RISUS FRATIFARUS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 123, 18 February 1919, Page 6

RISUS FRATIFARUS

• Sir,—A bacillus of superb vitality ie tho risus fratjfarus. I mention this apropos to the news that intercolonial freights and fares have been raised this month. The shipping companies are being put to extra expense by the Australian quarantine regulations incidental 'to the influenza epidemic. The directors of the shipping companies seem to be learned in etymology: i'ie., "epi," upon; "demos," the people; therefore (say they) let the cost of the epidemic quarantine be on the people! Certainly the companies undertake to defray the quarantine costs out of the extra fares anil freights; and in doing eo they are departing, fi'Qm precedent. When I was kept for five days on Somes Island (start not, good Sir, 'twas in pre-war days!) the Union Steam Ship Company not only made mo pay, additional to my fare, five shillings per day for my meals and. bunk, but they detained my luggage for three days after I had paid my bill and reached Wellington—all because a.man .bearing my not uncommon surname had refused to pay what .ho slanderously termed an extortion. This personal note is by way of preface to a fact of general public interest. In the first year of the present century the shipping companies were, in it predicament similar to that experienced this month;'and tho companies overcame it by that epidemical process of "passing it on" to which I have already lcferrcd. The influenza microbe is the cause this year; in 1900 the bubonic bacillus supplied the reason.

Now, Sir, eo far as I' have gleaned in the fields of bacteriological cultivators I have been unable to gather any indication that longevity characterises the bacillus of bubonic plague. I have an idea that an Australian cultivator of these strange pets saw the absolute last of some millions of them reject its.ratbrawn diet at the end of nineteen months (or was it weeks?), and die. The bubonic bacilli in short, lacked the hnmmerloc'k vitality inherent in the bacilli nf risus fratiforiis. "Their" vitality defies Time's transmutations, for the increased fares of 1900 A.I), have outlived the cause of their existence, and are but I the normal faro upon which tho latest i increase is placed. The increases of I 1903 have found in this year'of 1919 a sort of Indian-summer brother, produced <for their astonishment by the longshore obstetricians of the fleet. It is inipos- ! sible to hold exactly nineteen in one hand at cribbage, but the increased fares have held for nineteen (years), and only tho fact that they are not ceasing now \ saves the old "crib" axiom from disrepute. This point surely needs no elucidation; rather let me ask when will the latest increases be taken off i> I cannot ' answer myself. But I hope you and I, .Mr. Editor, will'live to: sec the day. Then shall we go down to posterity aa the modern Methuselahs.—l am, etc. G.P.B. , Brooklyn, February,