Milk and Milkmen.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 156, 15 October 1872, Page 7

Milk and Milkmen.

We desire to draw special attention (says the Auckland Evening Star) to the notice in another column offering "pure milk" to those who want it. We do so for a special reason. Mr Cook, the owner of the dairy, has given us permission to expose him on the very tirst occasion of his being found faithless to his promise ; and expose him we shall if we find him erring. To deliberately set one's self to sound the praises of a milkman is one of tlu.se things that make the flesh creep and put the conscience in a shiver, and we only do so on the distinct understanding that we are not to be pulled for libel or subjected to maltreatment of any kind if we gibbet him on detection. If there is one class of man in the community whose conscience has turned into a gizzard, it is the average milkman. He will swear by all the saints in the calendar that he does not put water in his milk : and yet he does it, and he satisfies his conscience by saying that it is necessary, because the people insist on having milk at a certain number of pennies per quart. But this is not the worst. No assurance of the murderous effect of soured milk on children's stomachs will induce him to refrain from mixing yesterday's milk with to-day*s, although he swears till he is almost black in the face that he has not done so. Carelessness in cleansing vessels, added to the other offences, makes the average milkman one of the most dangerous enemies in our community. We look on the whole race of them as the Herods of Society ; and in nearly all the cases of the death of children " of two years and under," they are directly or indirectly guilty of the slaughter of the innocents. Mr Cook, of the Domain Dairy, says he will introduce a new era. He will give milk at the price of milk, and let the the water themselves, which they can, e j,< ( o and so stay the plague of worms. £fi 4i .iows us conclusively how°by adding a pint-oi water to a pint of good milkhe could sell " milk" at half price. But he won't. He will sell milk and charge fairly for it; and he will sell yesterday's milk as yesterday's milk, and to-day's milk as to-day's milk ; and as seeing's believing he will exhibit it if desired coming from the cow's teat into the customer's can. If he does all this and shows himself an honest dairyman, and so belies all our past experiences of his order, we shall bless him, and we shall point to him, and tell all those to whom we wish well about him. If he deceives us, and becomes like unto common milkmen, we shall certainly accept his invitation and expose his errors in the milky way. I

Hot or Cold. A Californian contemporary says:—Though most reluctant to trouble our readers with our personal and peculiar concerns, and sensible that it is the height of impertinence to do so, we cannot refrain from once more adverting to the controversy which has been raging for the last fourteen days between ourselves and the Alia California on the subjeetrof'the weather in February. As we are now determined to bring the debate to a conclusion, we shall, with our usual impartiality, give' a brief summary of the arguments on both sides. On Monday before last, the Alta, as many of our readers will recollect, came out with the extraordinary assertion that the weather is generally cold in February. Whether this egregious falsehood originated in the preposterous ignorance of the booby who misconducts the Alta, or in his notorious contempt for veracity, Ave leave it to a candid public to determine. Be that as it may, we immediately set the Alta right in our paper of the same evening, by stating the fact that the weather is seldom cold in February. To this the Alta, with its usual intemperate violence, replied that the weather is always cold in February. To which we, of course, replied that the weather is never cold in February. Will our readers believe it ? Yesterday, stubbornly resisting all conviction, and plunging deeper and deeper into the mire of ignorance and duplicity, the Alta had the assurance to assert that the weather is as cold as a cucumber in February. We have omitted personalities and vituperations with which the Alta has loaded us in the course of this controversy. We disdain to recriminate. We consider all personalities beneath a gentleman, and, wrapt up in dignified silence, we only smile at the abuse of this imbecile idiot, this thrice sodden dunce, this demon in human shape—we mean in a shape intended to be human—this red-haired, bleareyed, low-bred, long-eared donkey, this shirtless ruffian, this walking corruption, this drinking, swearing, fighting, lying, slandering moral assassin, thisninety-nine times whipped, and one hundred and ninety-nine times kicked poltroon, this, in short—this editor of the Alia. Once for all, to put an end to the controversy, we assure the Alta point blank that the weather in February is as hot as Vesuvius.