TOPICS OF TALK.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 211, 14 March 1873, Page 6

TOPICS OF TALK.

The rumor that an injunction is to be asked for by the Oatnaru and Kakanui residents, to stop the races now in course of construction to the Kakanui Kiver, is 'gathering strength, and, in truth, we hope it is so. Nothing can be more to the advantageous settlement of the question than the point being brought before the authorities in its bare, naked form : Are the goldworkings at Maerewhenua to be stopped or not? Nothing will so surely kill the prosperity of the district as toe cold water always trickling through the fissures of uncertainty and consequent despondency. A. G-oldfiekl, above all other industries, requires to be developed by pluck and spirit, and this cannot be where all rights are vague, uncertain, and undefinabie. In their own interests the residents and shareholders at Maerewhenua should press this matter to its issue. They may be assured that the country will not tolerate that the supposed necessity of one or two shall blight the prosperity of a large G-oldfield.

We gladly hear that a meeting has been held at Maerewhenua to form a Miners' Association. Tiiie residents fully recognise that no stone should be ; left' untamed to make their voice heard. We wish all other parts of the district were as alive to their own interests. St. Bathans, certainly, nibbles at work with a local Committee ; but even St. Bathans would effect twice as much if it possessed a properly organised Association. Hyde and Macmight be extinct for all'that an outsider can gather; and for ourselves, these places apathetic and indifferent that we cannot get a single correspondent to send.us the smallest item of news, or even to intimate their local requirements. This isolation they assume doos them harm. No individual can immolate himself from, his kind for long without suffering for it, and small communities follow the same rule. They loose the assistance the .district"-as a who>. could render them, and they neglect ;;the positive duty of throwing their weight the combined heap—which combination alone has any real influence in the redress of grievances and the procuring of benefits.

Mesmerism, Somnambulism, Elec-tro-Biology, Clairvoyance, and Spiritualism ,appear, one and all, to be morbid growths of what has been scientifically recognised as a mysterious truth —animal magnetism. It is, perhaps, worth while to point out that Dr. Dunn is the promulgator of no new » tiling—of no original idea. Mesmer, who died at the age of eighty-three, in 1815, recognised- and endeavored to father clairvoyant somnambulism, propagated and taught by his pupil, the Marquis do Puysegur, about 1764. From that d.vte to this, the air of mystery and importance which has surrounded the practitioner.", of the art, has kept it alive in spite of exposure by Prone!)men, by Germans, :md in England notably by Sir John Forbes; A. curious case, illustrative' of: Mesmer's mode of practice, is related by Madam Campan, in hor jo ur nal. The patient was M. Campan, one of his partisans, like every one who moved in high life. " To be magnetised," says she, -." was then a fashion. In the drawing-room nothing was talked about but the new discovery. People's heads were turned, and their imagination heated to the highest .iegree. To put a stop to the fit of public insanity was the grand difficulty, and it was proposed to have the secret purchased by the Court." M. Campan was seized with a pulmonary affection, and Mesmer was called in

To insure a speedj and'perfect <ture, Mesmer coolly proposed, either fch-it a young woman of brown complexion, a black lien, or an empty bottle should be placed at the left side of M. Campari. " Sir," said Madaih C, " if the choice be a matter of indifference, pray briny the empty bottle." The treatment did no good, and Mesmer, taking advantage of Madam's absence, had recourse to the old-fashioned plan of bleeding and blistering, and the patient recovered. He asked for a certificate ■■■that the cure had been effected by magnetism alone, an-1 M.

Campari gave it. This circumstance coming to tine knowledge of Madam Carnpan, she reported it to their Majesties, and expressed her indignation at the bare-faced quack. Vielet, about 1780, one of M. de Puysegur's clairvoyants, said:—" I repeat, and I say that, by the sight and the sensation which I actually possess, I can distinguish internal diseases as well as external, andtbereby judge, pronounce, and obviate immediately; not like those doctors who give prescriptions after they have informed themselves—and that often very i'l—by the statements which they make their patients give them. It is not so in the way in which lam : 1 can define everything and conclude in the same way." Dr. Dunn could not have denned the thing better. There have been always two schools in regard to spiritualistic magiietical phenomena—one holding views that a substance; indefinable and invisible is actually passed from the operator to the patient, this being called odyle ; and the other, whose motto is "Believe and do," or- ■" Will'.'that .which is good, go and cure." .French literature is full of the matter ; about 1816 sixteen volumes, principally made up of cases, were published, amongst which occurs that of Dr. lionillier, into whose interior a somnambulist saw distinctly enough, in 1788, to be able to assure him that he had not had the small-pox. In England, a clairvoyant named Gfeorge Groble made for himself a considerable reputation, and Sir John Forbes was requested to visit him to see that at any rate he was a genuine clairvoyant. A few ingeniously contrived experiments proved the imposture of G-oble, who burst into tears, and promised not to do it again—although he was subsequently got hold of by other?, and made a tool of to gull the public; and, in justice, he was a very clever rogue. What is the material difference between a sane man and a madman—what between a child and a dumb brute ? When we can detect, reason, and follow up this, we may possibly be able to g'jage the real truth of animal magnetism. Till, then, we fear that it is a handle that' will always be worked by clever rogues and crazy enthusiasts, to extract money, from the public.

Me. Macandrew said, at his late visit, iu reference to the roads, that an effort must be made to.do something to the main road before the winter. We draw the attention of the Trade Association (which will be a much better detective to watch the Corporation than the Miners' Association can ever be, and consequently should be kept alive) to the matter. It is evident that a severe winter would render a great portion of the new road impassable unless it is metalled. We have lost the Cromwell interest in this road. The residents there and the Press have been urging the improvement of the t Tuapeka road, and, as a consequence, the G-oldfields Secretary and the Provincial Engineer have been up, and have decided to greatly improve that line. We must fight our own battles, and we are glad to say we can do it. This road question should not go to sleep any longer, but be one of the -very first things taken up by the Mayor, and Corporation.