FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 306, 17 March 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

.1 LEAD WANTED “Someone should give the local bodies a lead and encourage them to get on with the jobs without so much argument. Some of the unemployment is definitely due to the arguments and delay.” —Councillor J. A. C. Allum, of the Auckland City Council. The L.O.M. will start “giving a lead to the Auckland City Council —if he can secure four or five good bullock teams.

* * FINDINGS KEEPINGS

An Auckland tramway employee, charged with stealing dress material valued at £3, was not convicted by the magistrate, who apparently agreed with Mr. Alan Moody, counsel for the defence, that the “elementary legal maxim was that a finder had the right to possess an article against all the world except the owner.” This may be the law of New Zealand, but it is not that of New South Wales, to quote one country. In that State there is a charge called “Stealing by finding,” the law requiring that all persons who find lost property should endeavour to find the owner or hand it over to the police. Those who find lost goods and keep them, therefore, are liable to be charged with theft. Not so in New Zealand, for the magistrate in the case quoted observed that while the accused should have reported his find to the tramway authorities, there was no duty on his part to do so. * * • SMALL BEER An “Old Soldier” writes:—“Dear L.O.M.—The other day, when browsing through old books, I came across the following quaint epitaph. It holds a warning for the tribe of Auckland Frothblowers : In Memory of Thomas Thetchek a Grenadier in the North Reg. of Hants Militia , who died of a violent Fever contracted by drinking Small Beer when hot the 121 h of May 1764, Aged 26 Years. In grateful remembrance of whose universal goodwill towards his Comrades this Stone is placed here at their expence, as a small testimony of their regard and concern. Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer. Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall And when yere hot drink Strong or none at all.

This memorial being decay’d was restor’d by the Officers of the Garrison, A.D. 1781. An honest Soldier never is forgot Whether he die by Musket or by Pot.

BIRTH-RATE AND POPULATION

The decreased birth-rate shown in the last vital statistics published tor New Zealand reflects the position in England. In the first quarter of last year, in fact, there was an actual decrease In the population of England, a phenomenon that had only been witnessed on two previous occasions. The birth-rate has fallen so low that the margin between births and deaths is relatively very small, and a severe epidemic would wipe it out altogether. This causes anxiety because it is considered that the death-rate is more likely to rise than to fall, while the birth-rate is continuously decreasing. The thoughts of administrators, then, turns to the preservation of infant life. Infants are now infinitely more cherished when they come into the world in unrestricted numbers, and the fall of the infant dath-rate almost —but not quite—compensates for the fallen birth-rate. “Every vear,” says a commentator, “large numbers of lives are lost which might, in happier circumstances, have been saved. Ignorance and carelessness on the one hand, and the unchecked march of preventible disease on the other, are responsible annually for a grievous sacrifice of the very life blood of the nation.”

FOOD AND LIFE The writer goes on to discuss foods and their relation to health. “Happily," he says, “there are indications to-day that some at least of this wastage of life may be checked in the near future. The new study of food, to take but a single example, is full of the promise of increased health, both for children and for grown-up persons. That study ic still in its preliminary stages, though the work already accomplished is of a fundamental character. Even a casual glance, f ndeed, at the annual report of the Lister Institute, is enough to bring conviction that new weapons against disease are in process of being forged. The public owes a larged debt of gratitude to the Lister Institute for its work on food and on food values than most people realise. Tne discovery of the relationship between food and light, for instance, which is the basis of a new conception of diet and dietetics, is due directly to a group of workers associated with “the Lister.” These workers have shown and proved that, by means of quite simple precautions, diet may be made to contribute powerfully to human resistance against disease.”