TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8158, 12 June 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Corroboration of the statements made, a few days ago by the Chief Inspector of Stook on the East Coast relative to the alarming increase of rabbits in many parts of Hawke's Bay is given by a resident »f Wellington, who has just oome down from the affected district Sneaking to a Wellington Post reporter he stated that Mr Miller had in no way exaggerated the position. The rabbits are, he says, unusually numerous in some parts of Hawke's Bay, and unless drastic measures are speedily adopted the monetary loss to the oountry will be enormous. Crown lauds appear to be in a worse condition than properties which are privately owned. He has no hesitation inlaying that the work of suppressing rabbits has been carried on in some districts in a very perfunctory manner. In some parts of Hawke's Bay which he has visited the rabbits will not touch the poison laid for them, and he has seen with his own eyes numbers of others eating the mixture without fatal results. His idea is that the best] method of exterminating the pest is to employ traps and dogs. He says that rabbits in the Kimu taka district have been almost exterminated through the inoessant vigilance of the Stock Department, and he fails to see why equal suooess cannot bo achieved in the Hawke's Bay district, '

Major-General Baden-Powell reently sent a letter from the Horse iuards in wLuuh lie replied to a corespondent's questions as follows: "I do not, in the abstract, soe any inarm in young men going to look on at foot bail matches on Saturday afternoons. But 1 do soe c great harm to themselves and to the nation in their paying other people to play their games for them, and in going to big drinking parties, to have a gamble on the matoh, on days when they should be working. lam the last to object to good healthy English games played for the good of the players, but I do not like to see us gradually becoming a natiou of onlookers at games like the iiomans had become immediately before that empire Ml to pieces. As a nation we now spend more time in looking on at races, football, cricket «to., and we have more unemployed and loafers, in every walk of life, than any other country. Though I am myself very fond of aport in almost every form X quite realise that in many quarters, in all ranks of society in Great Britain, importance of sport and games is becoming unduly exaggerated; it is carried to an excess at the expense of solid work."

'Spain, writes Mr Ward Muir, in the Daily Mail, is the land of "mauana"—to-morrow. The Spaniards are incorrigible in dreaming the dreams of the Middle Ages, and just as incorrigible, when urged to work, in their use of their favourite word, "manana." King Alfonso may sot the pace as fast as he litfes in his motor-car, but it is over roads

made generations ago for male traffic, and not re-made sinue, and past huge old diligences whose drivers often carry blunderbusses for defence against highwaymen, peasants working ii the fields with implements £in vented in the time of Columbus, and mines of enormous value leased to British and Germans. At first sight it is unreasonable to speak of lack of progress in Spain, for the tourist oan point to railways, tramways and electrio light. But the railways are largely tud by Preach engineers the tram ways belong to Americans, and the electric light to Englishmen or Scotchmen. Mr Muir sees in the advent of Queen Ena the dawn of a new era in Spain. "Princess Eaa's influence on the status of woman must alone be revolutionary in its ,way. Difficulties will; no doubt present themselves at every turn and the ingrained habits of centuries may 'take a deal of shifting.' But the boy King has already shown his band, and the two rulers, quietly working side by side, may go far and do much for their realm. Perhaps the hardest problem they will have to face la the abolishing of a word from the language. The word is "manana."

The Lyttelton Times, in a leader on "Colonials in the Navy," says: —Now that the warships have been on the station they have a ouriously varied reputation among the men. There was H.M.S. Tauranga, for instance, in which so many New Zealandera first saw service. The colonials were never tired of sounding the praises of the offioers and their shipmates, and, though inevitably there were breaches of discipline, the men recognised that the rule of the ship was absolutely just; however stern and severe officers found it necessary to be, they never forgot that they were dealing with human beings. In very marked contrast to the reputation of H.M.S. Tauranga is that of another warship on the Australian station, concerning which we have not yet heard a single word 'of praise. Her boilers are desoribed aa being all defective, the tubes, pipes and Joints continually leaking, so that the stokers say Ihey have felt that they were under sentence of death, if a man happens to collapse in this inferno, and ia taken on deck, it is the custom, it fs alleged, to send him baok to work to see if he is shamming. The ship, it is said, had frequently ruu short of water, and a story is told to the effect that during one protracted voyage the officers courteously sent forward water in which they had washed, so that the man, too, might enjoy the luxury of at least partial cleanliness.