CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 229, 10 January 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

COMPULSORY SWIMMING. Man is the only animal whose instinct to keep afloat in the water lias disappeared. The primal human animal does not have to be taught to swim, but the modern over-clothed variant of the species does. At a moment 'when there is a serious disposition throughout New Zealand to popularise swimming and life-saving in the water, it is appropriate to mention that six men recently stood by on the banks of the Aorere river and saw a man drown fifteen feet away from them. None of them could swim any better than the man who became a corpse. We believe that inability to swim is becoming less common, and in a country like New Zealand, where the most remotely-situated children may find pieces of water to indulge in a very necessary art, it is hoped that in time there will be no people unacquainted with it. The parent who does not insist that his children are as good at swimming as at sums is not doing his duty, but it is to be noted that the extension of the art has been due more to enthusiasts, school teachers and authorities generally than to the body of parents. From the point of physical cul-\ ture, swimming easily stands at the top of the list of exercises, and now that it is recognised that density of fibre and hugenesss of development do not necessarily represent sound physical health, those exercises that conduce to ease of movement, grace, staying power, selfConfidence and cleanliness will probably oust those muscle-building and heartracking series that are supposed to represent the summit of physical development. We believe that the man who devotes all his spare time to the teaching of swimming to school children is doing more for the race than he whose ideas are bounded by the walls of a gymnasium, heavy weights, the increase of biceps, and so on. We have such nun in NewZealand, and it is to them that many people of the future will owe their lives. Peculiarly enough, it used to be an uncommon thing for sailors to lie able to swim. Hundreds of them have been drowned because of their inability, but we believe we are correct in saving that it is now only the old school of sea-farers who know nothing of the art. No educational authority would disagree with the contention that swimming is of as great importance as physical drill or any form of scholastic learning, and it is sincerely hoped that in the near future swimming will be a compulsory school subject, and one each pupil must "pass" in before he is promoted to a higher standard.

AMUSEMENT FOR CONVICTS.

Quite a number of writers have waxed facetious over the news from Australia telling us that prisoners in gaols have been entertained during the past year. The old-fashioned idea that harsh treatment and rigorous gloom are the best medicines for the cure of wrongdoing dies hard. There seems to be no special reason why prisoners should not see a cinematograph exhibition, or hear a phonograph concert, or be indulged in any cheap and harmless diversion that does not make them worse criminals than before. Dark cells and treadmills and starvation may easily kill men, but they have never killed crime, and so they have drifted away with the other nameless horrors of old-fashioned penal systems. As far as the public is concerned, it does not matter whether the prisoner .is dancing a waltz, playing football, or reading tracts, as long as he is a prisoner, and he is not likely to be a better man on release because every grace of daily life has been denied him during imprisonment. Australia is not the first country to recognise that amusement or relaxation should not be denied to prisoners, for recent South African papers indulge in pictorial smiles at the "weakness'" of the authorities in giving convicts a little pleasant recreation. If the average person would believe the truth of the assertion that most criminals are unrecognisable from the ordinary law-abiding citizen except for a kink that is beyond their own power to straighten, he would not laugh even if tennis were played between long-sentence prisoners and warders at the New Plymouth gaol or a billiard match among indeterminates. The general notion that a man in a broad arrow suit is an all-round blackguard of the deepest dye does not help him to straighten his kink, but his treatment as a reasoning being with ordinary hopes, aspirations and love of entertainment may be useful. We do not believe that small, cheap concessions to men in gaol will induce a larger (low of people towards gaol because prisoners are permitted to see pictures or play billiards or listen to a gramophone, but we do certainly believe that the unseeing and harsh old style was a splendid fertilising agency for the crime crop. The ordinary crimeless citizen has only to cut himself off from all social jovs for a while to observe its effect on his character and inclination. There is, of course, the comic element, and possibly those Victorian prisoners who sang "Should auld acquaintance be forgot" hoped it might. Still, it is better to -end prisoners to their cells in an exhilarated frame of mind than to dismiss them with the feeling that they had nothing in, common with the world of men whose menial normality is the only reason I hey-are out of gaol.