Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 124, 5 November 1901, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

On the face of it there does not seem much connecstraw hats tion between thf> two, and but mere invisibility disea3s. does not battle the bacteriologist, tha« man of science who. in curing thills to which flesh is heir, has added so many terrors to moden. life. He has pointed out, for instance, how death may lurk in the milk we dr.nk and the food we eat, and the d ist we are compelled to breaihe when the nor'wester swoops down upon us. The trailing skirts of tfce fair sex have come under bis ban as being what be calls vehicles for the conveyance of disease germs, and now the horrid bacteriologist has discovered a new terror in the shape of the innocent-iooking sailor hat, a common article of feminine a!tire. Each. straw bat, he dec!ares, is literally teaming with bacilli. So iong aa the bacilli remain in the s raw it does not matter much, and hat is why the microbe expert does not condemn the straw hats worn by the man. The real danger, .iccording to a writer in the B imingham Daily Mai! v .lies m the hatpins with which the ladies are accustomed to "skewer" their jaunty sailor bats into position. It is an operation with which .sveryone is familiar, but the point co be nuted is the way in which the lady, requiring toth hands to adjust the headgear to the correct .ingle, holds the hatpins between tier lips before she thrusts them brough her bat. Therein lies the danger to which the bacteriologist lirecta at ention. The bacilli of the straw hat are conveyed to the mouth, thence into the alimentary canal or the respiratory organs, i'be pins, after being thrust through the straw, become covered with the minute bacilli, and when placed between the lips they find a congenial region in which to develop their activities. As the vlail wiiier charmingly expresses it, '* thrice happy in their diiliance on the luscious, red li|is of beauty, the tiny organisms multiply rapidly and, passing through the mouth, enter the system and, it is feared, bring about that debilitated statt which blanches the cheek and robthe eye of its lustre." Nor doet the danger end here, for what the scieutist would term osculation is not yet out of vogue, and with bold bacilli in a kiss one may well ask what is to become of " love's young dr«am." But the probabilifof *rt,

will go on much the same as •e f ore, in spite of tbts fcocterior igical " bogey." Ladle* , will ;ohtitfne to Wear straw hats—~whert' n fashion—and oerry hnt;iins in'' their mouths to the' eo3 of tha f.hapter, and he would be a bold writer wbp prophesied the de- . cadence of kissing.

The Tuneclin correspondent of the Press MrWraoqe's that Mr Wragge's " fcYOHEit." Sychern, which was blowing in Otago on Saturday, created a small sort of boom in the glazing trad, the window men being inundated with orders for panes of glass to replace those blown out by the wind. A portion of the front wall of a brick building which is being erected at laversbam by the New Zealand Wax Vesta Company was blown out, the extent of the break being about 50ft by 15ft. The sea does not appear to have made any i.reaches *t So. Clair (or Uchuu lieach), though the spray came over the hills and the waves wef» high up on the beach. A big shed at Lambert's pottery work* was olmvn over, and oue of the eaks in the north grounds was'apUl by the rude gusts. Signboards have also ' been carried away all over the 'city. The gale was one of tie j severest ever experienced, at Port Chalmefs, where fences, etc., were | blown down. A Wellington iinrnanst iutervi-wed Captain Edwi-i last Tuesday a.id ascertained from him that Mr Wragge's Syobe-a would not reach New Zealand as a forceful storm, smashing things as it had done in Sydney, because it was interfered with by another area of low barometrical pressure travelling obliquely across its course from the north-west, In consequence of this collision or combination, the "uergy of both storms would be decreased, and Sychem would be detieciod to a more southerly course, missing New Zealand. "But," said Captain Edwin, " when both these low pressures have passed to the eastward of New Zealand the rising barometer will no doubt be accompanied by southerly ga es, with very marked fail of tempentm*, though probably not of greater violence than we have often experienced. All disturbances have their period of maximum intensity, and it frequently happens that this period is reached before the disturbance arrives near New Zealand, and this is particularly • the case wfcen pressures are exceptionallv low to the westward This is an additional reason for assuming that eveil in such extreme cases as indicated by the state of the barometer at Hobatt the storm itself is of diminishing energy. There are also evidences that a low pressure of considerable intensity exists to the north-east of the East Cape. It is travelling in a direction of &l«uxt aaufcb-south-west, and wjU no doubt be influenced by the disturbances I have aiready mentioned in such a way that, although it is probable that there may be a very considerable easterly sea on the coast between Napier and Gisborne, this storm will hardly make itself knowa otherwise in those parts."