SHAM AND SH0DDY. A Terrible Illustration.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 208, 25 June 1904, Page 6

SHAM AND SHODDY. A Terrible Illustration.

OUR American cousin is so very keen after the dollars that he will indirectly commit wholesale murder to get them. The Yankee perhaps outdoes most people — except Russian officials — m the sordid tricks of trade. Lifebelts that won't float, pumps that won't work, lifeboats that are tied down ' And the loss of 1200 lives on an excursion boat. Smart, progressive, up-to-date hustling America ' Fire-proof theatre®, that burn like tinder; safety curtains that are not safe. HaiL Columbia' The land of big things, the home of the dollar devil. * • • Eighteen hundred American citizens have, during the past six months, been sacrificed to the rascally rapacity of the almighty dollar — and nobody is hanged It makes us lose faith m human nature. Not only American human nature, but the article generally. Right down through history human lives have been sacrificed to greed. It is an awful thing to think that modern Judases are still willing to indirectly do the blackest of deeds for "thirty pieces of silver." We, in New Zealand, might learn a lesson from the criminal negligence of the people really responsible for the loss of that steamer at Hell's Gate, New York. * * » We learnt a good deal about making theatres safe when the Iroquois Theatre disaster was a world topic, and we ought to learn something about making life-saving apparatus on boats effective now that a more serious disaster even than the theatre catastrophe has taJken place. We are content to allow the Yankees to "lick creation" if they are going in for wholesale slaughter to effect that end. We don't pine for any lifebelts that don't float, bufc we ought to take a sly look at the belts that we have ourselves, and give them a bath. * • • Likewise, we should see if the boatchocks around this coast are wellgreased, and little things like that. Of course, we are not going to have any accidents. We are too careful. If an Elingamite or so goes down, and the appliances are not all that could be desired, well, we were going to see about it, anyhow ' Have we seen about it? Is every boat in the Pacific prepared to save every passenger when the bump comes'