CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 192, 23 November 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

INFECTION BY FLIES. A Local Government Blue Book, recently issued iu England, contains particulars as to a number of experiments carried out during the latter part oi 190!) to ascertain during what periods of time certain micio-oi'ganisms could be recovered from the legs and wing-,, the crop, intestinal contents and otliei deposits of flies, artificially infected by feeding on cultures. Some observations were also made on the infection of food materials by Hies and on the infection of previously infected Hies, by means on the deposits of infected llies. The experiments were made upon the common housefly, a number of wnich were caught in balloon traps, baited with sugar, moistened with stale beer or treacle. The flies were kept in glass cages, with daily transfers to a fresh cage, and were usually fed once daily. The food given consisted of plain and colored syrups, milk, crystals of brown sugar. According to the observations, the flies "gorged themselves in a minute or less." They lived ijnder the conditions in some cases for more than three weeks. As the results of the experiments, Dr. Graham Smith, who conducted them, states that it would he premature to conclude that they did more than indicate that, under exceptionally favorable conditions, certain bacteria could lie recovered from the contents of the alimentary canal and the deposits of infected flies for several days after infection, and that these flies were capable of infecting certain materials on which they fed, for several days.

WOMAN'S WORK.

There have , been frequent references lately an the New Zealand and Australian Press to the women chain-makers of Cradley Heath, and an Australian correspondent asked a Sydney paper why such women slaves did not emigrate to the colonies. The paper answered: (1) They havn't the money. (2) Even if their passages were paid 1 from London they couldn't get to London, nor feed themselves for a day there—they haven't the means to get to the next town. (3) They haven't clothes for the voyagepractically their wardrobe is what they stand up in. (4) They haven't the spare penny with which to write to the AgentGeneral for information about Australia, and many of them can't write. (5) They haven't the spare penny to buy the paper with the Agent-General's advertisement is in so that they may learn about Australia^—besides, many of them can't read. (6) They are difficult people to approach by lectures, for they are too busy making chains to attend lectures. (7) They hardly know that there is such a place as Australia; as a rule, they have never seen the sea, and all the world outside their little circle is a mist. (8) If they came here, landing in rags and penniless—what would (happen next ? They knoiw nothing of country life in any shape or form. They know just about nothing of domestic service; life in a practically unfurnished hovel, and the habit of sleeping on straw, and the cookery which consists of getting meals of weak tea, bread, dripping and a casual bacon-rind, doesn't teach domestic economy. In fact, most oi them, only know how to make chains.

SWEATED INDUSTRIES.

Three years ago there was a Sweated Industries Exhibit in New Zealand, and we happened to note the conditions existing in the Cradley Heath industry set out by ticket on exhibited samples:— Rate paid, 3s 6d, 3s Bd, 7a 6d per hundre4weight (according to thickness of chain). Average working day, twelve hours. Average earnings, 7s per week. Remarks.—The largest chain %in. diameter, was made by a young woman ot twenty-one years of age. She can make 3cwt of chain per week, at 3s (3d per hundredweight. She pays 2s Gd for fuel, 4d for carriage, and 3d for rent

of stall; net earnings, 7s sd. The next chain was made by a woman forty years of age. She pays 2s 3d for fuel, 3d' for carriage, and 3d for rent of stall,, and earns 6s 5d net per week. The and 3-lftin. chain was made by a woman twenty-nine years of age, who earns on an average about 6s 8d per week. Girls enter this trade as they leave school, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and usually work for a fort-night or three weeks without receiving any wages. The learner would then receive 4s to 5s per week, and afterwards might rise to 10s per week as she got older and stronger, but the average weekly wage is Gs to Bs, often, in times of bad trade, being even less than this. Wages increase as the woman learns to do finer work. Women's wages are not one-third oi those of the men. The latter do better and finer work, and use a "dolly"—i.e., a hammer worked by a treadle—to finish the chains. Women never use this "dolly." New Zealand uses many goods in the making of which men, women, andi children have been sweated, but have no means of determining what articles are produced under evil conditions and what are mode fairly. If folks knew they possibly might give over using such articles, the obvious result ot which would be that the poor slaves who now earn a little would become absolute paupers. Until the British Government makes a, law by which it will be impossible for workers in trades that are now sweated to earn less than a living wage, sweating will continue and no user of sweated goods will be any the wiser. .