GENERALITIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 423, 13 August 1908, Page 4

GENERALITIES.

A serious, and at the same time rather curious accident, happened in Timaru a few days ago. Two children under five years of age, sous of a local doctor, were playing “ 80-Peep ” in their home. One child put his eye to the keyhole of a door and looked through, when the other one innocently shoved a hat-pin through the keyhole. The pin ran right through into the ball of the eye that was peeping through, and completely destroyed the sight. , The Wanganui Chronicle hears upon what it believes to be reliable authority, that a pair of financial “experts ’’ are reaping a rich harvest at the expense of a considerable number of youthful clients. The modus operand! of these enterprising operators is to make advances to impecunious young men, who have, so to speak, “run out ” pending their next pay day, and to receive from them in return interest equivalent to anything up to 300 per cent. This, if true, puts the usurer out of sight. The inquest on the Maori child, Makarini, at Whangarei, revealed some very shocking incidents. It was shown that three generations of one Maori family had herded indiscriminately together in one room. The father, Hohepa, held one child on the fire, causing frightful injuries. The child is now in the hospital, and it has some hope of recovery. The grandfather is in the Avondale Asylum. The second child was placed three times on the fire by the mother until it was practically dead, at the command of the grandfather and’ her husband. The body, which was thrown outside and afterwards buried by the two men, was partly eaten by dogs. The Coroner, addressing the jury, spoke of it as an awful outrage. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against the grandfather and parents, and added that other adults present were deserving of punishment for not trying to prevent the crime. The general impression is that the outrage is the outcome of tohungaism, since it was .-stated by witnesses that the deeds were done to drive Satan out of the children.

Mr Balfour, who was among the speakers at an Albert Hall meeting in connection with the PanAnglican Congress, said he had been asked to speak on the conflict between religion and science. He welcomed the opportunity of saying something upon the matter for he had seen what he conceived to be a great change passing over the thinking part of mankind upon the subject. At one time it was thought that there was a fundamental conflict between religious aspiration and scientific aspirations. The nature was on one side, and on the other side the aspirations of the world which they might call religious. He could not conceive a society deprived of the religious element. On the other hand, he looked to science far more than to the work of statesmen, and to science more than anything else as the great amelioration of the human lot in the future. If he had to believe that those two great powers, religion and science, were in antagonism, then it would be impossible for him to avoid that hopeless despair which deprives labour of all its fruit.