CORRESPONDENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6071, 7 January 1898, Page 1

CORRESPONDENCE.

The following letter, is reprinted from the Lyttelton Times : — . TO THE EDITOK. Siii, — This is decidedly the topic of the hour. . "We can see the shadow looming* in the no-far distance, but humane people long to behold in the near future something more substantial than the shadow. : Mr Seddon and his colleagues worked right ■) heartily in the affair. Everyone from the Bluff to the North Cape knows the. story ; how the Bill was killed by a few "pensioned Councillors." Admitting- .the Bill may have been imperfect and crude, through lack of time to frame a better one, surely the subject should not have been dropped as it was, especially by men ripe in years, themselves pensioners on a comparatively huge scale. One might reasonably expect to find the milk of .human kindness in such a quarter,: but alas! "Thrift" is the word of the hour. >-I am the last to decry the virtue. > But "thrift" in a man bringing up a family of nine or ten on, we will say, 30s, or even £2, a week, would mean robbing his wife and children of the bare necessaries ■of life. Ho w much can he save ? Ye gods !' Try it, ye members of ' the Legislative Council, and let the world have the secret, for it is a secret worth making known. I knew a man who rose from poverfcy to comparative wealth, and he had a large family, too. Aye, he was thrifty, very " thrifty." Perhaps the graves of seven children could telLthe secret. Delicate from birth, they required nourishing food. The man's first thought had been putting' money by always. They had sunk, one by one, from insufficient nourishment. The " thrifty " people, as I have observed them, make it a " principle " never to giveaway a penny. It " encourages lazineas." Does one envy the man or woman thus enriched at the expense of all humane . feeling ? One turns rather with relief to the opposite side of the picture. We see in fancy an old man rich, but not through miserly hoarding, who dies worth twopence. We all remember the story. A_belftved Cardinal is followed to the grave by a. funeral train of record length by the poor to whom he had proved a very brother in need. Wealth is the gift of God. Circulated rjghtly, the best interest it can yield us is the love and blessing of our poorer brothers. The people of New. Zealand ask for no costly pension ; just enough to live on; a little more perhaps than our Charitable Aid Board grants to keep our pauper life afloat, but not quite one-sixth s,s much as that granted to a respectable section of the community for the ingenuity required in vetoing most of the Bills brought before, them. It has been very clearly laid down how the pension may be effected. But there are none so blind as those who won't see. Being fond ( of statistics, I have again this year, as last, gone over the death roll as recorded in the Canterbury Times for the year departed. One week is missing. The 51 weeks record is as follows : — Deaths under one year, 27 ; one year up to ten years, 50; ten to twenty years, 42; twenty to thirty, 67; thirty to forty, 49; forty to fifty, 45 ; fifty to sixty, 75 ? sixty to seventy, .86'; seventy to eighty, 76; eighty to ninety, 39 ; ' over a hundred (a Maori), 1 ; thirty-six recorded deaths, no age given, 36; total 593. Out of 593 deaths, 143 only have crossed the barrier of sixty-five years. Twelve of these only live out one more year ;' nine again drop off at 67; and so on. This age is not a Methusalistic one. Where does the difficulty lie ?— I am, &c, LUX.