The North Wales Weekly News

COUNTY MEDICAL OFFICERS. AMONG the excellent provisions contained in the Town Planning Act, a measure for which Mr. John Burns deserves the nation's gratitude, not the least valuable is the duty imposed upon County Councils to appoint Medical Officers of Health. These officers, of course, will be paid by and be responsible to the County Councils, and will work independently of the District Medical Officers appointed by the Town and District Councik. In order to safeguard the health of the people, notably in regard to housing con- ditions, water supply, drainage, and hospital accommodation, it is absolutely essential that each county should have its Medical Officer, and we do not hesitate to assert that the failure of certain county authorities to secure the services of such an official has had very bad conse- quences in North Wales. When the County Councils were established, it was hoped that they would take steps to pro- mote the sanitary efficiency of the areas under their control by appointing Medical Officers of Health, as they were specially empowered to do by the Local Government Act of 1888, to super- vise the general sanitary conditions of the county. But in this, as in other matters con- nected with local government, anticipations were not realised, and many counties, including some in North Wales, have never had any Medical Officer of Health at all. In some counties, however- and we would especially mention Glamorgan, so far as Wales is concerned-much useful work has been achieved in promoting improvements in sanitation where a Medical Officer of Health has been appointed, and these counties stand out from the rest as models of perfection, but the number of delinquent counties has been great. County Councils throughout the length and breadth of the land have come in for much un- just criticism, but it must be confessed that their action-or, rather, inaction—in regard to this side of their duties is not easy to defend. Their shortcomings were explained to the various Parliamentary Committees by which the Town Planning Bill was considered, and when that measure passed into law a section was enacted directing every County Council to appoint a Medical Officer of Health, who should be a whole-time officer and should not engage in private practice or hold any other public ap- pointment. It has required the machinery of Parliament to impose on County Councils the obligation to do that which it was expected twenty years ago they would cheerfully under- take of their own accord, and this enactment has now been expanded by an Order just issued by the Local Government Board prescribing the duties of the Medical Officer of Health to be appointed by each County Council. He is no longer to be an ornamental officer who is consulted as a matter of form from time to time, but he has very definite important duties to carry out which will certainly call forth his I best energies. He will be Lhe central figure among all the sanitary officials of each county, and, whilst he has no direct authority over any I of the Medical Officers of Health appointed by District Councils, he has personal responsibility for the supervision of various matters in their I areas. He must make his influence strongly felt in those districts which are now and have been so long lacking in the matter of isolation hospital accommodation. This particular duty will probably result in a more extended appli- cation of the Isolation Hospitals Act, for there can be no doubt that many county areas are ill provided with means ipr dealing with certain epidemic diseases. There is a specially im- portant article in the Order directing the County Medical Officer as to what matters shall be in- cluded in his annual report, and whilst he is left free to report on any matter that he may consider it desirable to deal with, he is placed under the specific obligation to report on such matters as hospital accommodation, the adminis- istration of the Housing Act, water supply and the pollution of streams, as well as the admin- istration of the Midwives Act and the Sale of Food and Drugs Act. Of course, the salary of this new official will be borne by the rates, and equally of course his appointment will be strenuously opposed by the self-styled econo- mists on our County Councils, the wealthy land- owners who rarely attend the meetings, and only do so for political purposes, the same rich land. owners who live in large mansions of exceeding- ly low rateable value, and who are whining so piteously because the Budget compels them to disclose the real value of their property, and to I bear their fair share of the burdens of national and local taxation.

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS EXHIBITION. THE FIRST public ceremony in connection with the Colwyn Bay National Eisteddfod takes place on Friday afternoon of this week, when the Countess Dundonald will formally open the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in the Infants' School. We desire to call special attention to this Exhibition, not merely because of the rare and curious collection of articles on view, but because it is being promoted with a very prac- tical and useful object in view. It is, of course, appropriate that Colwyn Bay, situated as it is so near to the birthplace of John Gibson the sculptor, and in the county so closely associ- ated with ilson the painter, should have an Exhibition calculated to stimulate the interest of the Welsh people in the Fine Arts. That some such effort is sorely needed is only too true. But that is not the only aim of the pro- moters. They want above all things else to open the eyes of residents in the town and neighbourhood to the great possibilities open to them in the direction of cultivating those Home Crafts and Industries which can be pursued in the long winter months and made a source of profit in the summer season. Anyone who has visited Dublin during Horse Show Week will understand what we mean. In the shops, at a time when the Irish capital is crowded with visitors, an enormous trade is done in the sale of woodwork, metalwork, leather-work and so forth made in the cottage homes of the peas- antry during the year. The Welsh Industries Association was formed for the purpose of en- couraging similar Home Industries and business methods in our own country, where there is am- ple scope for its activities but while we do not desire to be in any way unreasonable in our demands upon what is no doubt a very excel- lent institution, we feel that the Association is not devoting a due amount of attention to the North Wales seaside resorts. To state an un- pleasant truth somewhat bluntly, there are many lodging-houses in North Wales whose occupants have simply nothing to do for the greater part of the year, and' who have to suffer many hard- ships in consequence, and it would really be a blessing to them if they could be taught to use their enforced leisure in a manner at once pleasant and profitable. This, briefly, is what the promoters of the Colwyn Bay Arts and Crafts Exhibition would like to do; and it is earnestly hoped that the holding of the Ex. hibition will be fruitful of good results in that very desirable direction. The idea is a good one; all that is needed is to "strike the iron while it is hot." .A-4--

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL. The Earl of Denbigh, who has been cruising in Norway, returns to London on Friday. The death of Mrs. Charles Pozzi, wife of Councillor Charles Pozzi, occurred at her xe- I sidence, Craig Beunoj Garth-road, Bangor, on Saturday afternoon, after a brief Mrs. Saturday afternoon, after a brief illnem Krs. Pozzi was well-known in the city for her bone. volence. The Marquis of Anglesey has purchased Plas Llanfair, the residence of the late Mr. Harry Clegg. Plas Llanfair, which is situate close to Plas Newydd, the ancestral seat of the Marquis, was formerly in the occupation of the late Lord Clarence Paget, son of the Waterloo Mar- quis." » At the Tabernacle Calvinistic Methodist Chvrch, Bangor, on Sunday evening, a letter from the Rev. Howell Harris Hughes, B.A., Os- westry, was read announcing his acceptance of the unanimous call to the Tabernacle pastorate, in succession to the Rev T. J. Wheldon, B.A. Mr. Hughes will commence the duties of his pastorate at Bangor next January. wo ow W' We regret to announce the death of Mrs. Davies, widow of Mr. Thomas Davies, Padarn Villa, near Aberystwyth, in her eightieth year, at her residence, Gordon-terrace, Bangor. MTS. Davies's connection with Bangor was a very long one. She was the eldest daughter of the late Mr. J. H. A. Hall, manager of Lloyd's Bank, and sister of the late Mr. J. H. A. Hall, who succeeded his father and afterwards be- came a partner in the firm and took up his residence at Chester. Mrs. Davies leaves one daughter (Mrs. Barton) and three sons, Mr. Fred Davies (Borth), Captain J. W. S. Davies, and Mr. D. C. Davies (of Aylesbury). The funeral took place at Aberystwyth on Saturday. The following paragraph respecting Mr. Lloyd George, published on Tuesday, is of very great interest: Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, who has just left for Italy, will have to curtail his holiday on th? Continent owing to a command he received last week from King George to be Minister in attendance on his Majesty at Balmoral from September 5th until 12th. In view of the probable investiture of the the Prince of Wales in the Principality, there is no doubt some signifiance in the attendance. The Chancellor will leave Balmoral for the National Eisteddfod, and will be the guest of the Bishop of St. Asaph.

JOTTINGS FROM NA TURE. AUGUST 22ND. The movement southward assumes greater dimensions each week, and from now until the end of October the influx from the north and efflux to warmer climes will engage the attention of every ornithologist. Our resident swifts have gone, and the individuals which we might see during the next week or two are from higher latitudes, not necessarily within our own coun- try. Lesser terns are missed from the shingly beaches on which they nest, and e-er since the first week of the month we have heard the voices, both before and after dark, and seen small and large parties of either common or Arctic terns wending their way purposefully westward along our shores, though in reality migiating southward. On the weir stumps at Rhos on the lith seventeen Arctic terns were perched in a row, most of which were birds of the year, and we reckoned that quite that num- ber were on the wing a little distance from the beach. Often one or the other of the stumps would be vacated, to which another individual would quickly resort, and we saw that all the adult birds that came to the stumps were still in summer dress, that the immature were all pos- sessed of the dark bar on the carpel joint of each wing, and that the latter were not wholly dependent on their own efforts for food, for we saw some oi the young, amid much clamour, receive fry from their parents. In a month's time the movement will be infinitely greater,but the terns and swifts that might then make their appearance lag far behind the main bodies of their fellows, for it is in August that the bulk or both species take their departure from our islands, and those that linger until September are generally prevented from accompanying the hosts by domestic ties.

WEEK BY WEEK. » < It is stated that Penrhyn Castle, Bangor, cost ^500,000 to build. A correspondent, writing in reference to the recent death of Earl Amherst, mentions that the wife of the first bearer of the title was buried at St. Asaph Cathedral. Modern stress of living drives men into strange paths. "What does he do for a liv- iiqg?" asked the magistrate, and the witness replied "He does a bit of preaching and sells tea." < Bardsey Island is being rapidly depopulated by deaths and removals. There has been no birth on the island for several years. Amongst the most recent emigrants to the mainland was John Williams, "King" of the island. Sir Vincent Evans has selected as the subject of his address at the opening of the session of the Birmingham Welsh National Society, of which he is president, the question of The Better Preservation of Welsh Antiquities." < A little girl from Borthygest, near Port. madoc, who picked up a silver watch, with a gold chain and a sovereign purse attached con- taining ten sovereigns, was given by the owner, a visitor, a reward of one shilling. Menai Bridge fire engine may be described as antiquated and ill-clad. It is seventy years old, and has no hose. A bazaar has been held last week to raise funds to buy a new one. There is only one fire brigade in Anglesea—at Beaumaris. It isn't everyone who starts digging potatoes and finds gold but a labourer at Llanddegai unearthed a valuable watch and chain whilst excavating the familiar vegetable. A Liverpool Welsh woman-Mrs. May Eliza- beth Roberts-made use of a striking expression in the police court. Describing a row in which she was mixed up, she told the bench, I was one against fifteen of them—I was like a :fly in a den of lions." Botheration," exclaimed an irate Welsh housewife to her husband, after the potatoes had been spoiled for dinner I can never make that girl do what I tell her. She puts the food on the fire and expects it to shout out when it is readv. An old lady, after an absence from home, was horrified to find that a favourite parrot had ac- quired a large vocabulary of oaths, and she forthwith adopted strong measures to correct this objectionable habit. Whenever the bird transgressed he was summarily plunged into a bath of cold water, and then left to smooth his ruffled plumage at the fireside. One wet after- noon, when the parrot had gone through this experience, his mistress found a poor little sparrow, almost dying of exhaustion, at the back door, and began to feed it in a warm corner be- side the fire. The parrot looked on critically for some minutes, and then called out to the tiny visitor, Did you say d-, too?" Among the many difficulties experienced by rarlway officers in efficiently maintaining the elaborate services of trains run for the con- venience of the public, perhaps this narrative, given in the "Great Western Railway Magazine, is one of the most remarkable. In North Wales there is a section of single line worked on the electric train staff system. A short time ago, when the signalman tried to draw a staff from the instrument in order to despatch a train,' he was unable to do so. This was at 9.45 p.m., and the failure of the instrument lasted for nearly five hours. During this period a pilotman had to be employed, which method of working—as all railwaymen know-is both expensive and provocative of delays. Investigation as to the cause of the failure elicited an extraordinary ex- planation. A small fly had crept into the in- strument and apparently died while in the act of examining the delicate mechanism of one of the contacts, leaving its tiny body as-an insuper- able barrier to the passage of the electric cur- rent. We have heard from other countries of trains being held up by myriads of locusts col- lecting on the rails, but it is a most exceptional circumstance for a solitary insect to interfere with the efficient working of a railway.

CAKES AND PUDDINGS.—No. 41. This makes an excellent pudding for a warm day, and is one of the Cakeoma prize recipes. TANSY PUDDING. Sent by Miss Kennedy, Highgate, London, N. packet Cakeoma. 2 oz. Butter. 3 or 4 Apples. 1 Egg. 1 21 J pint Milk and pinch of Salt. 5 pint Cream or some Custard. ;i METHOD: -Cook the Apples, and press them through a sieve, sweeten to taste, and let them get cold. Rub the Butter into the Cakeoma, and add the Milk a little at a time until the whole is a creamy batter. Prepare a deep buttered pie dish and pour in half the batter, then half the Apple pulp, and then the remainder of the batter, and bake a light golden brown. Turn out and allow to get cold, then spread over it the remainder of the Apples whip the Cream very stiff and arrange it on top of the Apples. If Cream is not available, Custard may be used instead. Cakeoma is sold in 3-,Ild. packets by Grocers and Stores everywhere. Recipe Book will be sent post free, on request to Latham and Co., Ltd., Liverpool. I