OUR AUCKLAND LETTER.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 781, 3 November 1922, Page 6

OUR AUCKLAND LETTER.

LABOUR' DAY. (From Our Own Correspondent), Auckland, October 27.Labour Day has lost much of its significance, It was instituted, as everyone knows, to commemorate the granting of the eight-hour working day. But ilt is only a proportion of the workers who work eight hours a day now. The sixhour day is becoming more fashionables, and' the tendency of the time is for a still, shorter working day. For p long time past the workers m Australia, or a,t any rate a section of them, have been agitating for a four-hour day. That, if conceded, would mean, of course, starting work at 8 a.m, and knocking off for the day at 12 noon. After that we may expect a workless day, wages to be paid as usual. Attention was drawn by the Auckland daily papers to the interest .taken by the public in the procession on Labour Day, and in the subsequent sports gathering in the Domain. But Aucklanders are notoriously fond of “a day off,” and will jump at any excuse fob making holiday Must be the climate. NO SMOKING! An Auckland daily paper published on Saturday last the report of a case neard in an American Court in which the defendant, a young lady, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay a iine of £IOO in addition for daring to smoke a cigarette in public., When I read that I was reminded of a pro hibi'tion lecture I once heard in Christchurch, This gentleman predicted that the time was coming when New Zealand would run dry from Auckland to the Bluff, and after allowing time for that statement to soak in, he added: “And when we have got National Prohibition w<s are going to put out all your pipes.” I have no doubt they will be as good as their word—if they can, A HUNDRED DOCTORS. According to a recent estimate there are one hundred doctors in Greater Auckland. This is a pretty fair allowance considering that our population is only, about 170,000, And seeing that Auckland is admittedly one of the healthiest cities in New Zealand the wonder is how all thesei medical gentlemen contrive to find sufficient patients. By the way, ap Auckland man I know who returned from a trip to Japan, tells me that in the Land of the Rising Sun the doctors are fee’d by the householders so long as they (me householders) are well and fit. Bui directly they fall sick they stop paying any medical fees, and do not resume paying them until they are well again, TURNED DOWN. Some enterprising person wrote to the Auckland Harbour Board last week offering a fee of £1 per month for 12 twelve months for the exclusive flight of gathering muscles from under the city wharves. Fortunately the offer was decline’d, several members expressing the opinion .tnat muscles • dislodged.- from the ■ piles and stringers of the wharves would not be fit to eat. Probably

they would not, And neither are --the pip is dug up at some of our seaside resorts fit to eat, although that fact does not prevent picnickers from eating them. The fish are liable to contamination from the city sewage and their consumption has doubtless been the cause of many a case of typhoid—and will be the cause of many more. HEALING. In the course of a recent sermon at . St. Mary’s Cathedral, Canon James declared that “the quack is finding a credulous public and making a rich harvest,” adding that it was the i .duty of those who alleged these wonderful cures to submit -o rigorous examination before a competent tribunal the evidence upon which they founded their claims. {That is a commonsense proposal and should be given effect to in the future. A year or more ago Auckland was startled to hear and read of the extraordinary recoveries made- by sick persons, some of the latter having'been given up by the doctors as oeyond hope. The most sensational stories were in circulation here regarding these cases,-but nothing appears to have been done to follow up these alleged cures with a view to thd tracing of their subsequent history, and the question artises : What is the present condition of the people said toj have been literally sna.tched from the jaws of death ? THE MENTALLY DEFICIENT. The proposal made by the Rev. H, Mason that mental rest-houses should be established for the reeeptyion o-f certain cases not sufficiently serious to warrant their being sent to a mental hospital, is a most excellent one and has excited a great deal of interest in Auckland, It is as certain as anything can be that many a poor sufferer hovering on the borderland has been driven into downright insanity by the mere knowledge that he or she is to be sent to an “asylum.” And it is no less certain that a visit to one of the "rest-houses” suggested by Mr Mason would, in a great many instances result in the patient being able to return home) in a month’s time cured. But it is high time we overhauled our whole system of treating the mentally afflicted.