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Waikato Argus, Volume VII, Issue 464, 22 July 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

The following has been received (says the Morning Post, of June Ist) from a gentleman whose testimony can be relied on :—" My wife, who was suffering from consumption, became so much worse that I took her to Nordach, in the Black Forest, to try the new • open-air cure.' She is, I am thankful to say, making marvellous progress. This ' open-air cure ' is creating a great stir among the doctors, and a few days ago a Committee of English medical men, one of whom was Dr. Malcolm Morris, of Harley-street, inspected the sanatorium where my wife is. The cure merely consists of the windows being continually open, both in summer and winter, and in every weather. The patients have three meals a day, at which they are obliged to eat up everything served to them ; if they don't, the doctors will not keep them. They have to eat a very great deaj. There is no medical treatment, nor are any medicines given. The doctor sees his patients three times a day, and the temperature is taken on each occasion. He also prescribes the amount of exercise and the quantity of food the patient has to take, and he is guided in so doing by the variations of the temperature. As the patients get better the food is lessened to a certain degree, and the exercise increased. Climate, formerly considered so much, -when people went to Madeira and the Cape, is not counted for anything. The doctor told my wife the other day that if she got her feet wet she need not bother to change her boots unless they were very wet. At the time of my wife's arrival at Nordach she weighted only 7st, in fact less, 891 b, and she now (May 27th) has increased by Ist 31b. She is stronger, and her oough has quite gone." Mr Justice Owen, of New South Wales, in summing up a great mass of evidence in a libel case recently, spoke of the Press, in a way which was more than ordinarily remarkable for kindness and lucidity. The Press of the present day, said His Honour, was a public institution, interwoven, with, and forming part, as it were, of the web and woof of social, political, and religious life. It had to a large extent taken the place of the pulpit, which used to be the chief educator and instructor of the people, and he thought it was the late Lord Beaconsfield who said he foresaw the time when the newspaper would over-shadow even Parliament itself. It was an enormous potver throuphout the world for good or for evil. It collected for the public within the short space of 24 hours not only the little incidents that occured around them in the city, but the news from various districts throughout the country and from neighbouring colonies. Not only that, but the telegraph flashed intelligence to the newspapers from all over the world, Wherever actiou was being taken the newspaper brought the news to their doors, and all that, the jury would remember, had to be done through the agents of tho newspaper. They had to send their reporters and special correspondents to all parts of the community and all parts of the world, in order to gather news for the public benefit, and it had to be gathered, collected, and printed within 24 hours, and in time for the issue of the paper. If that was so, and when they considered that the work must necessarily be done in such a hurry that it was sometimes absolutely impossible to verify every item in the paper, must not that fact be considered in dealing with a question such as this? The learned judge further explained to the jury that there was a wide difference between writing something in an ordinary study and dashing off a news* paper article.