Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 23, 8 June 1905, Page 18

Notes

Fighting Consumption The Canterbury Branch of the British Medical Association desene well of tne people of New Zealand. They have taken off their coats for a war ' a outrance ' against the bac-illus of tuberculosis. They intend to build and equip a consumptive sanatorium for Canterbury, and hand it over to be maintained by the various Hospital Boards of that Prownce. So generous an offer reflects infinite credit on the charity and public spirit of the medical profession in Canterbury. It also deserves the flattery of extended imitation. Segregation and sanitary treatment ha\e almost completely banished from Europe the scourge of leprosy that was so fearfully prevalent there. And the spirited action of the Canterbury medicoes is just the thing that will hasten the coming of the day when the little surgeons of the microscopic world may hold a post-mortem on the last bacillus of consumption. Juvenile Smoking The medical profession is practically unanimous in Its condemnation of juvenile smoking. Like Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, they know how the brain of youths is

enfeebled and their will enslaved by the J reverie-breeding narcotic ' and how • the green leaf of early promise grows brown ' under the influences' of ' the almighty weed.' It was, therefore, in the best interests of our rising generation that our Legislature passed • The Juvenile Smoking Suppression Act, 1903.' One of its provisions penalises smoking in a public place by persons under fifteen years of age. The first prosecution under the Act took place last week in Dunedin. The offender— a twelve-year-old urchin— was brought up as a warning to others, convicted, and discharged with a caution. If the Act is not to become a dead letter, there ought to be plenty of work for the police. • We rather think— tout do not care to assert outright —that even great smokers find it desirable to droj> the use of tobacco in any prominent situation or great crisis that specially requires clear and rapid thinking and prompt decision. Speaking from memory, we can, however, state that Brougham laid aside his pipe at once and for ever as soon as the anxious cares of England's Lord High Chancellorship fell upon his shoulders. Gladstone smoked only once— and then, as it were, by royal command. The present King (then Prince of Wales) presented him his cigarette case, an«d the master of Hawarden well knew that the plea of being a nonsmokor would not be sanctioned by Court etiquette. Bismarck smoked like the funnel of an ocean-tramp. But during the whole of the anxious movements of the great battle of Sadowa, he did not dare to take so much «,s a solitary puff of a prized cigar that he had in his pocket. For a full fortnight before the deadly fight 'at Tel-el-Kebir, Lord Wolseley abandoned the use of tobacco in any form. It was only when the long strain was o\er that ho lit his first cigar — and then a long procession of them went off in smoke and ashes. It was, said he, ' a kind of tobacco debauch.' But when a clear brain was needed, Wolseley felt that it was best secured without the rolled wisp of tobacco or the ' little tube of mighty power,' as old Hawkins-Browne calls the pipe.

How the Money Goes Few people find much magnetism in squads of statistical returns standing all in a row. But an esteemed and thoughtful West Coast correspondent has been make good use of sundry figures regarding Irish administrathe extravagance that appeared in our issue of April 27 , and, like Oliver Twist, he calls for mpre. The following further details of the ' Castle system ' of administration may, perhaps, be of interest to him and to many other readers who believe in Ireland, as well as "New Zealand, managing its own internal affairs. For the present we pass by the report of the Royal Comm-ission on Financial Relations, which established the fact of the enormoii3 over-taxation to which the luckless country is subjected. Aftd to that the further fact that, during the past ten years, about' a quarter of a million of Ireland's population has sought a home in other lands. Despite this melancholy fact, taxation has, during the same period, increased by about £3,000,000. • Scotland has a slightly larger population than Ireland. Yet its Government costs only about £4,000,000 a year, while that of Ireland runs into about £7,000,000 annually. Scotland is governed in accordance with its national sentiments and aspirations. The ' Castle ' Government of Ireland consists of fortyone Departments, in which there is not so much as one solitary official that represents, or is elected by the people. These Departments are the traditional and almost exclusive preserve of the ' Garrison ' — the perquisites 'of the adherent's of the dominant creed. Only an insignificant number of Catholics are admitted to any position in them above those of floorscrubbers and window-cleaners. It is estimated that at least £1,000, 000— or a tenth of the entire public revenue of the nation— is expended in salaries alone in

these scandalously over-manned Departments. Such generous doses of public money ouight, in all reason, help to kedp the ' loyalty ' of Castle anti-Irish officialdom reasonably sweet. Scotland's annual law costs amount to £259,373 ; Ireland's (excluding those of tne Land Commission) are £421,687. Scotland's Local Government Board manages its business for £15,825 a year ; Ireland's blunders and bungles sleepily along at a cost to the country of £79,875. Scotland has a higher average number of prisoners daily than Ireland (2980 against 2800) ; yet Scotland manages them with 15 prisons, and 367 prison officials, and at a cost of £105,000. Ireland has 20 prisons, and 622 officials, ana the cos\» for its lesser number of prisoners ran u,p to £144,000. And (not to mention in detail other ' odorous ' comparisons) Scotland pays £539,196 annually for its police force, while Ireland— where grave crime is almost unknown and where (as our news columns show) white gloves are a regularly recurring incident at assizes— there is a standing army of semi-military ' Peelers ' that eat up £1,509,214 of the country's annual revenue. The conditions that are back of these figures explain a good many things. They explain, for instance, the endless processions of the young and strong, the brain and brawn of Eire, that are day by day hurrying out of a country which is blighted by the world of administrative evil that, to the Irish mind, is known by that name of detestation— 1 Castle" rule.