CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6091, 31 January 1898, Page 2

CURRENT TOPICS.

«, Mr H. S. H. Cavendish, African who; the <cable informs us exploration, this ' morning, has been appointed to lead a British expedition^ to the upper regions of the Nile, is 1 probably the yoimgßgt X>i the rapidiyi growing army of Afrifcan explorers." He- is ouly just tw9nty-one years -of age, and yet has won quite a creditable record of discovery and adventure in the Eastern portion of the Dark Continent. Eighteen months ago, in company with Lieutenant Andrews of the Black Watch, he organised a caravan of eighty-four armed Soinalis and one hundred and fifty camels and started in land from Berbera. His principal object was to obtain sport, but he was also anxious to reach unexplored parts of the continent, and, if possible, to map in the western side of Lake Rudolph, which had nover been visited by white men. When the caravan reached Webbe Shibelo Mr Cavendish — who is, by the way, a cousin of the Duke of Devonshire — heard of the near presence of an Abyssinian army of 2000 men, and the natives tried to dissuade him from crossing: the river. He, however, insisted on going on, and continued his journey. He found the country between the Shibele and Lugh completely panic-stricken. The Somalis had simply razed their villages and had fled into the interior owing to the Abyssinian taids. The raiders had been killing men, women and children indiscriminately, and inflicting horrible tortures on the prisoners. Leaving these devastated regions, the caravan pressed on due west to Lake Stephanie, and after crossing the Borani country reached there in safety. Between Lakes Stephanie and Eudolph Mr Cavendish experienced great difficulties with his escort, some of whom mutinied, and also had a good deal of fighting with, the natives. However, he ultimately reached Lake Rudolph and sketched in the whole of the western shore. He discovered another lake ten miles south, and then proceeded towards Uganda, travelling via Lake Baringo to the Ravine Station on the Uganda Road. After staying iorne time at Kikuyu, he worked his way back to Mombasa and reached the terminus of the railway last October. This was not at all a bad beginning in African exploration for a mere boy, and the fact that the hero of the journey has been selected to lead a British expedition to the Upper Nile shows that the authorities have not been slow to recognise the real merit of his achievement. While young men raised in the lap of luxury and with plenty of means at their disposal can be found ready to exchange the delights of the London season for the hardships and perils of Central Africa, we need have little fear either for the future of our aristocracy or for the continued stability of the Empire.

We have not for some pampered time heard the wail of the paupers. " splendid paupers "of England — the impecunious nobility who are reduced to living on a fow thousands a year — but recent London papers contain some extraordinary revelations regarding the way in which some local authorities pamper the poor. The Camberwell Union would seem to be about the worst offenders. An ex-guardian of that parish cited to a public meeting a case which he described as typical. A sculptor, an excellent workmen, had been in the workhouse fifteen years, and had cost the parish The committee was told one day that this man had a complaint to make, and upon being brought into the room he said, "My complaint is that my potatoes were put before me without being peeled." That man, it was added, went out upon one occasion, earned £3 10s in three days, drank the money in the three following days, and re-entered the house on the seventh day. Some of these lazy fellows had been sent to General Booth's farm, but invariably they left in two or three' days, and returned to the workhouse, -n'h ere they . P assed tue time loungincr about, reading novels, and playing draughts and bagatelle. The Camberwell • tepayers, whose rates total 8s Gd in the pound, have entered a strong protest ao-ainst the maintenance of what is called a ° « able-bodied paupers' paradise," anji

-— — - . - ■■ . • ■• ..■ : "• lave appointed a deputation to wait on ;he Local Government Board, with a request ;hat power to deal with able-bodied paupers should be conferred upon Boards of juardians. Experience ought long ago to i lave taught that a real work test instead 3f the so-called "workhouse test," would bo the best nieans of eliminating loafers, iind securing the relief pf those who were really unfit, without the necessity of enter- . ing workhouses where no work is done or can possibly be done under existing conditions. Ihe case of Camberwell proves thatEngland, as well as New Zealand, has need to revise her system of charitable relief. It has been so raro, however, to "find English : guardians erring on the side of indulgence I in the past, that we are inclined to set , down the new experiences to the introduction of popular control of the poor-law administration. It is* a hopeful sign of reform to find the guardians and the people insisting upon generous treatment of the really deserving poor, and at the same time using every means to prevent lazy im- 1 posters living in idle ease. Thirty years ago, in women one of the halls of the doctors great Medical Academy in in St Petersburg, a large Russia, audience assembled to hear a young woman of nineteen defend her dissertation after a serious course of medical studies in other lands. The girl was a peasant, and had been educated at the expense of her fellow villagers, who wanted to have someone to treat their women and children. She was brilliantly . successful before the Academy, and received her degree amidst thunderous applause. The lady's name was Kashavarhoff, she became by marriage Madame Rondeff, and was the first Russian woman who officially practised as a physician. , She was extremely successful, notwithstanding opposition and calumniation on the part of many Eussian medical men. This accounted for the fact that it was not until ten years later that tbe study of medicine within Eussia itself was permitted to women, and even then, the courses, opened for a limited number of female students, were constantly being closed for *' political unreliability "on the part of the students. The EmpressMother was quite against these studies tor young girls. She considered they tended to destroy tlie purity of women, and to encourage immorality and looseness of conduct. However, all these almost insuperable obstacles have been victoriously overcome, and there are now in St Petersbug 130 women doctors, in Moscow 23, ic Kieff 13, in Tiflis and. other towns: five' or six. Still, women doctors in Eussia have no easy time. The hardships they endure, and the dangers they risk in the interior (where they are sometimes taken for witches) are very great, to say nothing of the inimical attitude the doctors generally adopt towards them, doing all they can to undermine the confidence of patients in their capacities. In short, it is a struggle .requiring masculine strength of mind to come out of victoriously, and no wonder .so many delicate wdinen succumb. Still,, in many instances, the Russian- doctoresseS; as they .are called, have proved themselves to be, besides clever practitioners and saviours of lives, angels of light amongst Egyptian darkness, bringing hope to despairing populations. The fear of the Government that these women would sow the sepds of revolution in the rural population and serve the Anarchists, has never been justified, and the present Empress being greatly desirous of advancing the cause of education in general, and particularly that of her own sex, no more attempts aro made to hinder the progress of women in whatever career they choose.