CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 191, 22 November 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THROUGH ENGLISH EYES. Britain is so absorbed with her own vast concerns that she really has not much time to worry about tile oversea British nations. Still British thinkers give us some passing thoughts, and may lead to the formation of au Imperial sentiment which certainly does not ex ist. Here, for instance, is a little slieai of opinions from the pen of Arnold White, showing at least that if English dailies are not overwhelmed with colonial cablegrams, leading journalists sometimes take the trouble of earning a few shillings with us:—"The real difference between the average colonial and the average Briton is that the average colonial can ride, shoot, bivouac, sleep in the rain, hump his swag, cook his tucker, eat bad food, and drink dirty water when occasion arises. The average Englishman is rarely reminded ot nature in her fierce moods, except by a thunderstorm or a 'London particular.' He is sheltered in a street dwelling, lies soft at night, from the day of his birth to the day of liis death. Colonials think that many Britons look on them as wild creatures to be civilly treated, but still wild creatures. If the leakage of English brains is to stop, the brains of the Commonwealth, Canada and the Dominion must be brought to bear on our big problems. The Australians may have bitten off more than they can chew in their idea of a White Australia. The Canadians have their work cut out to maintain the land of the maple leaf as an independent nation, but the energy of both is intense, their courage and commonsense undoubted. We need them, and they need us. The British Empire is not yet, like the United States, bounded on the north by the aurora borealis, or on the south by the procession of the equinoxes, or on the east by primeval chaos, or on the west by the Day of Judgment. It has, however, all the machinery for immortality, if we only stop the leakage of brains."

THE CHOLERA SCOURGE. According to yesterday's cables, the whole of Manchuria has been declared plague infected. Apart from Russia, the outbreaks in Europe seem to have' been successfully combatted. Cholera, it is interesting to note, has its real home in Southern China and round the mouth of the Ganges. Every few years, however, it drifts slowly to Europe, moving steadily, it is said, at the rate at which an average walker travels. Certainly, the path it prefers is along the ancient caravan routes through Afghanistan and Persia to Russia. An oid tradition has it that this dreaded disease always follows in the footsteps of the Wandering Jews. Russia always suffers terribly when it comes. In the last visit—that of two years ago—there were 400 cases a day in St. Petersburg alone. The terrible havoc it works in Russia is largely due to the stupidity of the peasants, and their disobedience of the medical authorities. Indeed, only a few weeks ago, a whole village attacked a couple of doctors, and accused them of putting the cholera poison into the village wells. Some of them drink fearful mixtures of tar, resin, and petroleum as preventives. In some parts householders hire men to stand at their front doors and fire guns to frighten the cholera away. Cholera has several times got its grip., firmly fixed on England. The first time was in 1830-2. But it is safe to say that it never wall again. On the last occasion —in 189*2—a few scattered cases occurred in Hull, Grimsby, and Yarmouth; but the scourge was soon stamped out. What is cholera? Well, it shows itself in violent vomiting and diarrhoea, followed quickly by exhaustion and death. A man who is well and strong at midday may at five be haggard and shrunk, and quite unrecognisable, with sunken eyes, and cheek-bones almost protruding through .the skin. It is quite common for a patient to lose two stone in four or five hours. When cholera first came to England, it was thought that the disease came on the wind from Russia, as did influenza on its first visit- But now we know that it is infectious, and that it spreads by the mouth. Drinking water is its favourite path from the plaguestricken to the healthy. A person may carry cholera germs on his clothing' without injury. But if infected clothing touches food or drink, the plague begins its work. It is believed that what brings it west along the caravan routes is the dirty habit some pilgrims have of washing their infected clothing in wayside drinking-wells. When the germ is swallowed, the disease always' shows itself within four days. The germs on infected clothing lose all power 1 after twelve days. It was the famous Dr. Koch who discovered the real nature of the disease. He went to Egypt in 1853, when the plague was raging there, discovered the bacillus and brought it back in a bottle. A certain cure has not been found yet, though, under the latest treatment, only one in five dies, as against three in five twenty years ago. But medical science does not know exactly how it spreads, and at every port in England there ars keen eyes watching for the enemy. It is a curious fact that birds, without making any bacteriological examinations, are as quick to detect cholera as the most skilful medical man. It has often been noticed in India that birds at once desert an infected district. The first sign that the epidemic is dying is their return. The same thing was noticed in Ireland during the terrible year of 1831. The strangest beliefs have been held about cholera. Many ignorant people used to believe that the disease lay bottled up in volcanoes, and came out when an eruption took place. Others thought it swept away only those who were unwise enough to sleep in beds with the head pointed due north.