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CURRENT TOPICS.

DANGERS IN MILK. A stipulation has been made by the North Canterbury Hospital Hoard that all milk supplied to institutions under its jurisdiction, must be from herds that have-been certified to-be free from tuberculosis. A test was made, with the result that one contractor had 18 cows condemned out of 80, and another had eleven cows condemned out of 2!). These tests appeared to disclose widespread disease amongst the dairy herds supplying Christchurch residents with milk, and the Board desired to urge the City Council to take steps to ensure that milk vended in the city and suburbs should be supplied from tested cows only. The City Council has instructed a committee to, report on the matter.

THE RABBIT INDUSTRY. "Sixteen Million Rabbits" is the heading to an article by the London correspondent of an Australian paper, who mentions some interesting facts concerning the important role that the rabbit plays in the food supply of the Old Country. In 1911, the writer points out, "The United Kingdom imported 18,378,000 rabbits and hares from Australia. T.hegreai bulk of these would be rabbits, and yet ydu rarely or never in this country find rabbits ; being sold as Australian. Millions of Australian .rabbits are eaten as English and Ostend, and not a few are served up under various disguises, «ueh,as English chicken. You get Australian rabbit even at good tables in chicken'pie,- patties'and fricasse. And yet the Englishman has strong prejudices about rabbit. For instance, he is averse to the tame or hutch-bred article, apparently quite ignorant of the fact that the millions of rabbits imported from Belgium are nearly all hand-fed. Breeding and hand-feeding rabbits is one of Belgium's national industries. The occupation is carried on chiefly by the women and children on the little farms, and is found to he more profitable than the raising of poultry. The occasional Australian, Who has insisted that rabbit breeding on a big scale might give higher returns than the breeding oi merinos may not be such a crank as is generally supposed."

SCHOOLS FOR GERMAN GIRLS.' In connection with the obligatory continuation school attendance scheme which the city of Berlin has formulated for the benefit of girls, it is estimated that about 30,000 will come under the new measure. Also every half-year 1230 girls will be turned out fully trained in trade subjects, 1350- in commercial subjects, while 1900 unskilled workers will be prepared for accepting better employment. In order to ensure the •smooth working of the scheme, Berlin is to be divided into ten districts, so arranged that unskilled working girls will be sent to the school nearest their dwellings and skilled working girls to the school nearest their workshops. For shop girls there will be one school as near to the centre of the city as possible. Much discussion has been' carried on with regard to the subjects to be taught in these schools, and the advocates of a purely commercial or trade training and those who favor domestic training are pretty equally divided. A compromise, however, has been effected which wil combine both and spread the domestic teaching, which is to be of a very thorough kind, over the whole period of education.

A DESERT TO BLOSSOM. Although ten years have elapsed since the Boer war, there are, no doubt, many New Zealanders whose imagination is still stirred by some of the extraordinary physical features of South Africa, and possibly few have had a more enduring effect upon them than that vast, depressing territory in Cape Colony known as the Karoo, a desert swept by blasts of sandy wind, with enormous table-shaped opaque mountains scattered indiscriminately in all directions, where scarcely a living thing greets the eye as the Johannesburg express rushes along towards Kimberley. Three years ago tliis arid country presented much the same features as it did when war was devastating town and veldt. But time and civilisation's peaceful arts are bringing their reward, and to-day in this desert tract is being consummated one of the most stupendous private undertakings which the world has yet seen in the matter of conservation of water, a development scheme, and before it is finished the expenditure will be over half a million. In the next few years it is expected that something like 15,000 to 20,000 acres of land, the most productive in South Africa, will be placed under cultivation. It is believed that this land will vie with the land in the Oudtshoorn district, where £4OO and £SOO per acre is being paid because of its productive capacity.

THAT GREAT CHALLENGE. Apropos to the mythical challenge issued by a part of Awakinoites to produce an unnamed rower to scull E. Barry on the Mokau river for the world's championship and a purse of £IOOO, the following lines culled from the Melbourne Argus will show how a glass or two of King Country spirit, "our own brew," will do more to bring our Dominion under universal notice than hundreds of pounds spent by the Immigration Department (writes our Mokau correspondent). Still, Ido not advocate the granting of a license in this district, for with the sale of liquor under police surveillance I am dubious whether the Dominion would receive such cheap advertising as has been the outcome of that convivial evening and of similar evenings when the local sports, meeting together, will startle the sporting world with probably the discovery of a "white hope": He sat in his boat like a ghost afloat, And he slid on his sliding seat From the binnacle up to the foe'sl yard, Gripping the sculls with his feet.

And he eased his craft with an anchor aft, And it steadied his bouncing beano,• And he waved his logs with an airy grace To the syndicate Awakino. He rowed for a week like a lightning streak At more than a mile, a minute; And the syndicate cried with tears of joy. "Ernish Barryish nev' be in it!" Then away he raced, and the mermaids chased The sport up the Mokau stream. And he won his trial by several miles, So easy, it seemed a dream. So they had more fizz, and then got to biz, And they wrote with a carving fork, And put up an I.O'.LT. for a, thou., For money's the thing to talk. And they rose from their bed, with fearful heads, And their recollections nil; And all that was left of the sculler king Was the 1.0.TJ. and the bill.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19130521.2.19

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 308, 21 May 1913, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,079

CURRENT TOPICS. Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 308, 21 May 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS. Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 308, 21 May 1913, Page 4

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