TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8217, 22 August 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Representatives from all parts of the United -Kingdom assembled at Ipswich for the annual congress of the Women's Co-operative Guild. The president said women rnust prove their strength, and work with patience for the great awakening of men to the crying needs of women. Speaking of the Sweated Industries Exhibition, the president said it had opened their eyes to trie condition of home work, but how few had realised the power of co-operation to remedy many of these evils. It was reported that during the year forty-one new branches of the Guild had been formed, making a total of 436 branches and 22,077 members.

Copies of his proposals regarding the medical inpeotion of school children hive been sent by the Chief Health Officer to all the Education Boards in the ootany. Though the Boards have not yet had sufficient time to fully consider the matter, Dr Mason anticipates that the replies will be favourable. The following are the principal details of the scheme:—"(l) that a medical man bet appointed at a salary, say, of £l5O per annum, whose duty it would be to examine those children in the city schools who were, in the opinion uf the master, below par in any way; (2) that his salary should be paid half by the Board and half by the Health Department; (3) tnat a medical man be appoiuted at a salary of, say, £SOO per annum whose whole time woud be employed in examining such set-aside children in all she schools in the district; (4) that the Board invite masters and teachers in its district to meet at some centre, when the District Health Officer would address them. The object of the lecture would be to indicate the ordinary signs which the teachers should observe."

The question of sight-testing in regard to men employed on the railways was brought up in the New South Wales Parliament a few evenings ago. It was oomplained that th* men were subjected to test for much more visual keenness than the most exacting conditions of railway work could by any means ever require. The system adopted in New Scutb Wales is ap n arently what is oalled the "Wool-test," and it was stated that the candidates for appointment had to determine the different gradations of colour between several samples of wool. The aotual signal oolou~s in use are but four, yet this test required that the men should be able to distinguish half-a-dozen different shades of half-a-dozen different oolourß of wool placed in a heap before them. An instauoe was quoted in wjiich a man who failed in his test had gone to an eye specialist who certified that his eye-sight was normal, and that thfira was not the slightest indication of colour blindness, and, in consequence of this examination by a qualified medical man, the railway official was reinstated in his position in the service. The Legislative Assembly debated the matter for about four n urs, but no decision was arrived at.

A prominent Thames resident has 7 (says the Auckland Herald) received a letter from a New Zealauder residing in Calcutta, in which reference is made to tho poor suooess being met with there by Mr Graham Gow, the New Zealand Government agent, as follows:—"Mr Graham Gow, the few Zealand Government agent, has been meeting with little response to his energetia endeavour to obtaiu exhibits for the Christohurch Exhibition. The fact is that he has been sent here much too late in trio day. Three months is useless for the preparation of exhibits, and the St. Louis people did mnoh better, aa they sent their agents three years ahead, and followed them up with successive agents eaoh year to keep thioga moving. There will be only a few individual exhibits from Calcutta* Another point thet does not seem to be clearly recognised in New Zealand ia the deep resentment felt by the native merobants and traders over the anti-Asiatic laws of New Zealand, and even bad the Government agent been given ample time he oould not hope f' r exhibits from these The European merchants who could have exhibited had time permitted have little to show in the way of Indian manufacture, their trade being mainly in European goods.