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Oamaru Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 5097, 6 October 1891, Page 2

Miss Kate Marsden, the übiquitous and somewhat mendacious notoriety hunter, is

still bearding the leper in his Asiatic fastnesses. She has been 18 months in nv king a start with her latest cheap philanthropy, but reports that everywhere the utmost hospitality and kindness have been extended to her. In Moscow, we are told on her own authority, the Governor himself collected a sum of money for Miss Marsden, persons of high position gave her warm clothing, and she had quite a collection of valuable saints' images to protect her from harm. This is all very nice and satisfactory from Miss Marsden's point of view, but we fail quite to see what benefits the lepers are likely to derive from Miss Marsden's warm clothing and well-lined pockets. Nobody, too, seems to have thought of despatching a consignment of saints' images to these unfortunate creatures, to protect them from Miss Marsden. Having toured, and talked, and collected money, Miss Marsden has, if anybody can be found confiding enough to accept her own version of her proceedings, really started for a place called Velnisk. She says :—" We must ride on horseback from Vakutsk to Velnisk, 1000 versts, and then ride about finding lepers. As they are sometimes 300 miles apart, it will take a long time." This is most satisfactory for both parties—the fact of leprosy being confined to individual cases at widely divergent points, gives the lepers some chance of escaping Miss Marsden, and also diminishes the danger of that lady being unfortunate enough to find a case. "First catch your hare " says Mrs Glass' cookery book, but we imagine that Miss Marsden would much prefer to cure her lepers in theory than in actual practice, or why have gone to Siberia when other fields for useful work were much more easily available, oven in the ranks of lepers, if nothing else would suit the lady. The fact is, if Miss Marsden, by any unlucky mishap, really did catch a leper, she would be in a perfect quandary what to do with him. Mark Twain's Nightmare, or the Old Man of the Sea, would be a God-send in comparison. Far be it from us to discredit any genuine eflorts at relieving even a modicum of the world's misery; but this tinkering with suffering and dallying with pain do more harm than good, and discourage true philanthropy. We have had some experience of Miss Marsdeii here in New Zealand, and, judging from that experience, she will return after a brief sojourn in Siberia and tell stories about the country and the people witli a shameless mendacity that would make even a boiled lobster blush. She cannot help it. It is an affliction—a sort of moral insanity.