CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 210, 5 March 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A GOOD IDEA. A function that proved extremely popular and which it is hoped will become an annual fixture was instituted by the headmaster of the South School, Timaru, on Friday afternoon (says the Post), when more than seventy mothers accepted an invitation to visit the school at work. The visitors were taken through every class-room and expressed themselves as well pleased with all they had seen. They were afterwards entertained at a short concert, and formally welcomed by the headmaster. During the afternoon lollies and ich creams were sold to parents and children, and £7 was thus raised for school purposes. The dainties were prepared by the teachers (the Canadian teachers introducing many novelties) and generous assistance was given by many of the parents. Hero is an idea for our Taranaki schools.

FORESTS FOR PAPER-MAIUNU. Fifty thousand trunks of trees have to be sacrificed every day to make the paper necessary for the printing of the English journals and periodicals managed by Lord Northcliffe, cither as proprietor or principal director. His lordship 'long ago gave up drawing on the forests of Norway, because of the continual rise in tho price of European timber, and he is now at the head of a company which is exploiting the timber resources of Newfoundland. Here the industry has created a regular town of 3000 inhabitants, all employed by the company. The trees are felled and carried by water to the saw pit, where huge circular saws cut them up into small pieces, which are then pounded by steam beetles into a paste, which is sent by ship to Gravosend, where 1000 tons of paper are turned out of the factories every day. This is the output which is found necessary for the printing of tho 25,000,000 copies of the sixty different journals and periodicals controlled by Lord Northcliffe.

ADVANCES IN SURGERV. At tho recent Medical Congress held in London, over 600 papers were road by eminent doctors in the world, each reporting: the progress made in the different branches of medicine and surgery, and suggesting the lines which may be followed with advantage in future resoarch. Some idea of the notable advance may bo formed from the marvellous reports in the field of surgery. For instance, the human brain has been laid bare to its recesses, and such operations which wore considered impossible previously are now usually conducted. Many deformities which were supposed to be incurable in times past are now remedied. Some surgeons hope to graft on limbs obtained from persons killed accidentally in place of those amputated from living people, and promise a time when on one will be compelled to live with one arm or leg. One surgeon described a process of bone transplantation by which a hunchback can be made whole and sound. Another spoke of restoring a man whose heart had stopped, by transfusion of blood. Another Russian surgeon, Dr. Voronuff, held out hopes even for childless women. He said: "A new era is drawing for human surgery. Those condemned to death to-day by incurable diseases will be given a new life; arteries and whole organs will be grafted, and sterility will be transformed into fruitfulness."

CANADIAN IMMIGRATION. In the Empire Review are given some tolling facts about the flow of immigration into Canada. It appears that since 1900 the Dominion has received nearly 1,000,000 immigrants from the United Kingdom, nearly 900,000 from the United States, and 650,000 from Continental Europe. Most of the immigrants have gone into Ontario and the Western provinces, where settlement has taken place at a very rapid rate. The province of Alberta, 'for instance, had a population of only 73,000 ten years ago, and its chief towns were then' verj »mall. Edmonton's population was 2600, Calgary's 4000, Lcthbridge's 2000, Medicine Hat's 1570, and Stratheona's 550. Now the province has a population approaching 400,000; while Edmonton, with which Strathcona has been amalgamated, has over 30,000 inhabitants; Calgary, over 43,000; Lethbridge, over 8000; and Medicine Hat, over 5500. "The days of the pioneer are," it is said, "almost over, but the real West it still the land of the toiler and the tiller—a country of beginnings, but also a country of achievements. Travelling across the prairies, whether by 'rig,' motor car or train, one reaches continually new and growing centres of population. A small town is passed, some settlers' shacks, a real estate oilicc, a store, a hotel, and one is fairly certain, should a return journey within a year be made, to find a full-fledged town, with its broad main streets, its schoolhouse, its church, banking facilities, even telephones, all complete, so swiftly does development follow settlement in the progressive West." In spit of rumors to the contrary, the influx of immigrants not only keeps up, but is actually increasing. During the first five months of the current fißcal year, it was 17 per cent, greater than during the same period of the previous year. A population sufficient to form a good-sized Canadian village reaches the shores of the Dominion every day.