RAIN SPEAKING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue XVIII, 31 October 1896, Page 582

RAIN SPEAKING.

NOTE.—This column is open to all, and the Editor is in no way responsible for the opinions expressed in it. BUSYBODY’ says:—‘lt seems to me that a great deal more use might be made of our very expensive lunatic asylums and prisons - I mean that more work might be got out of the inmates. It is said that when any shaving or hair-cutting was required in the Auckland Gaol an adept at the trade was run in for inebriation and put on the job of removing the surplus growth from face and head of the several inmates of the prison. This may or may not be true ; but there is no doubt that, without at all distressing our unfortunate prisoners or interfering with outside trade, a great deal of useful and payable work might be performed in the gaols throughout the colony, thus lightening our heavy burden of taxation, which, by the bye, is, I understand, proposed to be still further and indefinitely increased by the Seddon Old Age Pension Fund. In our asylums, also, much more might be done to make them selfsupporting. A good deal was done in this direction lately at the Avondale Asylum, and I see that the same excellent energy is being displayed in Wellington now, as at the Mount View Asylum there, in addition to other open-air work (so very good for those suffering from mental diseases) the artificial hatching and rearing of chickens is being carried on. Incubators and artificial mothers have been fitted up, and the industry is now carried on in a thoroughly systematic manner. The patients, they say. take great interest in the work. But, as a rule, in asylums the men are provided with outdoor work, not the women. I would suggest that the management of the poultry be entirely handed over to the female inmates, some of whom would, most likely, thoroughly understand the business. ’ ‘ Sweetbriar ’ writes : ‘I do not know if you will allow a frivolous grumble in your sensible paper, but as it is intended for all sorts and conditions of men and women, there must be some of my sort in it. I should so like to suggest to those people who are in the habit of sending cut flowers as presents, that they should—for a change —send a pot plant or two. lam deluged with flowers, beautiful ones too, which only last a day or so, and give a great deal of trouble (when not in form of a bouquet) in arranging, supplying with fresh water, and finally disposing of as rubbish. Now, if instead I received a blooming primula or cyclamen, etc., ft'hich would be a thing of joy for some days, and could afterwards be exchanged at a nurseryman’s for something else, or sold for the benefit of—well, say myself, how much more satisfactory it would be. ’ ‘ I should like,’ says an old miner, *to draw the attention of your readers to a great want in the New Zealand mines. I refer to the absence of proper ventilation. Fresh air requires to be carried into the mine and bad air to be drawn out. Again, most ofthe mines are in such a hurry to declare a dividend that they do not spare time to properly protect the roof and walls of the shaft as they excavate, and a bad accident is sure to be the result sooner or later in the Northern goldfields.’ [One who is well acquainted with the mines in the North assures me that there is no cause for complaint on either ground. The mines are well-ventilated, and those that are not, are such as are not deep enough into the ground to require ventilation. As regards timbering and supporting a mine, he says that this point is always very well looked after. No one connected with a mine has any desire for an accident of any kind whatever.]