ROUNDS THE CORNERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 839, 30 March 1888, Page 17

ROUNDS THE CORNERS.

This is the age of professional disagreementsDoctors still differ, and more so than ever. Look at the case of the Crown Prince, away over tbs water, in the land of bitter winters ; and without going near so far away from home, instances of diametically opposite opinions upon the same subject could b& multiplied. So do lawyers differ; indeed, if they didn’t the profession would be, wiped out. It doesn’t paylawyers to agree, except sometimes, and the law is Ro, Protean that not the slightest difficulty is. experienced in taking up any position -is connection with it. Quite a ;olly instance of this was presented recently in a difference of opinion between two Wairarapa lawyers and a Wellington limb. And a bet—a heavy bet of professional reputation—having been proposed by one sifle, both sides solaced themselves by agreeing to differ. And of course scientists disagree ; it may he said their condition of disagreement is chronic, and out of it is evolved a lot of something that passes current for truth, land science is kept moving forward. Of all the scientists of the day Pasteur the irrepressible is the most notable.. We hear of hira continually, and let him be ever so mistaken, to his credit be it said, he has alwaya something in view to, benefit humanity. Of course hie contemporaries disagree withhim—“ raytharso, Polly ’’—and have sat on him from a dozen different directions,, the latest Victoria, where a scientific society of some kind, headed by a real live professor, impressed upon the people not to. have anything to do, with M. Pasteur’s rabbit exterminating propositions. So much uncertainty as to results is urged, too much possi ble danger. Well, it may be so, but don’t you think, most sapient Society, that the issues are worth a trifle of experimenting ? The rabbit pest is serious enough to warrant a of risk in a likely scheme of extermination. I hope New Zealand will not be deterred from testing the question by fanciful theories. Be. gin in a stockyard if you like and extend around gradually, only make an effort in a most urgent direction.

“Bunny” must be either exterminated or potted. Everything almost above the earth and under it is submitted to the tinning proces,

now-a-days, and why not the rabbit ? There ia enough of them to keep half-a-dozen tinning factories going in this Colony alone, and there are enough mouths in Europe to eat all that is tinned. It was announced some time ago from the other side of Cook Strait that tinning rabbits on a large scale was about to be at tempted ; but silence seems to have been maintained on the subject since. I feel sure an effort is fully warranted by the conditions, but then the result must be unimpeachable. Nothing but the most perfect of rabbits stews in tin will go down with the onraiverou3 people from which we -colonists have sprung. A first-class first sample would take a hold of the market and never lose it again if properly supported. And so bunny would be submitted to the most profitable of all processes of extermination. He and she would be made to pay, in part at anyrate, for the damage tbeyfiiavo done.

I was going to exclaim about the scarcity of conscience in this, world. There is plenty of the spurious article. There is nothing that people so delude themselves about as the possession of conscience, and yet the truly conscientious man or woman is rare indeed. Expediency ousts conscience in fifteen cases out of twenty. But an image of it is dressed up and made to do duty, and serves the purpose in a most remarkable manner. We see it in all kinds of trade transactions ; the business of this world is full of it and mankind is all the worse for the dummyism. How it shows out in the building trade ! Let anyone take his stand on a quoin of vantage about Wellington and look down on the city and he will see hundreds of evidences of the shameless suppression of conscience, and the elevation of a nasty, dirty, sordid expediency in its stead. The Jerry Builder Dragon is the most conscienceless of human beings. He b3ats the Jew slop seller hollow. Eor the latter merely misclothes individuals while the former condemns whole families to living purgatory. What abominable tenements does the man on the vantage quoin behold ! And if he make their nearer acquaintance he becomes down-right opmessed by their awful unfitness for the purposes of human habitation. The Jerry Builder —the Prophet, confound him—battens on the misery, the poverty, thq holplessness of his fellow-creature. No consideration hath he for the fitness of things, but'he nails up his weather boards, and the disjecta membra of packing ca°es, exposes the notice “to let’’ in the window, and soon catches his fly. The poor wretch gravitates to the web in spite of himself and so the maw of typhoid finds pabulum in galore.

I venture to assert that in no town in New Zealand is there to be seen such vile hovels as in Wellington, so packed together, so unwholesome. There is a lovely collection not very far from the gates of the botanical gardens, and Te Aro flat is patched ’ with them. I am delighted to know that our good and practical mayor has taken up this troublesome subject, along with the several others ho is dealing with, and the extreme probabilities are that the days of low shanties in Wellington are numbered. A very good thing lias been affected in the suppression of town-acre rights-of-way and the substitution instead of proper loads with proper side-paths. Two or three samples of these are to be seen by the observant, and the improvement they have effected is remarkable. Seems to mo that Mayor Sam Brown is heaping up a pretty respectable record. ’Twould be hard to find anyone to beat him who has gone before—that is, if he succeeds in giving effect to all 1113 proposed reforms. As it is he has done the city exemplary service.

Let me add my tribute to the sterling character of that sturdy enterprising minister of his church, the Rev. L. M. Isitt. It has fallen to the lot of a Wesleyan and a Baptist to make the most decisive marks in Wellington. The Rev. Hunter fought a good fight* but the doing of Isitt will be remembered almost while water run 3 and gras3 grows. Never did man labor much more zealously and unselfishly in the cause of his kind. No sectarian is he, although a follower of Wesley, but a large-hearted universalist aiming at dominion over the worst passions of men. And his work has borne good fruit here. He will be missed, but let us hope his example will find emulation.

"What odd things one does hear occasionally. I have been under the impression that since the management of the Hospital was rnado so thoroughly democratic it had been elevated quite out cf the region of fallibility. And yet ibis whispered there is a spice of “Gampishuess” about the institution. Things that are sent by benevolent people for the sole use and delectation of the patients have been bestowed in other places than the siclc-wards. And it is also said that the patients are gradually drifting into the position of the second persons of the institutions. What the Hospital wants is a, committee of visiting women to look things aip occasionally.

. Bity the name of that gentleman—the member of the Hawkes Bay Eire Belief Eund—was not given who deprecated tho reception of relief from outside districts for the sufferers of the disaster at Norsewood. He seems to be tho superlative embodiment of localism. Possibly would not accept a drink of water from » person living in an adjoining district. The &100 so generously and unostentatiously con. tributed by Wanganui seemed to havo riled him. And as the telegram that told us about this Hawkes Bay “ Simon ” said nothing to the contrary, it would seem that the outside assist-, ance was not very graciously received by gthe Eire Belief Committee in general. However, the Hawkes Bay Herald spoke out “ like a man.’’ Outside assistance is appreciated by some of the people of the grazing district, so oend along your contributions, outsiders, and never mind acknowledgments. ’Tis “for the good that we can do.” V ASMODEUS.