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New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 10, 11 March 1893, Page 219

A LIST of charitable bequests and donations during 1892, published by the Charity Record, shows that over £1,200,000 has gone to philanthropic institutions. It is well to realize our public benefactions thus at the close of a year in bulk. But when one thinks of this million and more of money being spent—and much of it well spent too, as a perusal of the items will suggest—on the relief of distress, through the ordinary and established channels, it is hard not to turn in wonder to the self-aggrandizing schemes of certain ‘public benefactors ’ who, with a fraction of this money as an annual stipend, would reform poverty and distress off the face of England, and bring it under the red coat of a corybantic mockery of religion. But this year that bubble has been pricked, in spite of ‘ General ’ Booth’s * Hallelujah,’ which has just been appended in the War Cry to the Report of the Onslow Commission. An electric shock has long been supposed to benefit a certain class of patients, and now we hear of the electric beam as a medical appliance. A Russian physician states that superficial neuralgic pains may be instantly relieved by throwing a strong beam of light from an arc lamp on the part affected. Perhaps, as in the case of the wooden magnets, imagination may play a leading part in the cure.