CURRENT TOPICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6219, 27 May 1907, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

A GOOD BEST CURE. Miss Constance Clyde, writing on her recent release from Holloway Prisonj where eho went with a number of other “suffragettes,” says;—,‘T was glad to help the cause, and incidentally I have had an insight into prison life that I oould not otherwise have obtained. I am, of course, sending an account of my experiences to New Zealand. Though some things in Holloway should be altered, I did rot find it so unpleasant as X expected, and for people mentally overworked I could seriously recommend it as a restcure. Nevertheless, I admit that I was glad to come out. Some of my friends at the Writers’ Club gave me a dinner, and I was very proud of having Philippa Fawcett ijt the chair—the Philippa Fawcett whom the law did not permit to be a Senior Wrangler. I thought it very appropriate.” MAHXNtThistory. The example set by America in . regard to perpetuating the deeds of its veteran soldiers and in preserving its battlegrounds was referred to by the Hon. J. Carroll on Friday night in hie speech at the veterans’ gathering. “"Why can’t wc repeat history m this country?” asked the Native Minister, who impressed upon his hearers the necessity of stimulating national senti. ment in this direction, and that the memories of those who had fallen, both pakeha and Maori, should he kept green by some monument, some lasting tribute in the shape of a pedestal or column. The memories of the country’s heroes should be handed down, and, as this State wended its way down, succeeding generations would take up the role and add fresh warmth and vigour to the national sentiment. “We are making history,” he added. “We hope to hand down the grand work of history to posterity, and in the front pages of that history yet to be written I trust there will be recorded the names of many eminent men who have figured in the early period of this country and aided in the accomplishment of those deeds which have won the Empire.” (Applause). RATS AND THE PLAGUE. Dr Ashburton Thompson, president of the New South Wales Board of Health, recently stated that, in as far as prevention of plague goes, nothing worth speaking of can bo done by the destruction of rats except in very restricted localities and places, and that the hope of safety lies entirely in measures taken to keep the rats outside the inhabited buildings. That can be done; hut the rats, as a whole, cannot be destroyed so as to prevent plague.

Eat destruction he considers good as far as it goes, but a “national” destruction of rats is not the -way to prevent plague. EMPIRE DAY GREETINGS. At the request of the Acting-Premier (Hon. W. Hall-Jones) his Excellency the Governor on Friday sent a message to the King conveying expressions of loyalty and Empire Day greetings. Lord Plunket yesterday received the following cablegram: "His Majesty the King highly appreciates Now Zealand’s expressions of loyal devotion.” THE TIDE OF IMMIGRATION. Though the tide of immigration Australiawards is a rising one (says the “Sydney Morning Herald”), there is s'et a long distance from full. So far practically tho whole of tho immigrants received have been from Great Britain, who for every ton thousand she sends our way sends a hundred thousand or more elsewhere. Tho annual report of the Emigrants’ Information Office just issued makes this clear. Hero is an analysis of the figures there given:— 1903. IS 06. To Canada ... _... 82,437 114,836 To Australia and New Zealand 15,139 19,531 To United States ... 12-2,310 144,701 To South Africa ... 26,307 22,8X3 It will be noticed that South Africa shows a decline. Tile total number of passengers of all nationalities leaving the United Kingdom for places out of Europe was 557,815, against 459,662 in 1995. With regard to assisted emigration, the report states that a number of persons were enabled, to emigrate (tho great majority to Canada) by the bodies established under tho Unemployed Act. During the year 794 persons, with 1895 dependants, were sent out from London by tho Oenxral Body, at a cost of £19,218, and 3(j6 persons, with 790 dependants, were sent out by provincial distress committees, at a cost of £7076. TO ATTRACT THE TOURIST. With an idea of attracting tourist traffic, tho Papawai natives have beautified tho fences enclosing their great meoring-house with representations of their ability as ca'rvers. These repre. sentations comprise in tho main twenty life-size figures of the Maori, carved in wood and painted with hematite. The general attitude is of extreme ferocity. Each figure is placed upon a post, at distances of about twenty yards, and nearly every face is towards tho big building. There are diminutive figures between each giant, and at the carved entrance a figure stands upon one leg and holds the Union Jack aloft. The whole representation is hardly striking enough for the blase tourist, and the Papawai natives .will have to go farther into the business if they wish to create any envy at all in the minds of their Rotorua brethren. Not more than a mile away from Papawai, writes our Wairarapa correspondent, is on© of the most striking inanimate menageries ever seen in New Zealand. Tho exhibition comprises liens, tigers, zebras, horses, cattle, Naiades, goddess, a few old time celebrities, all carved in wood, and presided over by a gigantic Ajax twenty feet high. These figures represent tho life-time “hobby” of an old resident, and if they could only be transplanted to Papawai, and placed in the meeting-house grounds there, tho marked difference in the styles would create such general interest that the .tourist- traffic would be drawn as by a magnet to the district. IGNORANCE IX ENGLAND. “Not in my wildest stretch of imagination,” writes Mr Baker, the Aus- , tralian amateur boxing champion, from London, “did I believe the English people were so ignorant of our great southern continent and its people. The day after going to hospital a nurse in- the scarlet ward was told she had to change into tho enteric ward. At the same time, the nurses had informed her an Australian had come in the night before, that hA was a fighter, and that he was delirious. Sho refused 'to enter the ward, but was ordered to do so. On coming in she at onoo'walked along in front of tho beds,- keeping some distance off, and looking for this terrible and wild savage of an Australian. After a search, she rushed to tho nurses’ quarters, and said that ‘there was no Australian there at all, but only a fair chap.’ She expected to see a black man,‘so she afterwards told me. One lady asked mo if I learnt to speak such good English while coming over in the boat. Another nurse asked mo if I knew her cousin, who lived in Wellington, New Zealand. Sho thought New Zealand was' a town in Australia. Tho 'doctor who attended me said, “What a pity you have not rivers like there are in England, for then you would not have bush fires and drought.’ He believed it to " bo drought , and bush fires all the year round.” “AN EMPIRE AGE.” This was the them© of some remarks made by tho Hon. J. Carroll at the veterans’ gathering on Friday evening. “Wo are living now, 1 suppose, in tho midst of an important period of the Empire age,” ho said. “1 need not 'call ’ attention to the recent Congress in tho Old Country, where was held an Imperial Conference, to which we sent delegates representing the largo States which are growing up now on the wider fringe of Empire. Whatever may bo the deduction ono may draw from what has transpired there, X think we will agree upon this —that the utterances of our delegates in the Motherland before the Imperial Conference have been of such a nature tbat will cause the seat of Empire and those responsible for tbe conduct of Imperial affairs to think more of us than they have done in the past. (Applause). It has drawn us closer together. It has vitalised in the minds of those in tho Home land the tremendous potentialities . which aro growing dud crystallising in the far dominions over the seas. The signal note sounded by all has been unity of Empire in thought and action, and in a commercial and protective spirit for defence. It lias touched on largo questions which are looming up on the horizon now, and which give every promise of being concreted into solid facts in tbe near future. Wo have yet to understand each other. W© live* in an ago of great and important changes. Tho Old Land lias afforded us lessons in the past in the regulation of Homo affairs, and in seeing to the contentment and happiness of its people. In return for that wo have given object lessons to tho Old Country by tho manner in which we have dealt with social problems and with great questions. (Applause). I need not refer particularly to any of them, but we have dealt with labour problems, social problems, made provision for old age, with educational matters, and many others I need not name in a

huge category, because we have had an advantage over older countries in not being encrusted with and steeped in prejudices. We are watching the maturity of these problems with a jealous and careful eye. As I have said, we havo learned from the Old Land, and the Old Land can learn lessons from us in our groat laboratory of experimental legislation.” (Applatise), MEWS MOTES The Martinborough Borough Council has decided to raise a loan of -25030 for | a high pressure water supply. The Miowera, which arrived at Auckland yesterday from Sydney, brought 127 bags of English and Australian mails. The "Wellington portion will arrive by the express train this evening. The civil action of Charles Burden Buxton William Munro Whishaw, a claim of <£3lo Is due on a mortgage. \vhich was listed for hearing on Saturday, was settled out of Court on terms that were not disclosed. The _ Health Department reports the following cases of infectious disease for the week ending May 25th:—Wellington City—bcarlet fever 23, diphtheria 3. tuberculosis 2, hydatids 1. Hutt County —Scarlet fever 2. During the passage of the Waiwora between London and Capetown a fireman named Buchanan disappeared on April 13th. Deceased was a middle-aged man, and a native of Scotland. He had been ailing for a few* days, and it is surmised that ho jumped overboard. At the close of the services at St. John’s Church yesterday. Dr Gibb, without previous notice, asked - the congregation to make a contribution towards the fund for the relief of the famine-stricken districts in China. The response amounted to upwards of .£22. The Hon. A. R. Guinness last week cabled to Sir J. G. Ward, through the Greymouth Harbour Board, as follows ; "Anxious to ‘know result of interview with Admiralty re Point Elizabeth harbour.’'’ A reply was received :—"Admiralty have agreed to get a report ni Point Elizabeth under .- certain conditions.—Ward.” The proposed civic reception to Sir Joseph Ward on his return to Wellington will he discussed at a public meeting of citizens, convened by the Mayor- of Wcllington, in the Mayor’s room at the iown Hall this evening. The mgs will begin at 7.30, instead of 8 o’clock, as previously announced, so as not to clash with the Mayor’s other engagements. , A thunder-storm, attended by peculiar atmospheric conditions, occurred on Saturday afternoon. About 4 o’clock a well-defined cloud like a solid wall of smoke began to form in the south, spreading across the harbour from the ; direction of Island Bay and the entrance. The cloud gradually advanced northwards, steadily increasing in size until in about an hour from its first appearance a flash of lightning, followed by heavy thunder, heralded its dissipation. A few months ago th© Fir© Brigade was turned out almost, nightly by false alarms from the Xiankey street signal' box. Latterly there has been a cessation of these -annoyances, but at 10.27 on Saturday evening the brigade received a peremptory call from the old familiar box. The men turned out promptly in considerable force, only to find that* they had been duped again. One of these nights this silly practical joker will be discovered, and there is little doubt ho will receive th© punishment he deserves for crying "Wolf! Wolf! when there is no wolf.”

Melrose, as the outlying districts of Wellington are called in the aggregate, is very progressive. In his annual report the Chief Inspector says that 277 houses were built in the district during the past financial year. Adding to this number the 186 houses in Wadestown (recently absorbed , by the -city), the total number of houses was 2097. The sanitary conditions of Mejrose generally and Wadestown (to -which the sanitary service should be extended without delay) was very satisfactory. The Chief Inspector asks the Council to supply his deputy in the suburbs with a horse, owing to the ground he has to cover and the multifarious nature of his duties.

A good deal of broad wit is indulged in by the patrons of the buck-jumping exhibition, at the expense of the amateurs who attempt to rido the fiery steeds. On Saturday night the ringmaster, announcing the name of a wouldbe rough-rider, explained that he was a resident of Wellington, " He'll be a resident of luirori to-morrow," cried someone in the crowd. As one man prepared to mount an innocent-looking pony, a sympathetic friend in the audience politely asked him where he would like to be buried. A rider who came from Ohio was reminded that the audience could not undertake to see his body taken home.

A master retailer, giving evidence in the Arbitration Court at Sydney, said that the supply of girls looking for engagements as shop assistants exceeded the demand. _ The bulk of them canio from the middle classes. Parents in comfortable circumstances sent some of tbeir girls to work. They did not wish to send them to domestic service, and they liked to have them home in the evenings, so they sent them ,to the shops. Girls, too, liked to relieve their parents of the burden of keeping them, and so went to the shops for employment. He did not know of any business where the pay was so good, and where the opportunities for advancement were better. In certain departments the gills were able to moke more wages than men, In the millinery, mantles, and costumes, and underclothing departments, he paid the girls up to .£2O per month. That was not an excessive figure. Ho had to pay it to get the women he wanted. And then again he repeatedly lost his girls because of marriage. Later, in his examination, the witness said he had had parents say to him, "What ore we going to do with our girls?” "I have seen letters by ‘Pro Bono Publico’ to that effect in the newspapers," said Mr Beeby. "Oh, rather, from ‘A Father of Ten,'" added Mr Rolin. The marble statuary which was on view at the International Exhibition is being offered for sale by private treaty by McKenzie and Willis, auctioneers, Christchurch. The pieces include the well-known "Adam and Eve." "Deborah the Prophet," "Bacchante and the Infant Bacchus," and "Zephyr and Cupid." It is suggested that this is a splendid opportunity for publicspirited citizens to add to the art treasures of their city. A public meeting of residents of Island Bay will be hold in Keene’s Hall to-morrow evening.

The sacred cantata, "The Daughter of Jainis." by Dr Stainer, will be rendered by the Kent terrace Presbyterian choir fassisted by other vocalists) on Wednesday evening, not Thursday, as previously advertised. Train arrangements on the Government line for the Prince of Wales's Birthday (June 3rd) are inserted in another column. Mr P. Forlong, Wanganui, has some large farms that he will exchange for interestbearing Wellington city properties. A number of good businesses are offered for sale by Wylie Bros., Peathcrston street. On Juno 26, Thomson and Brown, under instructions from the Supreme Court, will sell a valuable block of villa properties at Brooklyn. The date of this sale has been altered from June 12th. Earconrt and Co. insert in this issue a revised list of selected city residential properties and building sections. The firm's “Bogiater and Property Investors’ Guide" will be posted to any address on application to them. To-day. at 2.30 p.m., Harcourt and Co. will offef for sale by auction, by order of the mortgagees, a ha-f-share in leases of certain native lands in the township of Otaki, full details of which will be found In our auction columns. To-morrow, at 2.50 p.m., the same firm will submit by atiction. under instructions from the Public Trustee, a valuable corner business site. In the centre of Petonc, having frontages to Jackson and Bichmond streets of 128 ft 9in and 126 ft Sin respectively, together with two dwellings erected thereon. Full particulars may be obtained from the auctioneers.