CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 176, 24 January 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

DOMINION IMPORTS. A return has j,,s| been published showing the imports (o the four chief ports oi New Zealand during the last tour years. This shows that the total value oi imports for the period incrcasj'.'l "I value by three and a-quarter millions, or li;i/_, p ( , r ocn '. There aire two line.-, however, which account for a big I"'"!" 1 1' i»f the. increase. These are motor cars and sugar. The value of motor ears imported hist year was ■CiiillUUm i„ excess of that of tnc previous year. In candles, oils, currants, Mned Iniits. tobacco, drapery and bicycle., lucre was a decrease. His sig'"licanl (hat there was a substantial in'■reus,, in the value 0 f cigarettes and slop clofhiug imported. The importa- !■'" ' ''""l" ■•>»'! shoo showed a great """case, as also did lea. The aggregate of woollen goods shows an increase of jJUuikWHi. or roughly lit per cent. \ IS RATI 11 Mi IIKAI.TIIV? At last a bold man -a .lector to boot • has arisen to denounce bathing as unhealthy, "Man," writes Dr. Klmcr Lcc in his magazine. 'Health Culture," "is an air animal, not a water beast. An iged wmmin asked me if it were a good practice to chill Hie human skin with

(•old water to warm it. (..'old ha thing is recommended us a body-warmer; so is a hot toddy of whisky, also a cold cocktail of whisk v. A bath tub is an enemy in the house. . .• . Bathing begets falae security against disease, weakens and injure the skin, extracts bodily energy and magnetism, and entails on society a needless habit." Another American journal, "Jirain and Drawn," comes to the support of the ISritish .Medical Association, whose members, at a recent conference, afforded repeated testimony of the healthful, ness of sefi-baihiug. The most this journal will concede is that cold bathing can he overdone by people who stay too long in the sea, and '-fanatic" Englishmen who break the ice each niorniusf to immerse, themselves when thev are'not si long enough t 0 stand the shock. -As to a bath-tub in the homes," it declares, "if you have to choose between the two, belter omit tin- stove."