Miscellaneous.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 287, 25 July 1908, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

A new race peril is brought to notice by Professor Karl Pearson from his investigation on the inheritance of consumption. He finds that the first one or two children born are more likely than others to be consumptive and to inherit defects of the parents, and the modern tendency to limit families to one or two children therefore not only makes no allowance for the inevitable waste of child life, but also must increase the proportion of weak and diseased individuals in the community. A Lincoln county girl writes this advice to the Kansas “ City Star “ Why do young men do so much loafing ?Go to work. Push ahead! lam but a young girl, but I clothe myself and have money in the bank. I lay up more money every year than any young man within three miles of my home. When they get a dollar they go to a dance and go home a dollar out. I advise all girls to cut clear of—loafing boys. Stand by the boy. who works, and never put your arm through the handle of a jug.” A startling piece of good fortune has come to a convict named Calvin P. Graves, who is serving a term of nineteen years’ imprisonment for murder at the State prison at Waltham, Massachusetts. Before Graves was sent to prison he was employed in a machine shop. He had an inventive term of mind, which he has put to use in his spare moments while in prison. He has invented a device which abolishes the necessity for a bobbin in the sewing machine, which has been recognised by machinists as a most valuable.invention. Graves has now sold the invention to a New York company for £20,000, and as he will be released within a short time he will come out of prison a rich man.

The German Ministry of Marine has begun preparations to complete the fortification of Heligoland, for which £1,500,000 was granted by the Reichstag. The construction of the fortifications has been entrusted to the engineer, Mr. Eckhardt, who will superintend not only the land fortfications, but also the construction of a new harbour for. torpedo-boats. This will cost an additional £1,500,000. The expenditure will be distributed over several years. The Reichstaggranted a first sum of £lOO,OOO for the harbour, to be expended during the current financial year, and £60,000 for the land fortifications, likewise to be spent during this year. The erection of barracks and a new artillery depot will also be begun. These tw r o buildings will cost.. approximately £35,000. The fortification of the island is- to be pushed forward with all possible speed.

Frank Merritt is lhe pen-name of a young author in the United States who has earned fame, which may yet be at the cost of his life r by allowing himself to be lated with tuberculosis germs to demonstrate a new cure which is being tried by Dr. Carroll, a celebrated specialist in New York. The willing victim’s lungs, a London correspondent wrote to the “ South Australian Register,” on June sth, already show signs that the germs have attacked his system. Other doctors in the States express strong disapproval of the experiment. Its failure would lay Dr Carroll open to a charge of manslaughter, but he confidently says that in a fortnight the cure will be completed. Merritt’s motives are refreshingly tinselfish. He explains that “ I feel that I owe something to the world and to humanity, and as I have not been a most exemplary citizen, this seems the only way in which I can balance the account.” A Baltimore lady has made a similar offer, which Dr Carroll is inclined to accept. He has formed a definite theory on which to work, as he considers that consumption is an alkaline disease curable by means of acids.