CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 369, 21 April 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE " RECORD " GRAZE. The New Zealand public dearly love a man who can accomplish a. useless task in a fraction of a second less t'han some other person who hats previously accomplished a similarly useless task—and the result is that there are more weak hearts beating in .breasts .of men under forty years of age in New Zealand thian elsewhere. Somebodiy beat the piano playing record the other day, and is much admired for it. "Cyclist® still ride themselves to a standstill, club swingers continue to gyrate pieces of wood ■for sixty or seventy hou-ris at a time—and the horse that does his mile in. a "fifth" .under some other horses .performance is considered by thousand's of people who have never seen 'him to be a marvellous beast. A cyclist is now ■riding '{furiously between Dunedin and Cliristcihurch to break a record!. If his energy could be bottled up and hitehed 011 to something useful —say a. plough—he migiht be worthy of the simple wreath' of bays the ancient athletes were proud to wear. To-day "pots" and "gates" and "divvies" dominate much athletic effort—outside Taranaki.

WOMEN' WORKERS. Word comes from America that a great railway company will employ no more women because they do thirty per cent, less work than men. There are other reasons given, 13111 it may be taken f.or granted teat, 'being an American concern, the Baltimore-Ohio iCompainy is influenced) by the cash aspect. There lias never been any excuse for the employment of girls in positions that are ■naturally men's, because it is a 'bad national 'business. A man begins work knowing as a general thing that he must keep on working all his life. Accountancy or .housepainting, gardenlsig or bank-managing, is his life's work. A woman in 98 per cent, of tlhe cases merely uses the years intervening between school and marriage to acquire a .passing acquaintance with some trade or calling. This is merely a stop-gap. Her interests are divided. Her real goal is marriage. It is sincerely hoped; it may ever be so. Employers are nearly always influenced in their selection of women to fill men's vacancies by the fact that they are cheaper. If women are employed on, men's work they should get equal wages. If women are expected to work as hard as men someone is doing womankind! an irreparable injury. AH female "emancipation" movements are evidences of weakness and not strength. The real woman's goal was the same in 1410 as it is in 1910, Fashions may change, but nature never alters. And nature doesn't intend woman to 'be in commercial competition with main.

"DUMMIES AND ROCKERS." Articles reminiscent of earliest infancy can surely not be associated witih the British cavalry, whose deeds and dash are eloquent of heroism. Mr. Haldane, Minister of War, on Monday, was asked how tine cavalry of Britain were trained. Obviously the question was .facetiousuy ■put. The answer, too, was facetious: Dummies and rockers." The reason of the question is to be found in the fact that the British cavalry has npver lueen fully horsed in its existence. It is considered necessairy to have horses as well as men for the work to he done, 'but i.n case of a war not one horse in a thousand is a trained horse. Hecklers in the Commons (and out of it) have always been sarcastic about the horseJessness of the cavalry, but despite lack of mounts there is no cavalry soldier alive who is trained as well as the British. Other nations put in a. lot of show work which kills a horse before it is at its prime, tot the British army makes a horsemaster as well as a horseman of the cavalry recruit. The main point of interest to colonial people in the horselessiness of 'the cavalry, however, is that Britain would buy all the cavalry horses necessary if she could get them. Australia has a fair trade in army remounts—most of which go to India. New Zealand can produce the ideal troop horse, but she has not developed the army remount tradie. She ought to do so,