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Otago Daily Times, Issue 19259, 25 August 1924, Page 6

The picture drawn by the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph of ten thousand legionaries marching past Marshal Ludendorff at Weimar supplies an illustration of the survival of the old military tradition in Germany. Especially moving is the dramatic oath sworn by these martial demonstrators: "When our Ludendorff calls us to follow him to the death we will not rest till the criminals who formulated the 'Republican Convention are brought to just punishment/’ The Germans arc a remarkable people. The marvel really is that Ludendorff, who, after being “guaranteed victory,’’ in the hour of failure fled in disguise to escape the rage and humiliation of a nation drinking the bitter dregs of defeat, should be even safe in the Fatherland, much less in a position to strut upon the stage. Yet something of the old glamour evidently attaches to his presence. He is a member of the Reichstag and honorary president of the group that is described officially as the Nationalist Socialist Freedom Party, but known in popular parlance as the German Fascists. Though twice actively associated with armed attempts to overthrow the German Republic by force he enjoys abundant latitude in which to foster fresh' movements of a similar kind. Even his ridiculous failure in the Bavarian rising docs not seem to have put him out of countenance. He is permitted to defy the authority of the Government by attending parades of “prohibited” monarchist militarist organisations. His talk is of war, —of the next war as well as of the last. Doubtless many of the Nationalists sitting in the Reichstag share his dream of a war of revenge. To the youth of the country, so far as it is drawn from the influential Junker, ex-Service, and professional classes he makes, it is said, an insistent and irrepressible appeal. Not long ago he told an assembly of students “Germany demands from its youth burning love of their own country, hatred and revenge against the enemy.’’ The best hope of a check upon this restless mischief-maker and gambler upon the continued confusions of post-war Europe lies in the restoration of peace through the means of settlement provided in the Dawes report.

Tuv, daily average number of patients under treatment in the mental hospitals of the dominion last year was 4868. The total number under care was 5740. Some years ago legislation was enacted sanctioning the admission of voluntary boarders to these institutions. In his annual report the Inspector-General observed that the number of voluntary boarders has increased so largely that they must bo taken into account hereafter in the specification of requirements in relation to accommodation. Shortage of accommodation constitutes, unfortunately, no novelty in the history of our mental hospitals. The population of the country resident in these institutions grows every' year. Tho increase varies, but on an average it would seem to represent an accession of between fifty and 60 persons. Possibly that number is sufficient to explain tho circumstance that the requirements in accommodation never seem quite to be overtaken. Last year’s figures show, the Inspector-General states, an all-round shortage of accommodation for 171 men and 71 women. He adds, “The ratio of excess means that in each group of sixteen to seventeen, men there is one too many, and in each group of about thirty to thirty-one women there is one too many. It is not this odd one only who is incommoded, but the whole group more or less. . . . bare sufficiency of accommodation is not enough: there should be about five per cent, of excess nf accommodation for classification, as from time to time the numbers of any one class of case vary' considerably.’* This condition of affairs is clearly unsatisfactory. Fortunately the Government has in contemplation a building programme involving extensions to tbs various institutions which will meet tho requirements of 305 men and 126 women- By the time

this programme is completed the margin in excess of accommodation will still be small. Indeed, it is scarcely expected that there will be any in the case of women patients.

That “there is nothing new under the sun' 1 has been curiously exemplified oy the rummaging professor who has dircovered in the ruins of an ancient Greet’ - settlement the remains of a linen vanity bag, containing some of those peculiarly feminine devices which arc more or less of the nature of a mystery to mere man. The appliances will.' which the fair lady of 650 B.C. sought to enhance her natural charms were probably a triflo crude by comparison with the elaborate paraphernalia of to-day, but the essentials were certainly there—mirror, lip-stick, and eyebrow pencil. An interesting field of speculation is presented by the suggestion that twenty-five centuries ago there may have been stem censors in the sex who frowned severely upon the practices of their more flippant sisters in just such a way as is the experience of the cosmetic-loving “flappers” of our own day and generation. Fashion has exercised a. rigorous tyranny throughout the ages. It has been reserved, however, for “the twentieth century to provide instances of its provoking a conflict with religious authority, as lately illustrated in Italy in the exclusion from the rites of the Church of women who have offended by going to Mass in lownecked dresses, and with bare arms. It is a delicate question whether, with all its enlightenment, the world is growing better or not. Tire more it is considered the more intriguing it becomes.