OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 417, 15 February 1890, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

LfHOM OUB OWN COBBESFONDENT.j Sydney, Jan. 31.

One more holiday. Surely there never was a community, except, perhaps, that Neapolitan one where they are said to have two saints’ days in every week, where they devote quite so much time to holiday-making. Not that it is altogether a bad sign. Bather, I imagine it may be regarded as a practical revolt from the Gradgrind theory which drives men to work about twice as long and suffer about ten times as much anxiety as they were ever intended. Unfortunately, however, a great deal of the enjoyment, like the finery of those who indulge in it, is purely superfioial. Like straws which show the trend of the current, there are tones, and words, and acts which show bitterness within while there ie merriment without. As for the finery, one has only to go to a seaside resort frequented by the masses, to know what that means. Little boys and girls are partially or wholly undressed to paddle in the water. Nearly all of them, agreeable to colonial traditions, are beautifully dressed outside, perfect little pictures. Bat the underclothing in two cases out of three consists of rags which one would hardly pick up in the street. I would not have believed this if it had not been pointed out to me, and there were not wanting indications that the clothing of many older people was in much the same predicament. Outside, lace and velvet and satin. Inside, slovenly rags and tatters. The habit of “ putting the best side to London " has extended even to the clothing. Henceforth, when I read about the “ well-dressed masses ” of colonial populations I shall have a clearer idea of what it really means. More reality and less show, more comfort and less frippery would be a great deal more conducive to real happiness. Bat, moralising apart, Anniversary Day was ushered in with splendid weather. Half the population of Sydney turned out as usual to j different places of resor'. Trains, trams, • omnibuses, steamers, weie all laid under 1 requisition. Quite a small fleet of ocean- j going steamers were crowded to the bulwarks with passengers taking short sea trips outside the Heads to the Hawkesbury and elsewhere. There was not a great deal of wind, which | prohgbly accounts for the fact that no boating i .la.ity was reported, and the great tnusses of people seem to have been moved without serious accident.

At night there was considerable speechifying, Mr Sydney Burdekin, the newly elected Mayor, gave a banquet, which was attended by the Premier and a large number of leading notabilities. All went well until Mr Salomons, to whom was entrusted.the duly of proposing the toast of the Ministry, ventured to express some misgiving ns to whether Federation would prove to be so satisfactory as some of its leading adherents declare. As soon as he got upon this line of thought, how ever, it soon became evident hnw little real toleration there was in that outwardly splendid and civilised gathering. “ Scratch K Russian and you will find a Tartar,” says the old French proverb, meaning that there are men who when the thin veneer of external conformity is removed, are at heart savages. Mr Salomons, wittingly or unwittingly’ scratched his dress-coated, while chokered audience, and in return, he got a reception which would have better suited a South Sydney polling booth. Briefly, he was subjected to such interruption that he was com. polled to sit down without finishing his speech, and eyen Sir John Robertson, who, with characteristic generosity endeavored to secure fairplay, could not obtain a hearing for him. Federation is undoubtedly a noble idea, and it ought to elevate those who honestly devote themselves to it above tba possibility of such an ignoble display of petty partisanship. We read of a certain person that be zealously canvassed for benevolent purposes on a memorable occasion, “ not that he carod for the poor, but because he carried the bag.” Monday night’s incident will strengthen the impression which is already prevalent, that many of those who have so suddenly became ardent champions of Feder’ ation are not one whit touched by the finer issues which the term involves, but simply see in it an opportunity of gaining ku los, or of evading troublesome and pressing questions. Surely any one who is magnanimous enough cheerfully to assent to the self-efface-ment which is involved in Federation, should be magnanimous enough to listen to a few words conveying a hostile opinion in an after-dinner speech. I have taken the view of the case which is adopted by the Parkesian Press, which claims this ebullition of bad manners as a “ splendid demonstration ” in favor of Federation. A few more such “ splendid demonstrations ” and people will begin to ask wbat new tyranny is being introduced. A more charitable interpretation to put upon the incident is that the expressions of disapprobation were levelled at the bad taste of introducing a debateable political topic into a social gathering. Even in this case the bad taste of one man is as nothing to the bad taste of numbers who afterwards ap plauded the subsequent speaker for doing what they censured in Mr Salomons.

The advocates of compulsory inoculation for pleuro-pneumonia are very busy. It never appears to strike them that their position is a very illogical one. If pleuropneumonia can be prevented by inoculation those who inoculate are safe by their own showing, and, seeing that the action of their neighbors cannot affect this safety which they so fondly imagine they have secured, they have not the slightest shadow of right to demand that anyone else shall inoculate also. If it is urged that compulsory inocula tion is necessary to prevent the losses caused to the colony as a whole by the ravages of the disease, it must be replied that experience shows that inoculation does not prevent them and that in nearly all civilised countries it is now discredited and abandoned. But even if this were not so, how much more to the purpose would it be to level the powers of the state against the enormous losses that are caused almost annually by starvation. No man or collection of men has any right (grounded in justice) to enact that men shall Infect themselves or their children or their cattle, with the virus of any particular disease, gut tha moral sense of the whole community Is outraged, and its material prosperity terribly impaired, when men who own eattle and sheep by thousands deliberately ignore the duty of making adequate provision for their sustenance. Yet for one who Insists on this obvious obligation there are hundreds who are ready to clamour fpr the observance of an entirely illusory, dangerous and delusive one. The idea of preventing disease by inoculation is one of the greatest stumbling blocks to medical progress, It diverts tha medical mind from the study of the means which prevent disease to those which cause disease. Of wbat avail are wholesome food, clean water, warm shelter, and a healthy parentage to the man wbo thinks he can ward eft the penalty of neglecting or violating these laws of nature by a magic scratch or puncture ? In physiology the inoculation ides seems to occupy about the same position that" 'ths perpetual motion idea did ip ancient physics and philosophy. The latter was always just going to be ejected, but always some little unforeseen thing hindered It, Then they went at it again, with tha same result In a slightly different form, We know now that ths cause which prevented luooesa was friction, which, however ingenious the train of machinery, always necessitated some lose of force as anon as any machinery was employed at all. But as soon as any of the motive power was destroyed by friction, the idea ‘o! perpetual motion (which involves-the main, ten anas of tboWboleOf the moving power without lobs) vanished. That which answers to friction in the inoculation scheme is. first, the dangers arising from the inoculation of other diseases besides that which is intended, and secondly the blow to the general health given by the forcible inoculation of a deadly virus into the very springs of life. Enthusiastic advocates of the praotioe resolutely shut their eyes io these things, and only Open them to, those wfaichappear on the surface to make in favor of their theory. But I believe it will universally be found that the general standard of health is lowered by inoculation, some'imes to a fatal degree, often to one that is very serious, and perhaps oftsner still to one that is scarcely observable at the time, but may prove to be of very grave import in the future, it is bad enough that the inoctiAtlor.ists tbould infect their own cattle, bat Ist them at least keep their haads osathet people’*!