General News.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 23 June 1911, Page 4

General News.

The Association of Economic Biologists, at their Conference in London last month, devoted special attention to tho dangers to ihmna.n health arising from the prevalence and the habits of house flies. It appears now to be established beyond dispute that cholera and typhoid are conveyed by flies, and there is reason to suspect the common house fly is also the carrier of many of the minor diseases affecting yoiung children. The fly, which is bred among garbage, settles upon the milk intended for children, and the mischief is done. To get rid of (lies by any siibeme yet devised for filling them is hopeless. The only effective plan ;is to destroy their breeding grounds, and this should be the work both of the individmal householder and the sanitary authorities. The old-fashioned dust-bin, which still in places survives, and into which every kind of house refuse is thrown, is a favourite breedimr ground for flies. Tt should never be tolerated in proximity to a house. At tho same time, a good deal can lie done within the house to obviate the danger from flies by keeping all food in end rooms or cupboards, so screened, that flies cannot touch it. The general carrying out of a few simple precautions of this character would probably save thousands of cases of serious illness.

An interesting epoch in the religious life of New York was marked on April 10, wihen the choir, the crossing and the two out of the f>vven minor chapels of the new Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine were formally dedicated to public worship. This cathedral, when completed, will be tho fourth largest in the world, the largest of all Protestant churches. Its total floor space, some 90,000 square feet, compares even with the 224,000 of St. Peter's in Rome. Nineteen years ago_, the corner-stone of this cathedral wtfS laid in a commanding position in the upiier portion of the city of New York. Since then tho giant church has been growing day by day* and year by year. About three million dollars has been expended on the edifice, which, when complete, many years ih'ence. will have cost thirteen million dollars, and perhaps more. Much of tdie structure now to bo thrown open for use is temporary ; the consecrated parts are permanent. Seating accommodation is now provided for about seventeen hundred people; eventually there will be seats for seven thousand. The plans show a structure five hundred and twenty feet long, one hundred and sixty-five feet wide across the nave , and aisles two hundred and eighty-eight feet wide across the transepts, and a spire four hundred and twenty-five feet high, set upon a base one hundred feet square.