Tats have what is left. Lions do not care for slaughtered meat, and their cages are thus generally cluttered up. with a mass of bones and surplus food, which is cleared out now and then, when the neighbours object to it. - The snakes are fed upon carefully-prepared viands, which are ' also offered in excess, and the same rule .'obtains in all departmentsfood must not be - stinted. Wild animals, not having been used in their natural state to the ministrations of the broom, cannot thrive if their cages are kept clean. Elephants are supplied liberally with hay and buns, and what they cannot eat they tread down into a solid mass. In old-established '1...2005.it is no uncommon sight to see a full- ; grown elephant standing upon a pile of old hay firmly cemented together with buns, gravely swaying from side to side . ,88.he treads the remains of his breakfast ' • solidly down into the uppermost layer. Hats take up their abode in the lower parts, and, unfortunately some very fine elephants have been killed by the collapse of their hay and bun towers, brought about by the burrowing of the rodents. It is, needless to elaborate upon the matter. A Zoo. rapidly becomes a centre of pestilential infection, and the day always ; tomes when it is imperative to remove the Mimals and destroy the premises with fire and brimstone. " The usual practice Is to fence'it carefully round before incinerstlnj; it, so as to ensure that all the rats "ball be killed.

~ 'THE VALUE OF PAIN. ,The one of Mr. H. G. Well's novels of wje fantastic type, which greatly assisted *mm to his great .popularity, he ■wrote of the coming to earth of an angel—not one Of the white, heavenly angels, but such .».dream-land angel as was conceived by the Italian painters, and as lived in the ■ *ame level, happy land as griffins and " oaicorns and other fabulous beasts. • Around this impossible creature Mr. Wells '-Wove an entertaining story, in which the , ■' principal, idea is the great difficulty experienced by the angel in adjusting him- . -sIHo the unpleasant facts of human life ■ C" th « fighting and the pain of it. HavWg been shot in the wing to begin with, '•to visitor made the acquaintance of pain ■*,«y early, and retained a notable disrJW of it till he left the earth again. This • te a dislike shared by everyone as well * r-. 83 , "V errant angels, and every experi- : ™ce of it is apt to lead to a desire that . were were no pain. Existence would be <°° much more pleasant without headaches, ■toothache,, the agony of wounds and of • ojsease, and all the physical discomfort , j»f ill-health. Men and women have their nveg spoiled by pain, for long periods or ™rt, and all are made impatient by it. ■■ * e Parn is an essential of life. If we £W no experience of the physical punish"2?iL follows iniurv, we should soon V ij t dead - Without toothache there . : ..r£Wd be no dentists and few teeth ; ■™Ken arms and legs everywhere. We °" ld J um P off moving tramcars into the 115 of .a. total stranger, and he would r.way to the hospital without "wing any malice, and wo would' then "*! no ieav of doing the same thing to «>meone we disliked, next day. Little °°ys would tell wicked stories, and fear jy, o evil; grown men would eat pastry in Hurry, and never know their stomachs • on »-i? U ;, of order; journalists would toil "till they died of exhaustion, instead •■■■w£T ,n ff their lives saved, by nervous ' •mnS. ? ; rwo ' }, ° wouW st!ind behind In,! 3 an . at thpm to Sf,<? if iIIPV were nan*' ° r lf they kicked, and the " news- '■■■■ * l Pei* would ho crowded with reports of ■ • ' " qu . € f' s ""til nobody was left to write ''■cert.' i ast Stressing fatality. It is ; aS y ""Peasant to bump one's head wall; * door; but it is a lesson against 2 £? lnto d(K>rs a K ain : '""I if !l man ■ his «™ co a bit of kindling wood into ' Ovm. V i ~as lo woar a P' ecfi of steak ':■ mS?- at Work - lie can reflect that i llßt " ■ »ie J?!!! M his is savin « millions of lives .. ■ w « world over every year. : : THE PECK OF DIRT WE ' -/: ■ f[ . SWALLOW. ■ ! Wfif?* **?&* of Dunedin must have " WoV» y btlrred U P when a few days j "» * a man was charged with tapping the

main which supplies Roslyn with water. It was the old tale of "Murder will out." Apparently the culprit did not like the water supplied for drinking purposes to the place where he worked, and had two good arguments to back up his side. One was that people bathed in the dam (though one man said the water was too dirty to bathe in) and the other that an analyst's report alleged that the water contained vegetable matter and free ammonia. That did not vitally concern Dunedin as a whole, but the analyst was asked one of those questions which frequently crop up in law courts-—was ho aware that the city water had been condemned for drinking purposes by every analyst, and that the analyses had not been made known for fear of alarming the people? There must be a sequel to this matter; but the obvious thing is, of course, that such things should not lie at all. It is not proper to conceal anything of the kind for fear of alarming the people unless the cause for alarm is such that it will pass off, doing less • damage than the scare would cause. There is an oldfashioned idea that we must all eat a peck of dirt. Nowadays when every other man and woman lives in lodgings and eats in public dining rooms, the rule needs modifying to show that we very likely eat two pecks— indeed, we do not swallow a peck a year. There is no need for the fathers of a. city, even if it. is so distant from Auckland, as to bo comparable to the uttermost farthing to fill their trusting people up with organic, matter and other nasty stuff in a solution labelled "Best Potable Water," and city fathers who do that sort of thing continually because they are afraid to let the cat out of the bag should be warned off the course. Happily, the story may not be true.

The General.