This is doubtless due in large measure to the restrictions which have been placed on the sale of liquor, and the Prison Commissioners suggest that the reduction which has also taken place in the committals to prison for offences against the person, both serious and trivial, such as are frequently the result of alcoholic excess, may in some degree be attributed also to this cause. A striking decline in the number of vagrants is recorded. In this connection, it is remarked that the persons who composed the vagrant class in pre-war times ‘‘may have been absorbed in munition factories, or they may supply the leakage in the labour market, but in either case it is evidence that these men are not the hopeless and irreclaimable class they are generally supposed to be’’. Reports from all prisons testify satisfactorily to the keenness and alacrity with which prisoners have undertaken the manufacture of war stores, working extra hours and on Sundays when there were orders to be completed. The one unfavourable feature in an otherwise highly encouraging report is the record of an increase of juvenile offenders.
Fixing soldiers’ teeth
It is now two years since the creation of the Dental Corps as a part of the New Zealand army. The urgent need of its existence has long since ceased to be questioned, and it is satisfactory to know that our soldiers are being sent away with the invaluable equipment of a clean and serviceable mouth. The amount of work necessary to accomplish this has been very considerable, but the Director of Dental Services reports that the problem is well in hand. This work cannot fail to make a very great impression on the general health of the dominion, and the action of the Defence Department in providing machinery for cleaning up the appalling amount of oral sepsis must have had an effect, and must be regarded as an important contributing factor to the unremitting thoroughness of the steps taken by the Medical Corps for the general health of the troops. The following return shows the amount of work done by the New Zealand Dental Corps in camp in New Zealand for the year ended on the 30th November, exclusive of sundry operations or dressings:-Amalgam restorations 2,182, amalgam fillings 66,426, cement fillings 1,392, root fillings 9,759, total fillings 79,759; scaling, extensive 1,125, scaling, simple 5,425; extractions 28,424; full dentures 4,694, partial dentures 6,188, repair 1,268. — ODT, 26.12.1917.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
