THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9176, 27 August 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.) , I

A DECIiKVIT ISoGEY.— ?ASES IN 11.xustkation.—tlie genealogy of a Word. If there is one ass I devest worse than the inveterate grumbler, it is the ineffective prophet, who i 3 for over getting tip to say "I told you so." So that it is a little unpleasant fur mo to have to record that next to r.othing has been done in Parliament since members returned from Auckland. Ihe thing, after all, was inevitable, the«e legislators being very human creatures. Frivolous moods that end in congested livers are not conducive to earnest work. This week possibly something may be done. The Premier, I notice, reckons that the session will end in midOctober. That means either Sir Joseph is a man of inveterate simple faith, or that the Government forsees the dropping of certain promised measures of reform. And still, with great and grave matters crying for settlement, members have time to waste on the trifling and twaddling of the cranks of their par ahes. The old Anti-vac-cination bogey has raised its silly whimpering head again. No fewer than nine members of Parliament were found ready to go to the Minister with a demand for the repeal of the compulsory clauses in tlu Vaccination Act; anj one ui the feeble nine waa no other than Mr Lm renscn. The old arguments against vaccination—if one can call them arguments—were recited. Next, it was pleaded that as the law was being constantly broken, it should be repealed—surely about as silly a : plea as was ever laughed at. There are hundreds of cases of theft yearly. Therefore, let us repeal the laws against, theft. Drunkenness is frequent; therefore, let us do away with the laws against drunkei.ness. But if Mr Laurenson's figures are accurate, they amount to a damning indictment against the Department of Public Health. The figures are as follow: Year. Births. Vaccinated. 1897 18,733 6,162 1902 20,655 2,611 1906 24,252 1,810 1907 25,064 1,961

This strikes me as cne of the most extraordinary tables I have ever seen in this country. If it is accurate, it means that for at least ten years an important department of Government has wantonly and disgracefully shirked its duty. If it is accurate, it means that for at least ten years the Government has either been culpably ignorant of the conduct of its own department, or has most improperly connived at and condoned scores of thousands of breaches of a salutary law. Listen to Mr Laurenson "An Act which was a dead letter should not be allowed to remain on the Statute Book. He knew a member of Parliament who had lost one of his children through vaccination. Aftei vaccination the child suffered from suppurating sores, the arms withered and eventually the unfortunate child died. There was no outstanding danger of an outbreak of small-pox in a clean country like this." That is precisely the sort of talk one heard in Tasmania a few years ago. But something happened. There fell upon the city of Launceston an epidemic of small-pox. Many of the anti-v*»ccina-tionists proved the purity of their convictions by being vaccinated without delay. Many others were detected and vaccinated by force. The children of all the schools in the colony were vaccinated. But in Launceston th? epidemic took root and grew vicious and strong. Launceston trifled with it, making concessions to influential and fashionable persons. Weeks passed, deaths multiplied, and still the epidemic kept and extended Its grip. Then the Government, in desperation, sent to Australia for a man, and the man came. He was a modern man, and when people talked anti-vaccination to him, or sought to awe him with their "conscientious scruples," he uuly grinned in his be'ard and did his duty. The fashionable and influential persons were turned out of their comfortable burrows and lent to recover or die in an isolation-hospital, which was not comfortable. Vaccination was carried on wholesale. Infected quarters were drenched with disinfectants. Infested bouses were destroyed. In an almost incredibly short time, the modern man got his foot on the necK of the epidemic and choked it. I knew one man who died after vaccination in Hobart, and honesty compels me to admit the facts. But he never complained of the vaccination, he was 85 years of age, and during 60 years he had drunk every day more whisky than is good for any man. When a man exceeds his proper allowance by & quart a day, he must take the risks, even in a country like Tasmania. Speaking of whisky and the premature death of my Tasmanian friend, I am reminded that all sorts of erroneous ideas obtain in this country as to the origin or etymology of the word "teetotal." I heard one gentleman in Dunedin aver that it came from tea-total; e.g., nothing bat tea. That idea is quite wrong. Just the other day a man in Wellington informed me that it came from t-total, "t" in this case standing for ""temperance." Wrong again. The ,worJ originated very simply, as a matter of fact, and had at the outset no connection at nil with abstinence irom alcohol. The word was used in the first total-abstinence pledge in the earliest days'of the movement at Preston, being suggested by a working man named Richard Turner. ''Teetotal" has for long had currency in the local idiom. The "tee" stood for the doubling of the initial letter of "total," and was used to express special emphasis or force. Emphatic words like "teetotal" and "teetotally" were common in the West country at least as far back as 1780. In those days, what we know aa the teetotal movement had barely been dreamed of.