STRAY NOTES.

Thames Star, Volume XXV, Issue 4668, 23 February 1894, Page 2

STRAY NOTES.

Cancer is undoubtedly increasing in New Zealand, say the medicos. Has the abominable practice of sending diseased cattle to slaughterhouse any* thing to do with it? Mr Fish was not a lovely person in politics, butt Q has ft strong stock of common sense, and I wish him well h his crusade at Dug*

edin against diseased meat and bad food generally. The fact is that what inspection there is at the slaughterhouses is quite inefficient to stop diseased meat being sold to the public. At Dunedin the other day, I am assured on good authority, a number of pigs were discovered to be suffering from a disease of a peculiarly loathsome type, yet it was by the barest chance that the flesh of these animals was prevented from being sold and used. A strict inspection of all meat at abattoirs would work wonders. Once the sale were stopped the farmer would not be tempted to send cattle a little " off " to the market, for the butcher would not dare to buy. There is a rumour that this very important subject may come up before Parliament next session, and that a proper system of inspection will be provided for in a Government Bill. I trust the rumor is true. The freezing works reject diseased meats, the Jews—most ancient and wisest of people—will have none of it, and why should the general public not be equally protected ? There is far more diseased meat sold than ever the public dream of, and some drastic measure of reform in this matter is urgently needed.

Some very good malapropisms are given by a writer in Mr Jerome K. Jerome's new weekly paper To-day. Here is a small selection :—

It was that famous lady who once accused her neighbour of mistaking the asphalt for the concrete, and she was talking about the subjjct of a Times obituary.

"He may have been all that they say," she observed, "but from what I knew of him in his life I have no inclination to pass paregorics upon him now that he is dead."

"Er—panegyrics, don't you mean ?" suggested her youngest corrector.

•'The terms are perfectly anonymous. In any case, why mention such a trifle ? Oh, yes, I know you'll tell me that trifles are important, and straws show which way the camel backs, and so on ; but, still, there is a limit.

And she resumed her knitting in angry silence.

An English clergyman expounds what a contemporary calls the "extraordinary doctrine" that the consumption of pork is fatfl to religious habits. I don't know (says " Phiz" in Christchurch Truth) whether the " doctrine" is so extraordinary after all. The pig is a most immoral beast—dirty, gluttonous, cannibalistic, and a thief. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and no really clean people, like the Jews and Mohammedans, eat pork. The Chinese, morally and physically the filthiest people in the world, the people who invented pig ? and, according to Charles Lamb, discovered the art of roasting him, dote on pork. Chicago (U.S.A.) is, par excellence, the pjg city of the world, and it i&a. well-known fact that you can there be married, divorced and re-married while a train stops, for refreshments. I knew a man in India, slight, fair haired, handsome, and admirable in all the social and domestic virtues. J3e hact never eaten pork. He had been brought up among good and sensible people, who had warned him against pig. In an evil moment someone tempted him with a pork chop* He ate it, and the taste woke in him some foul hereditary craving for the flesh of the unclean animal. Aftar a time he wouJ4 ©at nothing but pig. He hss curried pork and black puddings for breakfast, cold boiled )ork and chutney for Jaach, roast loin of pork a.n,d apple sauce for dinner, &.pd any cold pork there was knocking about for supper. His deterioration, moral and physical was rapid. He began to }\o % to neglect his tubs, to wear soiled, linen, to cheat, tQ go to church thrice every Sunday, and to teach niggw* their catechism in the Sunday aehool v He commenced also to swell visibly. Ere two years had passed his oiioertfined face took on a porcine aspect. His cheeks grew large aud pendulous, bia eyes lessened in diameter, his nose almost disappeared, he weighed many stone, grunted as he walked, and the Hindoo mothers removed their babies from his path for fear he would eat them. Before five years had expired he became the leading light of the local V.M.C.A., used to preach on

Sunday afternoons, was a Bank Director, distributed tracts when ho went out for a walk, and lectured on teetotalism. Need more be said? And this (pace Rudyard Kipling and L. M. Isitt !) is a true story.

There is a Greytown resident who will have ample cause to remember his marriage day. Last Saturday morning, just as he was preparing to face the " better or for worse" ordeal, he was bailed up in a local store by a brace of excited creditors, who were speedily joined by half-a-dozen others, all stoutly declaring that matrimony was not for him unless he paid up sundry small accounts. He pleaded, urged, and argued, but all to no put-* pose, for they said they would stay there till the moon turned to green cheese if he didn't pay up. He, rather than forego hymeneal joys, eventually disbursed the various sums, he proceeded to •' do the deed." He was very much shaken when at the door of the registrar's office an officious individual poked a summons into his hand, and still further horrified, when, standing* on the threshold with his blushing bride, he was the recipient of another blue paper souvenir.