19 OCTOBER 1907, Page 2

We have received a copy of the Central African Times,

published at Blantyre on August Slat, containing a strong article on the connexion of sleeping-sickness with the tsetse- fly. The arguments of the writer. may be thus briefly sum- marised. The tsetse-fly is admitted to be the carrier of sleeping-sickness amongst human beings, and tsetse-sickness amongst domestic animals,—diseases which cause terrible mortality amongst the natives, and render stock-raising an absolute impossibility. The only way to combat the evil is to lessen the tsetse-infected areas, and this can only be done by settlement, cultivation, the destruction of the bush, and the driving out or killing of the big-game. As a matter of com- mercial policy, as well as in the interests of humanity, big. game must be sacrificed. " Therais no doubt," continues the writer, "that the opening up and settlement of this country was inevitably tending to the • extermination of the larger game, but the natural process has been arrested by the action of the 'Administration in limiting the number Of 'animals allowed to be shot by European sportsmen, by the prohibition' of native hunting without a license, and by the preservation ' of such species as the eland arid the buffalo,—two of the worst offenders as regards tsetse in the whole list." The article concludes with a vigorous appeal for a radical change of the .present policy in the interests of natives and Europeans alike.