John L. Sullivan’s 10,000-dollar championship belt, made of gold and studded with diamonds, is no more. Once highly prized by the great American heavy-weight champion as one of his choicest possessions, the belt, minus its 397 small diamonds, has been melted into bullion for the value of the gold it contained.
Fresh air at school
It is foolish to spend public money on the mind if the body is not first cared for. Mental culture in a nation of “weeds” would be simply contemptible. Unfortunately the health of children nowhere receives the care it merits. It is left to luck or to oversight (often, indeed, oversight in its unfavourable significance) on the part of the parents. A recent report of a medical inspector in Otago was not pleasant reading. One does not need to be a medical expert to detect that the main deficiency in schools, in almost every country in the world, is the lack of pure air. An inadequate supply of oxygen is an enemy to mental and physical energy. Any man who works in a stuffy office knows that his efficiency is lessened by bad ventilation. Further than that, disease is disseminated in closely packed rooms, especially in winter when there is a temptation to risk the unnoticed onset of disease rather than undergo the immediate discomfort of cold.New Zealanders have a reputation for fine physique and bodily energy; they must see to it that their natural endowment is not interfered within the children by ill-ventilated and ill-lighted rooms.
Germany was the first modern country to introduce the open-air school, about twenty years ago. England soon followed. Since then, the movement has spread throughout the world. New Zealand, of course, offers splendid opportunities of sun and genial air. The demand for pure air for the children is both economically and hygienically sound. — Editorial
Buy Kiwi made
At the special meeting of the Otago Harbour Board yesterday, Mr J. Hogg (president of the Dunedin Manufacturers’ Association), in urging the cause of local manufacturers, suggested that the board should stipulate in future that uniforms for its employees should be locally manufactured. City corporations throughout the Dominion had either adopted this principle in respect of employees’ uniforms or were considering its adoption.
The ‘New Zealand death’
“Drowning fatalities are all too common in New Zealand,” stated the annual report of the New Zealand Council of the Royal Life-saving Society.
‘‘With a spread of the knowledge of swimming and life-saving, this heavy death rate from drowning ought to be substantially reduced, and not until a large reduction has been effected can the society’s work be regarded as anything like thoroughly done.
“It is evident that we have a very long way to go before we attain the ideal of having every man, woman, and child a swimmer, and every swimmer a life-saver.”
— ODT, 8.7.1926
