THE WEEK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8315, 13 May 1905, Page 4

THE WEEK.

"Let us ... Expatiate free o'er all this maze of man, _ A mighty mate, bat not without a plan.'' —Pope.

During the Supreme Court gambling argument yesterday, the question of fckill or chance also incidentally arose. But one celebrated American case from Mark Twain's reports remained unquoted. Were that precedent followed, we may yet see learned counsel or jurymen retiring with some professional poker-playing defendant, and one by otic sending into Court to borrow the sinews of war.

Some of the evidence regarding the butchery in past years of West Australian blacks would no doubt have the effect of " weakening any protest " that England may in future make against, let's say, the barbarities of the Sultan of Tilrkey. They have been shot like swamphens and poisoned like rabbits. One stationholder paid for scalps as a New Zealand squatter would contract fer pigs' tails, and was "had" in the way that the latter has often been had, ,by split tails. The hairy chest or armpits of a black will often yield a second, third, or fourth "scalp." *

Private lunatic asylums (call them by whatever euphonious name you prefer) can in future only be tolerated in this colony under strict short-interval inspection by responsible Government officers. Another condition 'of their existence must be the placing on record, open to public inspection at all times, of the exact money interest (if any) which any member of the medical profession has in any of them. Seventy years ago or so Charles Reade's novel "Hard Cash" caused the abolition of many dens of torture called private asylums. It is still very interesting reading, as showing the need for proper supervision and publicity. ,

So the American Congregationalists pocketed Rockefeller's "insurance" cheque after all. Possibly they may not have considered themselves affected with wha€ lawyers call " notice," or they may have thought it charitable to give this particular sum the benefit of the doubt. It may not have been "tainted" by oil after all. So they pouched it — let us hope with thanks. It is a big order to lay upon gratuitous donees the, onus of looking into me bona fides of every coirl offered to them. The principle would apply to every. Sunday threepence as much as to Rockefeller's cheque. Judging from the teaching of history a gift must be pretty badly "tainted" before it becomes unfit for church use.