CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 287, 28 April 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

PURE MILK CAMPAIGN. For many years spasmodic attempts have been made in some New Zealand cities to wake up the public and municipal conscience to the evils of impure milk. No organised effort has yet been made by any public body to ensure that every pint of milk supplied to every customer in any town is good food. Suppliers who find that It is not necessary for them to adopt hygienic precautions naturally become disheartened, and are themselves impotent in the matter. When the milk is out of their hands they have no means of knowing whether it will be contaminated or not. Obviously, the only means of ensuring that a town's whole supply will be uncontaminated is that every pint of it should pass through the hands of the one authority. Municipal depots have been suggested as the means to this end, but although the subject has been tttlked all round for years, there are not yet any depots. The Otago Trades anil Labor Council has circularised candidates for the Borough Council asking them if they will favor the institution of a municipal milk depot. It is a matter of extreme importance,, as anyone having knowledge of city n)ilk supplies is aware. Municipal milk ( depots, where the whole daily supply would be examined and tested would lead to the elimination of the dirty supplier, but they would also have the effect of ensuring that only clean, wholesome milk went from the people's depots to the people's homes. The direction of the whole aupply of any town into one channel would immensely simplify distribution. It would greatly aid dairy farmers and would eliminate to a large extent the army of distributors who are now—as far as the cities are concerned — not controlled. At present it is difficult to impure milk, and municipal milk deppts would make it easily traceable. Systems of ensuring a clean milk supply arc common to most countries, and if Zealand municipalities wake up to the.,evils of impure milk they will "plump" municipal depots. Later, it will be as common for a town to have a decent milk supply as it now is to have an adequate water supply. And the sooner the v bctter for the race. It is not necessary?Vto stray outside Taranitki to obtain samples of milk that are merely interesting from an analytical chemist's point of view.

A FORTUNE FOR A PICTURE. The American millionaire who has just bought"the Rembrandt picture, "The Mill," is stated by Hie London newspapers to have paid for it the extraordinary price of £IOO,OOO. The picture was painted about 1041, and it is probably the finest example of the artist's landscape work. It represents a windmill set boldly on a height, against a lurid skjfcmomiced by storm. The sun is setting, but the rays still touch the broad sails of the mill and the quiet river, while gloom is embracing the other features of the scene. The history of "The Mill" is well known. With five other pictures by Rembrandt it formed part of the famous Orleans collection, which was formed by Philip, only brother of Louis XIV., and afterwards Regent of France. The picture was purchased by Mr. W. Smith for 500 guineas in 1708, and ultimately became the property of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who paid 800 guineas for it. The present Marquis was offered -£IOO,OOO for tlte treasure by an American collector last year, and lie decided that he would close the bargain unless the nation cared to purchase at the price of .605,000. The attempt to collect this sum by public subscriptions, as was reported recently, was not successful. Fifty years ago the money paid for this one' picture" would have bought a whole collection of "old masters.' The price is the highest ever known, being £22,000 in excess of the sum which changed bands two years ago with the sale of Rembrandt's'"Descent from the Cross.' Before that time the record had been held by Raphael's "Ausidei Madonna," which was bought for the National Gallery from the Duke of Marlborough in 1885 for £70.000. The Rokeby Velasquez, representing Venus, was bought for the nation in 1900 for £40,000. The new owner of "The Mill" will be required to pay, in all probability, another big fortune in Customs' duty before he will be allowed to take the picture into the United States.