Our Wellington Watchman.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2807, 26 January 1888, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman.

Mea culpa I mea culpa I mea maxima culpa* Stinging my accustomed, and cheerful ink in your issue of a fortnight ago on the subjects of the throat affection of the Grown Prince of- Germany and the doctors differences thereon, a drop of the sable fluid appears to have spattered a Masterton medico. So, at loast, I gate from the letter signed " Dr Dash" . which, by the way, I noticed for the first time in last Thursday's Weekly. The estimable" Dash" seems to have •taken my remarks somewhat too much to heart; it should surely be unnecessary to ,explaiu that the weekly wobblings of your Wellington Watchurn are scarcely intended to the read nerbalitn et literatim. My observations touching medical men were most certainly not aimed at individuals but at the class generally. I am equally certain that Dr Dash and the other practitioners of Masterton are both skilful and honorable. Having admitted thus much, and having re-read my notes of 12th inst., I find nothing teem whioh calmer -consideration

prompts mefta withtoiw, ori! modify ■- dome, Dr Dash, let us have it; 6ut-.-;v.-''% You inform me, Doctor^'■■'that; " neither the "greatest pathologist of -the day, Professor Yirohow, nor Sir Morell Mackenzie, eyer said that the disease was cancer; they have always said it was not. Just,so, most excellent Dash, and I never said that Messrs Virchow and Mackenzie said it was cancer.. I wrote : "I am'moved to this mild diatribe by the conduct of the' leading physicians of the world in connexion with the throat diseaseof the Crown Prince of Germany, After declaring he suffered from oancer* * * the' idjuts* find out he has something else." Now Professor Schroter of Vienna, Dr H. Krause, of Berliu, Dr Moritz Schidrnt a most celebrated laryngologist, Professor Stork of Vienna, the Prince's English doctor in permanent attendance, together with other boss sawbones whose names I have forgotten, all declared the disease vm cancer. Sir Morell Mackenzie and Professor Virchow declared it was not cancer. The following two horns of ' a dilemma awail you, therefore, most excellent Dash. Choose which you please to sit upon. If the disease be not cancer then the foregone imposing array of leading physicians, or pathologists if you prefer.it, do not. know, that terrible but. common disease, cancer, from some other disease, If it be cancer, ..then the "greatest pathologist of the day" and Sir Morell Mackenzie do not know that common disease, cancel", when tbey see it So 'much for that. Then Doctor mine you are : "Gladyour Watchman has such a poor opinion of medical men, as it bliows that he has never had any need of their sevvices, when he does he will write differently of their ability and honor.'-' Wrong again. Oh I most learned and skilful Dr Dash. You force me to Egoism. Learn then that Watohman has suffered from a large number of the ills that flesh is heir to, including Asiatic cholera, small-pox* sunstroke, and a broken heart—the last on a variety of occasions. Learn also that Watchman has worried through the large majority of his physical afflictions without medical attendance. Hence, he takes leave to think, his present salubrity. As far as Watchman knows, the sole legacy which disease has left him (occasional headache) he owes to, medical men who, when they had him in their power, filled him up with quinine as a remedy for jungle fever. No, Doctor' with considerable experience of'farrin parts '-of England, Africa, India, China, and the Malay Peninsula, I declare, as my solemn conviction, that those people suffering from illness (excluding wounds and surgical cases) who kept away from doctors and treated themselves on common-sense principles, and with the minimum of physic— lived, and that those who fell into the hands of the doctors— died.

And now, most learned Dashputting aside the surgeon's art—what do you how about disease ? What do the leading pathologists how ? What .do you sWhow about cholera ? What do you know about consumption, heart disease, Bright's disease, atrophy? What do you know about neuralgia, even ? What do you him about the cobra's bite, or hydrophobia, and scores of other diseases and hurts ? Nothing, and you know it. You can tinker, patch a little, and experiment, and now and again in a serious case, you'either have luck, or the patient gets well in spite of you, but the cause and cure of numerous diseases baffle and beat you. Moreover, with all your boasted modern progress, you doctors, as a class, are the most conservative creatures conceivable. Egypt, Africa, India and China, have—among a lot of rubbish—drugs which are sovereign specifics for some complaints, but you will not touch or look at them; you will not admit thern into your pharmacopoeia, and the professional man who would dare to prescribe them you slay with the title of" Quack," as you have slain the Mesmerists, And, Doctor, there are numerous diseases that you can cure. I admit it. But is it not true that these same "curable" diseases, for which you write mysterious prescriptions in awful dog-latin, aud blood-curdling hieroglyphics, can be also cured by any ordinarily observant infcelligeutpe> , Hon? Dear Doctor, your profession is almost as speculative and as experimental as that of your ally—the parson. But, do I for one moment say that your profession is useless ? By no means. I will tell you your j use. It is the comfort your mere presence brings to the believing sick j and their friends; it is your kindness, your sympathy, your cheery considerate words, your love of the little ones, your knowledge of human nature, your discreet treatment of family secrets and skeletons; your often noble generosity to the poor. These, Doctor, are the real blessings that you carry with you in your buggy or in your holsters, and God knows, in a hard cold world, these things alone are worth more than the money we pay you. But your boluses—bah I " Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it." The immortal William, and the immortal Wellington Watchman both know you, you see. Cold or hot water, temperance in all things, and an aperient pill will cure all the diseases you can. When they fail, 'tis the undertaker, not the physician, that is needed.

And as for your" honor," good doctor; honor is an elastic word, and each of us has our own own code. Doctors are no worse and no better than the balance of mankind. Under the banner of healing, range some of the noblest and some of the most ignoble of the human race, Among the former I shall place Dr Dash, and so vale ! Sweet Sawbones. Major General Peilding, some years ago, in the columns of the Nineteenth Century, asked, '< What shall we do with our boys?" and a good number i of people have asked a similar question previously and subsequently. The so-called. learned professions are glutted, the New Zealand Civil Service under the Atkinsonian regime will probably shortly be served by-prison

rtrr-,.. ■ , : .;•■ "■* >h labor-and -n© self-respectingCpaveht j'V, now-a-daysbrings hia sonsup to hard"'' V •work,;, therefore «' What' shall we do'- '' with/dur:boys?»: see '4 no difficulty in the matted ;if the '\ •■ boyis;smaJl and thin, make a jockey -'' of him; if large and strong a rowing ■■' J man or. a pugilist. Oncrtliereiwas a time when those great jffifons, in arts *' and songtook the cake. But wehave changed all that, and Society now bows the knee to the successful jockey > or the lucky pug. Not long ago a ', jockey, who had handed in his own ! checks, was buried, and a Prince of •_, the blood decorated his coffin with a ' wrath, and the same jockey had often { v earned more M a day than many accomplished, hard-working, honest men earned in five years. Continents mourned him. Now a Yankee slog- , giug beast arrives in London, and the same Prince of the Blood begs the - honor of an introduction," and the tear of emotion glistens in that Prince's ~ eye as he presses the hand, of the " great bullying knocker-out. The English papers declare that there is quite a rage at Home j tail now for fighting men, who—in • repfttorial vernacular receive', an "Ovation" wherever they appear.' "Ovation" is good and appropriate—the word being derived from wis, a sheep." The people who.fall down and worship pugs must have a lot ofjjte sheep in their moral compositioiWWe have | had some" sparring" exhibitions here | ! —miserable-gate fizzles,' which have * not even science to recommend them. The proprietors of,'the Opera House have, to the gratification of all decent people, shut down on these farcus, and the miserable scrappers are relegated to the slums. Talking about prize-fighters, that was a tall yam recently wired from Sydney relative to a shark attacking the boat of Burke, the pugilist. Any moral shark would have eaten the man and not a good'useful boat. I fear the Press Association man has been victimised by some too imaginative Sydneyite. The sharks are pretty thick and enterprising in Sydney harbor, no doubt, but anyone who is a shark fancier should.,visit the harhor*i|f Kopang in the island of Timor. There the friendly "creatures swim about as thick as herringl.aniiA'ge as a merchant-man's' ■ I once saw a midshipman-mad as the proverbial hatter-jump overboard in Kopang, and the sharks came and swam all round him and pushed their noses into his hand, andfrisked about and seemed glad to make his acquaint- i ance, but never injured a hair of his head. Next day a sane midshipman, anxious to emulate the feat of the lunatic, also jumped overboard, We carried all there was left of him home to his Mends—a pair of cork soles. The greatest shark sight I ever saw in my life, however, was in the China Seas. One night the sea was lit up, ' as far as the eye could reach, with what was at first taken to be the phosphorescent phenomenon not uncommon on the Ocean.' A few minutes demonstrated that these flashes of light 'were caused by sharks-there were sharks alongside, on the quarters, on the bows;''sharks everywhere, in their hundreds, thousand,!* ■do not exaggerate when I say in millions, ; - Men who had grown grey atsealM'. " never even heard of anything like it, and we could only surmise that a fleet of junks had been wrecked during a typhoon, and the scent of dead China- ■ men had attracted all the available sharks for many leagues round. lam aware that sinful and weak human nature is often tempted to lie on the subject of fish in general and sharks in particular; I therefore give the name ' of the ship, which was the "Ballarat," and the year, 1858.

I notice a tendency among a certain class of New Zoalandera which is, I think, to be much regretted, to depreciate everything Colonial, and absurdly crack up all things English. The present Government are evidently afflicted with this Anglo-mania as witness them sending to England for a Chief Commissioner for our Railways as if a smart, energetic business-man, unhampered by tradition antecedent, could not be obtained* the Colony. We shall have someF wellconnected" noodle foisted upon us, sure as fate. Whv, conditions here are utterly dissimilar to those obtainW '] iugin the old country, and we require a practical man, not a swell loaded to the muzzle with theory. A certain Wellington newspaper man is spoken of as one of the Commissioners. I trust there is no truth in it, for though the gentleman in question is • undoubtedly a most estimable person and chock-a-block full of statistics, he is m more fit for a billet which requires push, and thorough business aptitude that I am to keep the keys of paradise. Why does not the Government make a bid to get Back back again—the smartest railway man they ever had or are likely to have? I take it that we do not want gentlemen who will look nice in an office, with a toothpick and half a league of shirt cuff, but men who will fly round the country, in all weather and inw&late our railway officials with their.: om' go and pluck. Back could drive a bullock or an engine, swim a river, fell a tree, boss a labor party, or knock the stuffing out of a mutinous navvy, in short tackle anything that came along in the way of work. But I doubt'Ttf whether he could have ground oufca • leading article or worn a plug bat with grace and abandon.

Some friends of mine, Mr and Mrs Newcoine, not very long from home, have a very lofty disdain for things Colonial, and a hearty, not to say grovelling admiration for 'the land of their birth, They cany this disdain this admiration into everything they say, do, or attempt. They are people who generally' Lave a fresh and vigorous hcbby on hand. Their latest isor was-gardening. But they were surprised to find how far behin&v Zealand was in the science of floft ture. "You should see," said they "our English flowers,our roses, our gladiolii, our pansies." So last winter they sent homo to gome great ag> w .

tising florists for soma English seeds. I They duly arrived, and the dainty way I in which the packets were got up and the glorious colored lithos of these same flowors was an artistic treat. One packet contained pansy seed,— French pansies, all prize flowors and cost, I think, a guinea. Newcome said then he would show us somo English gardening. He procured, at some vast expense, material for an enormous hot bed, covering the bed with the finest mould, each particle of which went through his own lingers. Then ho sowed the seeds in a gentle heat, and I am credibly informed that bflth Mr and Mrs Nowcome might have heon seen every break of day stirring up the hotbeds and watching the seeds grow hi almost Adamite costume. The seeds came up vigorously and all friends were frequently invited to witness the superiority of English plants and methods, When the plants were an inch or so high, Newcome bought 500 thumb pots at 2d each, and ho and the lady pricked each plant out into a separate thumb-pot, and they grew and flourished exceedingly. One day Newcome got hold of a professional gardener, and after damping hini, took him home to show him the pansies. Newcome said he'd give the gardener some pansies in exchange for some camelia plants—

" the ' New Zealand camelias were tt really, for New Zealand, very fair, ™ very fair indeed." The gardener, Mr N, and Mrs N, ranged up in front of the pansies, and Newcome struck an attitude of ineffable self-complacency, and said: There, my hoy, what d'ye think of them ? Got any pansies like them in New Zealand, eh! And the gardener- bent down and looked long and earnestly at those pansies. Then he sniffed them. Then he pulled off a bit of leaf, and put it in his mouth, and Mrs Newcome gave a little scream and said: "Oh I Mind, each plant is of considerable value," " What did you say they were ?" queried the gardener. "Pansies," replied Newcome, the love-light • fading out of his eyes. " Pansies, French pansies." " Well," saidthe professional" they my hi French pansies, but I'm giggered if they're English." _l " Wh,-a-a-t I" gasped the gifted gar{amateur) " Wli-a-a-t do you say they are?" " I say they're blind nettles." The 500 plants flowered alittelalter -. —the truest and strongest variety of blind nettles. Let us trust that English Railway Commissioner may not turn out a blind nettle.

EDUCATION BOARD. The usual monthly meeting of th Education Board was held at th Board's offices yesterday morning Present—Messrs J. B. Blair (chair man),H. Bunny, G. Beetham, M.H.B. F.H. Fraser, W. 0. Buchanan, M.H.B. Dr Newman, M.H.8,, and Rev J Paterson, ESTIMATES). The chairman said their cstimatec income for the ensuing year would b< 133,792 I7s 7d, and estimated expendi JBge £33 f 79217» 7d f leaving an over Faft of £164717s 7d. The estinmtec attendance would fully come up tc the estimate as it had always done sc in the past. The estimated saving (although of course there was reallj no saving) on capitation grants tc schools would be LI 400, which woulc be saved, the Board having lowerec the scale of grants to school count! • from 7s 6d to 4s. By the abolition o the Training College there was voon for 300 extra children at the Terraci School, and there was also room foi 200 children at Thorndou, and shoulc the Clyde-quay school bo erected ant conducted on the same principle as the Te Aro school, the saving on the edu cation of these 600 children, togethei with the 500 already mentioned, woulc bo between LI4OO and LI6OO, ai although there would be no actual sav ing in the u expendituve the incieaset receipts would cover the cost of teach, ing, thereby saving the Board L 3337 The estimates of receipts and expendi turo for the building fund were m tws:— Balance of Inst year's grant 5915s lid; balance due on con tracts —Fernridge. U 10s; Mangaone L 167; Paikakiriki, Ll2 12s; total . LlB4 2s, leaving an available balanci £'• of L 2715 13s lid. lba estimates foi this year were:—New schools—Cour ten&y-place, L 3000; Ghuznee-street L 3000; Pahiatua, L3oo;sites-Te Am L 2500; Courtonay-place, L 2000; proportion of new offices, LIOOO, residences—Te Whiti, Pahiatua, Wangaehu, Mangaone, Dreyertown, Dalefield, Petone, Makara, Paikakariki, Johnsonville, Judgeford, Taueru, Wadestown, and Linton, L 250 each: Mitcheltown, Bhiinnon, Waikanaej Hadwell, and Alfred tori, L3OO each contingencies and commission, LI 000 making a total of L 16084 6s Id. The Rev, Mr Paterson said In objected to sending in the amount proposed, as what they required, it being altogether too large. It wassimplj preposterous to say that they were build two schools in Wellington year, tho Clydo Quay and TcAvo. Mr Bunny remarked they did nol at all expect to get to got the amount They would probably get about t fourth of it, but if they applied for i smaller amount they would get very .Jfliltle.

Mr Fraser said they certainly needed to build the To Aro School this year, is. it was simply throwing money away repairing the old building which was tumbling to pieces. Mr Patersou said it was all nonsenso to say that tjiey iutended to spend 117,000, in Wellington on Schools in one year. It was just these extravagant estimates and exaggerated reports that was causing this mad retrenchment. It was the cause of certain persons getting into office, in order to appease the public, sitting on good men who years' experience, and done toj the country under a really excellent educational system, and having them turned adrift. Mr Bunny: We must look out for ourselves. Mr Patersou.: We must aeo that we

do not cet turned adrift, Tho Chairman said he did not think Mr Paterson fully understood the matter. They wero not asking the Government to give them all tlie money, although it might bo urgently necessary. They were asked by the Government to give a list of their requirements, and surely Mr Paterson would not say they did not require the schools, when they had figures before them which showed that while the number of children in this city over school age was over 6,000 they had only accomodation for between 3000 and 4000..' Ho said that last year Otago had applied for 1105,000, so that iu comparison Wellington was very modest indeed. Mr Buchanan thought they should allow the estimates to remain as at present, He said Wellington would fare /ery badly in comparison if they applied say for ,£IO,OOO or £15,000 and Otago for £105,000, and the Government decided to grant only 25 per cent, Mr Paterson making no further objection, the matter dropped. A number of residents at Bideford petitioned the Board for an aided school for that township. It was stated that there had been a school in the place, which had to be closed. It was decided to leave the matter in the hands of tho Secretary. A communication was received from Messrs A. and O, Brandon, stating that thero was no title to the Kaiwaiwai School ground. The Chairman said that being the case it stopped legal proceedings for the present. Mr Eraser said he thought they should instruct their solicitor to enquire into the titles of all their schools, so that they might not be placed in such a position again, Dr Newman thought it was not necessary, as if thero were any more shaky titles they wore in connection with schools that had been erected some time ago. He thought they should let sleeping dogs lie. Mr Buchanan thought it would not be arousing sleeping dogs to be sure of their position. It was resolved to follow out'Mr Eraser's suggestion, and to allow Mr Dorset to apply for a title. Miss O. Bagge, pupil teacher at the Masterton School, wrote resigning her position, to which Miss Jessie Gallowav was appointed. Miss L. Lockie, pupil teacher at the Mount Cook Girl's School, also wrote resigning, her place being rilled by Miss A. Lockie, of tho Thorndon School. The Belvedere School Committee wrote asking for shelter sheds and a pupil teacher. The matter of the shelter sheds was left for Mr Dorset to inquire about, and it was decided that the attendance at the school did not warrant the appointment of a pupil teacher. . The meeting then went into Committee to make appointments to the Dreyerton, Kaiwaiwai, and Whiteman's Valloy schools, after which they adjourned,—Evening Press.