THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, 14 December 1893, Page 27

THE WEEK.

11 Ranqaun »Und nmtara, aUad »»plentl« dlxlt."— Jorimi " Gooduaturs »nd good lonio ma it srer join." — Popn. ,

If the effect of the renewed attack from Wellington on our Medical A Large School should be to increase Order. the already prevalent desire on the part of the students for a finishing course at Home, we should recognise a wholesome element in it, however much we might disagree with the reasons given for the attack itself. The committee of the Wellington Medical Association, which has reported on the matter, has given insufficient grounds for its very serious conclusions that the Obago Medical School cannot possibly impart an adequate medical training, and ought therefore to be prevented from conferring medical degrees. But the fact must be admitted that the minimum standard of facilities for clinical (that is, bedside) instruction, as laid down by the best authoiities, is only just complied with her,:. One would prefer in so grave a matter as the training of doctors to have a little to spare in that particular. Our hospital, moreover, is practically the only hospital to which the students have acces3, and all their variations of experience must therefore be tho3B incidentally provided withia its walls. The conditions prevailing in New Zaaland are not favourable to the • occasional extension of those experiences, such as may be attained in towns where there are two or more hospital?, or in countries where large towns are more frequent and handy. The effect of this 'is to make it specially desirable that the theoretical minimum of clinical material should be clearly and regularly available at our own hospital here; and though this requirement is on the whole reasonably well attained, still our students themselves and their teachers would be the last to deny that wherever possible an extended experience, such as may be attained by visiting the greater seats of learning before entering upon practice, would be eminently desirable. If that were all that the Wellington committee meant, we should be disposed to recommend their conclusions to the best consideration of both students and dons. But they have gone so far as to claim the practical dismantling of the Medical School ; and for so retrograde and violent a course as that they have produced no sufficient justification, even if the facts upon which they rely were themselves beyond dispute.

The Pomahaka scandal continues to exercise the minds of several correPomnliakn. spondents, and we dara say of the public. One indiscreet apologist for, Mr John D:>uglis was foolish enough to suggest that Mr Scobie Mackenzie's statements had not been fully supported by that gentleman subsequently to their original utterance. The only result of this weak intervention has been that the whole odious story ha 3 been dragged into print again, but this time with a preciseness of detail which will probably cause even tbe most easy-going newspaper readers to stand aghast at the duplicity and audacity of the participants in this notorious transaction. Worst of all— for Mr John Douglas— Mr Scobie Mackenzie himself puts into print with deadly simplicity and telling precision bis answer to the charge of having hesitated to press home his statements, and his reiteration of what he calls the " sickeniDg" facts. From the firet, while we ourselves—as we must frankly confess— thought he might have spoken, though quite truly so far as bis fact? went, yet with possibly in-

sufficient knowledge of the whole circumstances, Mr Mackenzie himself has firmly and fearlessly maintained his statements to be correct, and given positive assurance that he had the proofs ready. Twice has a challerge to meet him on a public platform been shirked, and in addition a deliberately organised and personally-conducted row was resorted to as a means of keeping the facts from the ears of the people. These are things that appeal to the common sense of the simplest. Judgment is passed upon them alike by the most interested and the most cireless, and to all who learn them I they point with irresistible certainty to the | one conclusion. Mr Scobie Mackenzie declares in his letter that " if a searching inquiry is nob made into all the circumstances it will be a lasting disgrace to the colony." To which we would add that if persons against whom such damning charges are publicly and fearlessly made conspire together to burk such an inquiry, as they previously burked open discassion of the facts upon a public platform, it will be a lasting disgrace to themselves as well. But as the result would evidently bo the same as that (to them) if they did acquiesce in an inquiry, we venture to predict that burked it will be. la that case, the only hope the public can have is that this crushing exposure of an illegitimate raid upon the public treasury will at least deter people who have any character to lose from either buyirg or selling upon similar lines in future. Mr John Douglas's latest attempt at defending the purchase appears to us to play directly into the hands of tbe attacking party, and we do cot envy the feelings of the Minis', er for Lands on readicg it. In consequence of its late arrival we are unable to deal with io in detail in this issue, but we shall have a few remarks to make on it later on.

The editor (self-appointed, and at present prospective) of a newspaper Boom (not yet existent) who offers Journalism, to distribute £100,000 among bis (future) readers ought", we should say, to be a popular editor, and his paper somewhat widely read. CompariDg the circumstances, for instance, of the Witness with those which are to surround the new journal announced by the indefatigable Stead under the enchanting title of "An Offer of £100,000 to My Readers," we confess to being unable to give any substantial reason why there should not be a distribution of that sutn among the Witness subscribers next week with our Christmas Number. We recognise (with sincere apologies to our own readers) that there is a hitch somewhere, and we must hasten to explain, with unfeigned regret, that for reasons upon which it i 3 unnecessaiy to dwell the step in question must be unavoidably postponed ; Btill, we do not, after a close perusal of Mr, Stead's prospectus, see why the newest journal in England should be able to take a course which is denied to the oldest one in New Zealand. The only thiDg in paiticular that is to be gathered about the intended daily paper is that Mr Stead intends " so far as he can to make it a faithful exponent of what he conceives to be the truth " ; also, that "it will be in no sense a party paper." This kind of intimation comes too late by 100 years or so to rank as a novelty, and one fails to see £100,000 in it for the daily paper's readers, whatever there may be for its proprietors. We hesitate, remembering that we are dealing with the great and good Stead, to find the explanation in two prosaic, sordid facts which are hidden away in the florid verbiage of the prospectus — namely, (1) that the £100,000 is to be distributed in the form of debenture bonds, and (2) that prior to that distribution the recipients have to go through the formality of payiDg Mr Stead £130,000 in the shape of English sovereigns. Still, it may be as well to mention these facts, if only because it may make our own readers less restive under otherwise odious comparisons. "My object," saya the good mao, " in thus giving away the capital on which the paper will be started is not philanthropic or generou3. It is good business." No doubt ; and we should say it is also " good business " to publish a prospectus about which so much is admittel under such a title as "An Offer of £100,000 to My Readers."

There are other details in Mr Stead's prospectus which will bear quotaSnhatioit in tion. Two cr three years Prospect. ago, when the Postal Union rules effected a substantial reduction in the postage of the Review of Reviews, the diffident and retiring editor of that periodical claimed the attention of the British race to the fact that their salvation was now effected. Previous to that era, it seemed, the English name had been clouded and the Eaglish people a prey to meliacholy and despair because there had been no great controlling bond between the sections of the race scattered here and there over the globe. That cloud, said the great and good, had now rolled away ; the price of the Review of Reviews was now 8s 7d a year instead of 133 sd, and the British race, to the envy and wonder of the nations, ODce more inherited t'ae earth. The 4i 10J bad saved Eog- , land. There is plenty of the same kind of thiog in the prospectus of the daily paper. " For years," we read, " I hoped that I should be able to discover somewhere in the Englishspeaking world some c it or who had the faith in him and the energy to attempt the f mndation of such a paper. I have looked in vain." Positively there isn't a man — not one — in all England, in all America, Australia, A F r'ca, India, anywhere, fit to edit Mr Stead's daily paper 1 So, "in default of anyone better qualified for the post, I, W. T. Stead, am willing to try my band." Peradventure, therefore, there is one righteous man in this English-speaking wilderness of utter incapacity. "1 am painfully aware," proceeds Our Only Editor with characteristic unction, " of many of my own disqualifications for such a position. I could easily define an ideal editor who would be much better qualified for the task. But such a man does not exi3t. I do. That U the difference." This is straight enough. Mr Stead proceeds to express a hope that, in speaking of his qualifications, he may nob be accused of egotism — wbichis satisfactory evidenceof the hopefulness of his disposition, one of the rarest and most valuable qualities in an

editor, though this particular qualification possibly did not occur to r him. "To enable anyone to work out this conceptioD," he proceeds, it is indispensable that he should be, ihia, that and the other, and should have one thitjg, lack another, and be surrounded by a third — all carefully and expressly defined beforehand to fit Mr Stead's particular case. Positively, it reads like the Pomahaka petition 1 And with that last-named compilation so fresh in the public mind, it will be no surprise to find that, just as in that case an article was to be had at the end filling with singular completeness and accuracy every requirement laid down in the earlier sentences, so in the case of the daily paper the qualifications defined for the ideal editor are discovered, later on in the prospectus, to be combined with soul-satislying comprehensiveness in — Myself. No one will deny thab Mr Stead, with all his faults, stands high, perhaps preeminent, as a catering journalist ; nor are his great abilities for a moment in question with his readers. But he lacks one thing sadly — a sense of humour. The fact that he ould read his own prospectus without resolving forthwith to contribute it to Punch as a burlesque goes far to account for the general verdict upon his writings that an unrelieved seriousness is their principal fault.

Do any of our newly-enfranchised wear things called " aigrettes " in Bird their bonnets or other parts Millinery. of their dress ? This is a question which may at first be thought to Have strajed from"Eoimeline's " column into this one, bur. such an inference would be erroneous. As a matter of fact, in devoting a note to the subject we are only followh g the lead of the greatest of all journals — the London Times itself — which published a fervid leacirg article a few weeks ago on the shocking cruelties involvtd in tha procuring of the article of adornment named, and asked " How long will worn'en tolerate a fashion which involves such wholesale, wanton, and hideous cruelty as this? If their sense of humanity is too feeble, will not their native sense of maternity arouse them 1 " The allusion in the last sentence is explained by the Thunderer's text, which is a Ltter from a distinguished naturalist "on the revive! fashion of using feathers in millinery," and giving a rather gruesome description of how " aigrettes " are obtained. It seems that the egret, or oeprey, breeds, like our own penguins, nellies, and mutton birds, in special rookeries, gecerally containing several hundred nests. The hunter approaches these breeding-places and disturbs the parent I birds just about the time when the young are half- fledged and bsfore they can cater for themselves. The poor egrets, frightened from their nests, flutter heavily overhead, and are shot down without difficulty from below. Then, " when the killing is finished, and the few handfuls of coveted feathers have been plucked out, the slaughtered birds are left in a white heap to fester in the sun and wind, in sight of their orphated young, that cry for food and are not fed." Mr Hudson, after drawing this picture, says something unkindly suggestive about a necklace of human ears (captured from the enemy) which a Mexican lady once wore in a ballroom ; and then The Times takes up its parable and appeals to women to make for evermore impossible "this shocking story of the egrets." " Let it be clearly understood," the great journal proceeds, "that the feathered woman is a cruel woman ; she brings dishonour upon her sex, and robs nature of its beauty without adding to her own. We could wish it were possible to make every woman feel that by weariDg feathers she tars herself with the brash of cruelty, and outragep, unconsciously it may be, but till inexcusably, the best instincts of her womanly nature." So do men. But unhappily woman has a logic of her own. When she is shewn aigrett.es at any of the leading milliners' after readicg the above (if there are such things there), she will say, " Poor dear little birds — they aro dead now, and so are I heir little nestllDgj. I can't bring them back to life — and it is a sweet thing in bonnets. If I don't take it, I know a horrid thing that will. I only hope they won't kill any more egrets (she can't get one in that case), but — please send it to my address." And the inexorable law of supply and demand gives the distant egret-hunter another chance.