The Daily News WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10. ABOUT CRANKS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8024, 10 January 1906, Page 2

The Daily News WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10. ABOUT CRANKS.

It is difficult to understand why the dentists of Now Zealand, who are an extremely intelligent class of men, should be always advocating sound teeth. Their self-destructive abnegation in the cause of perfect mouth furniture is quite touching. They are as self-sacrificing as the prohibition orators, who, their opponents tell us, are endeavouring to destroy their own liviug The dentists urge in season and out of season the keeping of the teeth of the children pure and undecayed. Dental conferences are quite common. At a recent one in the South one delegate advocated " compulsory hygienic examination of all school children's teeth."

It seems to be necessary to teach highly civilised people things savages do not have any reason to know. There is no toothache, or neuralgia, or tooth-pulling amongst savage races or races living in naturalness, neither are there corns or bunions among bootless people, or bald heads amongst the hatless. No naked savage gets consumption, and nobody has to wear spectacles who doesn't know how to read. The man who doesn't know what hygiene means, and has never seen a toothbrush, keeps a fine set of " ivories " to the end, and his skull with the perfect jaw is the civilised dentist's prize exhibit. ##- * *

Therefore, to preserve our teetli and hair and feet we learn from the natural man, to whom science is "dibble-dibble" or taipo, or any other tiling he's seared of. What is the cure for this loss of useful parts of oneself? Merely the simple life. The person who started out with the set of teeth Nature gave him, and acted exactly as Nature dictated, wouldn't have any need for a dentist. It is a question of natural food and natural living. Nature grows hair tor us as a hoad protection. We credit Nature with not knowing her business, and we wear hats. Nature revolts and kills the hair. The same with our other end and boots. Nature forgot to send a'pair of boots into the world with each specimen of his handiwork. Civilised people who don't wear boots or hats, and who have a penchant for open windows and sunshine that spoils the carpets are "cranks," and live a long life with a full set of teeth for their crankiness. We teach the heathen how to enjoy a short and toothless life,.and he tries to teach us lessons we won't learn because wo are afraid of being called cranks. Oh, for a nation of " cranks "!