TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8151, 29 May 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

A disouseiou took plaoe at the annual meeting of the Presbyterian Association at Ohrietchurcb, on Thursday evening, on the question of ministerial tenure of offloe. Mr G. Laurenson, M.H.R., said that for a number of years there had been a growing feeling throughout the Presbyterian Church in f&vour of p change in the present ministerial tenure of offloe. This had not arisen because of diaoonent with the ministers who preaohed the Gospel throughout the Presbyterian Ohuroh of New. Zealand. The cause lay deeper than that. It bad come to bo recognised by many who loved the Presbyterian Ohuroh that if they were to keep in the forefront as an Evangelical Ohurch they must adopt a modified system of tenure, such as obtainel in the Methodist Church. The demand was not confined to the laity, but ministers themselves, in considerable numbers, had begun to see that the time was ripe for some alteration in the present system. Mr Laurenson went on to quote figures to show that as a denomination, Presbyterians were increasing more slowly than any othei, and he was strongly of the opinion, that some change in the present system was desirable— :\ view which, he thought, was shared by a large majority of his fellow Presbyterians.

Professor Benham, of Otago University, writes to the press as follows—"With reference to the white pine borer, whose ravages in Otago are creating some interest, the beeetle grub is not the inseot that is responsible for all the damage to timber in houses, Indeed, it is probably rare therein, for burrows are so notioeable in a sawn plank that a builder would be a very dishonest person if he were to supply suuh timber for suoh a purpose. I have had an opportunity of examining wood from a house infested by the borer, and £ am satisfied that the damage is done by the grub of the beetle familiar in the Old Country as the 'death tick,' and to naturalists as Anobium domestioum. It has evidently been imported, and as the beetle breeds raDiily, and lays a considerable uumber of eggs in the timber, and each egg gives rise in due time to a grub, a great amount of damage may be done by the offspring nf one pair of these little pests. The beetle is about 3 16th of an inob in length and oale golden brown in colour. Its life history ia reoorded in any good natural history and is familiar to naturalists.

An Oamaru man went to Oanada recently with an idea of settling there. He lived five weeba at Edmonton, in the "Great North-west," and then returned to New Zealand. The disappointed migrator, Mr J. Spiers, thus told bis story to the Onmaru Mail.—The land of the maple leaf was all right and so were its people, but the climate killed it. He had arrived at Calgary, in Alberta, en route for Edmonton, about April Ist, whioh is the beginning of spring, yet there was a foot of snow in the streets. The state of things at Edmonton, and throughout Oanada, generally, was very bad. The country was being flooded with the "scum of the earth." Between 300 and 400 people were arriving daily in Edmonton, nearly all of tbem undesirables, the refuse of Russia, Poland and nearly every nation uuder the sun. English emigrants were leaving in large numbers, utterly disgusted, and were proceeding to Australia and New Zealand. Several of them oame to tho colony with Mr Spiers on the Moana.

Senator Dawson, of Queensland, in common with the other members of Parliament, received an invitation to the reception given by Admiral Shimamura on board the Japanese squadron at Melborune. The Melbourne representative of the Sydney Daily Telegraph reports that the Senator wrote acknowledging the courtesj shown him, but adding: "I must decline to aooept because it would be pure hypocrisy on my part to greet you with a smile, give you « friendly handshake, spread my legs under your hospitable table, eit your viands, drink your liquors, and smoke your cigars, while at the same time, though admiring you as brainy, brave and progressive people, Ido not trust you. I think the day will dawn when Australia will rue the day it showered so much 'gush' on you. I may be adversely criticising you later on in a responsible capaoity. This is candid, and not meant in any way personal to you, but to you as a people. Whether £ am right or wrong history will prove."

The alleged medioal boycott discussed ,at the Friendly Societies' Conference on Thursday has been the subject of discussion in many parts of the colony. A well-known Chrlstahuroh doctor told a Lyttelton Times representative that medical etiquette was good so far as it was £ based on oommou-sense and courtesy; but so far as it was based on the observance, of absurd punctilios it was hopelessly bad, and even, at times, excessively dangerous to the public. He said, without hesitation, that many a life had been lo9t, and many a patient irreparably injured, beoause one doctor was too polite to tell another he was wrong, or even to interfere in a oase at all, although he knew that this own superior knowledge might be the means of saving the life of a patient. The public had a perfeot right to engage and discharge its medical men as it liked, but medioal men had a right to expect that they should not be superseded without cause, and without reasonable courtesy and explanation. This was surely demanded by the confidential nature of the relations existing between doctor and patient. But, unfortunately, of late years medioal nieu laid such an enormously greater stress on the winning of dollars than in the healing of suffering, that patients hardly ever had the moral pluck to change their doctor, knowing, as they did, the fuss and unpleasantness that would be made by the retiring medioal man.

Auckland is with reason proud of auoh a nitizen as Sir John Logan Campbell, whose long and useful li'e has been bo intimately associated with the history of the city of the north from its very birth. It is given to tew men to look back upon experiences suoh as have been those of Sir John Logan Campbell, whom Aucklanders have with reason delighted to honour, and as he did on Empire Day, to oooupy the unique position of witnessing the unveiling of a statue to mark the regard la which he is held by the citizens of the place where he built the first wooden house. Born 'in 1817, Dr Logan Campbell was educated at Edinburgh and qualified ' as a medical practitioner in that city, and in 1839, when the first great move of emigration set towards Australia, he determined to try his for tunes in that dir6otion. He came out to Sydney in that year as medical ofiloer in charge of immigrants on board the barque Palmyra, and a few months later he came to New Zealaud, which had just been de : Glared a Biitish colony, landing at Ooromandel. In uonjunction with his late partner, Mr W. Brown, Dr Campbell purchased the allotment in Shortland Street on which Messrs Brown, Campbell and Co., the first mercantile firm established iu Auckland, have ever since oonduoted their business. The words spoken by Sir John Logan Campbell at the Auokland function were worthy of his record and the oooasion, and the statue itself fittingly evidences the city's appreoiation of a noble gift, endowed with the riohest historic associations