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Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 947, 19 May 1883, Page 2

Nearly 600 personas have joined tha Blue flibbon Army iu Christchurch, since the commencement of this week.

Mr; O’Callaghan, member for Lincoln, addressed his constituents at Prebbleton

last night and received a vote of thanks. Yesterday afternoon Harriett Dowey was committed for. trial at Christchurch,

for setting fire to a house at Halswell on April 21st, the property of Mrs Sabey. A five-roomed house in St. Asaph street, Christchurch, owned and occupied by Alfred Buckley, was burned at halfpast eight lost night. It was insured in tha National for LSOO.

A meeting is to be held on Monday to ( take i the initiatory step in forming a _ Woollen Factory in Wellington. ■lt is” proposed to form a Company with LIOOyOOO, in L 5 shares. A hew gas company, to be called the Metropolitan Gas Company, is to be started at Christchurch. The present , company have considerably reduced the price, of gas in consequence.

A Beefton telegram states that a petition will be forthwith lodged against the election of Mr Edward Shaw for Inangahua. Four grounds are alleged, two of which are stated to be statutory, and fataljto his election.

A lively meeting of burgesses was held at Kaiapoi on Thursday night, to consider the recent action of the Borough Council in respect to the; defalcations. Messrs Fraser and Matthews, the late Finance Committee, who resigned from r the Council recently, explained they had resigned because their suggestions had not been acted upon, and requested further time to consider the books and Auditor’s report, but this was refused. Had the request been granted the'Committee would have remitted the Auditdt'r ] report back to him. A vote of thanks I was: passed to the Committee-for the explanation, but’ a motion pledging fthe meeting to support their re-election fell through, as the meeting declined to vote either for or against it.

It appears, from a pamphlet published in 1876, that a well-known medical man - in Melbourne, Mr William Thomson,,,; there expressed very definite views as to the; parasitic nature* of tubercle, anticipating by six years a doctrine which has recently come into favor. Jn a recent treatise, Mr Thomson shows, from statistics, that the mortality from consumption in Victoria is greatly on the in-i, • crease; thus, taking all ages, it has increased from 11.49 per 10,000 in 1871 13 90 in 1881. And it is pointed out that this is not to be accounted fog; ;< by an influx of dying visitors to the. - colony, but it is largely due to an in- . creasing death rate among Victorian born persons. Mr Thomson, main tains that phthisis is .a' specific poison: disease ; that it is never of climate origin, nor due to dampness of soil, or depressing circumstances of life —that it has been imported into ‘Australia hy invalids from Europe, etc. Its prevalence among servant girls is [attributed solely to the' inhalation “of the germ-laden dust of the bedrooms they have to sweep out. Sea voyages are J beneficial to consumptive patients chiefly because 'they subject the patient to a J - continual inhalation of saline and slightly iodised air, which is unfavorable to .the,,,, development of the parasites. i Referring to the many schemes and contrivances for putting down - “ bunny,” the New York Times says If the mongoose does not kill the rabbits, and if he multiplies as rapidly as the rabbit has multiplied, he will soon become- as great r-j a nuismce as his predecessor. In that case the New Zealanders will have to im-. .. port some new animal in the hope, that he t will prey upon the mongoose. The jackal/.; might possibly meet their views, or they' J “ might come to some arrangement with the hyena. They will probably, however, lose all heart when they find that in im-r importing the mongoose they have simply . brought aaeoond quadruped pestilence upon,. themselves, and will abandon New Zealand.'' in despair. It {is rather odd that they V have net thought of the one remedy ‘ for their all-pervading rabbits. What they ought to do is to import a few regi- i ments of white ants from Africai These able insects can ba thoroughly entrusted. : They will eat up every living thing m the • country, including the colon is ta: them- ; selves, if the latter do not secure, .their safety by temporary flight. After haying destroyed all the vegetable' and animal life in New Zealand th'e ants willthom--selves perish of starvation. The colonists can then return and stock New Zealand , with plants and animals of unexceptionable character, among whom they can spend their lives in peace and quietness. White ants are the only cure for excessive rabbits and mongooses, and the sooner the New Zealanders appreciate this fact the better.