CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 236, 10 February 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A PECK OF DIRT. There is an old-fashioned saying that one must consume a peck of dirt before one dies. The probability is that most boys have eaten several pecks of dirt before they assume long trousers. A recentlypublished paragraph gave readers a faint glimpse of the manufacture of ice creams, the delicious confection our children lick from small glasses on street corners. A foreigner, occupying filthy premises, armed with, an insanitary stick, stirred ice cream over a lire. The paragraph showed that the ice cream was being diluted with perspiration which dropped from Marco's unirrigated brow. It is a pleasant picture, and Marco was not fined heavily, because Marco was poor. Marco will have to be dirtier still during the making of enough cheap iee cream to pay the fine. A couplg of hundred folk in London recently went sick alter dining on ice creams, and there seems to be little doubt that many folk wno provide "delicacies" are the truest friends the undertakers have. We have some minor food disclosures in New Zealand, but the usual way of dealing with public poisoners is to "make a drastic law and to trust the poisoners to observe it. It is extremely rare for the supplier of deadly food to be brought to book, as in the case of Marco in Melbourne. It is a maxim with careful commercial persons that nothing shall be wasted, and if the ordinary customer could see much of the food he cheerfully puts into his stomach in the course of artistic preparation he would not put it there. A high-sounding name is rather a good disguise for commercial offal. The "delicacies" eagerly devoured by youngsters in the streets are generally supplied by obviously poor people, and although it might easily be proved that it is cruel to interfere with a poor person who is "earning an honest livelihood," there seems to be no reason why these persons, however poor, should poison the community. And while Marco, the dirty gentleman from sunny Europe, is temporarily restrained from poisoning child: ren, his richer fellow men who own food factories, confectionery works, breweries, distilleries, restaurants, boarding-houses, etc., are sometimes well worth the attention of the authorities. The chief reason the commercial poisoner does not kill his victims with an axe or a gun is that this method is not so profitable as selling a halfpennyworth of offal for eightecnpence.

PRISON-BREAKING. Mr. Justice Denniston, in sentencing a couple of prison-breakers lately, wisely .held that any captive man, if he had the chance, would endeavor to escape. The prisoner who refused .to escape when liberty offered would be a curious individual. But although the judge showed that it was a very natural thing to do, and one that could not be treated as a great moral offence, he. said nothing about the restriction of means of escape. There have been many escapes from prison in New Zealand, and, in consequence, this must be an ineonvenience to the police and a danger to the community. It is, of course, the duty of the prison authorities to see that it is impossible for any prisoner to escape, but it is possible that the authorities cannot be wholly blamed for these too frequent occurrences. It may be that the officials of the convict service are overworked or that they are too few in numbers to meet the requirements. If this is so, it is obviously necessary in the interests of public safety to increase the officials in order to make escapes impossible. Presumably official and private enquiries are made in every case where prisoners escape, and warders are probably upon to show why they allowed escapes. Such enquiries might place officials in unfortunate positions, and it is even possible that undeserved censure or reduction might follow. The Government is doing what it believes to be necessary to dial effectively with criminals, and we have been told that under the new scheme it is likely that the gaols will be for a period fuller than ever. If the men of the convict service are not at present numerous enough to prevent escapes, it is possible that without substantial additions escapes will be even more frequent in future. The public is always supplied with circumstantial details and the adventures of the escapees, but it is never allowed to Know the circumstances which left the way open for escapes. If it could me shown that the official guardians of prisoners could not prevent escapes because of under-man-ning or overwork, the public, which is much interested in the sterling men who compose the prison service would probably ask that greater justice be done them.

THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. Writing from London on December 30 Sir Henry Lucy stated that it had been settled finally with the concurrence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that Irelaud should take, precedence over Wales, and that a Home Rule Bill should be carried through the House of Commons before the problem of Welsh disestablishment was attacked. "It is quite possible," he wrote, "that both measures may be dealt with in the same session, always with precedence given to Home Rule. But it will not be the session that opens on January 31." Sir Ilenry expected that the earliest days and nights of the session would be devoted to the Parliament Bill. Naturally the debate will be prolonged, ana as the measure seeks to effect a great constitutional change there will be no likelihood of an early application of the closure, which will be reserved for use only in case of extreme obstruction. The transmission of the Parliament Bill to the Lords, Sir Ilenry stated, would be followed by the introduction of the remnants of last year's Budget, to which Irish opposition was not anticipated. The next legislative undertaking of the session would be the abolition of plural voting. That was the extent of the plans sliaped by the Cabinet before the end of the year. Sir Ilcnrv wrote quite confidently of the ability of the Government to carry out its programme. If Mr. O'Brien's anticipations of success at the polls had been realised there might have been a troublesome alliance between the Unionists and a strong, brilliantly-led Irish contingent," but the reduction of his following to a scanty eight prevented the Opposition from sacrificing another principle by coquetting with him, and "what promised to me an interesting manoeuvre was stillborn." Sir Henry" anticipated that in neither House would the Parliament Bill be met by a direct negative, and he was confident that the Government would not be "puppets in the hands <if the coroncted backwoodsmen." Tie saw no reason to fear that the Bill would not be added to the Statute Book before Coronation Da v.