CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 225, 17 January 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

MISS TURNBULL'S DEATH. The death of Miss Turnbull, under such tragic circumstances, cast quite a gloom over the community yesterday. Here was a young woman, as fine a specimen of womanhood as one could find in the Dominion, in the full possession of health and strength, leaving her home in the morning for the purpose of visiting friends in the outskirts of the town and mysteriously disappearing, to be found between fifty and sixty hours afterwards by a search party in a dying condition. Who would have thought that such a fate would have befallen her when she left home, or that such a thing could even have occurred? It is little wonder that tile community was stirred bv the tragedy. Could it have been obviated, could this young promising and valuable life havelieen saved? This is a question that has suggested itself to many minds since yesterday morning. We think the death might have been avoided had greater publicity

been promptly given concerning the disappearance of the young lady. Few people were aware of the fact till Saturday, when the search was conducted in a systematic and complete fashion, reflecting the greatest credit 011 everyone concerned. Had news of the disappearance reached Smart road on . Thursday evening or Friday, however, there is little doubt that the searchers would have been put on her track by those people who had noticed her peregrinations in the locality, and that she would have been quickly found —and her life saved. Instead, the whole thing was kept as secret as possible, and no organised search made till the Saturday. One can appreciate the feelings of people in not desiring to give undue publicity to a disappearance of the kind, but when life is at stake, or thought to be at stake, nothing should be allowed to stand in the way. In such a matter, the newspapers can be of infinite service by means of the publicity they afford. And they should be made greater use of than they are. The police of this country as a rule have a decided antipathy to enlisting the help of the Press, j for what reason we know not, though in other countries, not regarded by us as being as enlightened as we, the advantages of using the Press are fully recognised and availed of. The policy of "hush" is such a matter as the one under review is fatal. Obviously, it was some one's duty to enlist the service of the Press in this case. We make bold to say that had it been known on Friday morning that help was necessary in the searching, half the male population of the town would have volunteered. The police did what they could—no one could have worked harder than Detective Boddam and his constables—but it was not a one man's or three men's job—it was work for a miniature army, and this army was eventually got together and did its work effectually, unfortunately, however, too late to save the life of the victim. Mrs. Turnbull has, we feel sure, the heartfelt sympathy of all the community in the great loss she has sustained, the greater because it so quickly follows another and equally 1 irreparable one, the loss of her husband.

A GROWING EVIL. The Western Australia Commissioner ol iohce m his last report mentioned that cases of assault by tonman beasts on ml children were becoming more frequent. He suggested that (lodging was necessary as a deterrent. On the same day that the opinion was cabled, a letter in a Wellington paper gave news of an assault bv a man on a little girl. The man escaped, Ihe fact is that it is becoming unsafe both in Australia and New Zealand for girls of any age to walk in remote places unattended. In New Zealand the Bench is severe on the class of brute who is the subject of these remarks, but imprisonment for a term of years is of no value in curing crooked minds. In New South Wales it is still possible to inflict the extreme peilalty of the law in such eases, and there are authorities who still believe that a sexual maniac is never cureil until ho is dead. It cannot be decided whether fear of corporal chastisement would deter this class of evil-doer, but, solely from the point of view of protecting girl children, all colonial authorities should certainly iniliet greater punishment than imprisonment. Every normal person W'ho reads of a. uase is incensed, but the feelings of a relative of any child who has been the victim of a maniac are that he should be for ever made incapable of snth a crime. if the evil grows at the present rate, there is no doubt t'he-iiuthorities must devise better means for its suppression—and the means are too obvious to need explanation.

TRIBULATION. Success is cradled in tribulation, mid gladness is the successor of sorrow. He who lias always sucked sustenance from a silver spoon and has without effort on a smooth road down the path of an eventless life, is not to he envied. He who lias overcome dangers, fought sorrows and known tribulation is .lie who enjoys most the autumn of his strenuous life. The history of all successful countries is the history of its people's sufferings, and it can only he when Australia 'has attained the eminence she craves, and which must come, tiiat she will trulv realise the initial struggles of her people. We learn by cable the news we usually loam at this time of the year—.that bush fires with mile after mile of blazing front are eating up grass and stock, timber and homestead. No person unacquainted with the bush fires that rush through Australia with the swiftness of a racehorse can conceive the grandeur and terror of them, but everyone can understand the unconquerable spirit of the settler, who rear after year fights for his life, for' his family, for his grass and for his stock. It is this optimism and fighting capacity that makes young countries grow great. Inconceivably large areas are devastated yearly by bush fires in Australia, but the "hearts of gold" still beat, and are the motive power that drives the chariot of progress. Droughts came, fires come, floods come, but none of them coerce the settlers into hopelessness and idleness, and it is only a question of fighting on and fighting always. Such event, such sorrows and disasters •seem to be necessary in forming the character of great peoples, and they certainly are useful in showing how on occasions all men combine in mutual help. No work in the great Australian back country is so exhausting as fighting bush fires, and 110 work is undertaken *o readily and with such whole-heartedness. Every year Australian Governments come to the rescue of burnt-out settlers with money and seed and food, and so the fight continues, a fight in which the "hearts of gold" are ever victorious and which makes the victors worthy sons of a great, country.