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To measure the prevalence of exposure to potentially modifiable risk factors in the homes of children hospitalised in Wellington.Parents/caregivers of all children admitted to Wellington Public Hospital during a two-week period in July 2012 completed a standardised questionnaire in a face-to-face interview. The questionnaire collected sociodemographic, health and housing condition data.We interviewed parents/caregivers of 106 children, of whom 72% were aged 0-4 years. Respiratory conditions were the most common cause of admission. One third of parents noticed dampness and mould in their house, 50% stated that their house was colder than they preferred during the past month, 20% lived in uninsulated houses, 20% lived in overcrowded houses, and 38% were exposed to second hand smoke (SHS). Compared to New Zealand European (NZE) children, the odds ratios (OR) for Pacific children living in cold and overcrowded houses and being exposed to SHS were 14.0 (95%CI 3.0-66.0), 10.8 (95%CI 2.6-44.1) and 16.0 (95%CI 4.8-55.5) respectively. OR for Maori children living in cold and overcrowded houses and being exposed to SHS were 3.0 (95%CI 1.0-9.0), 6.8 (95%CI 1.6-30.1) and 8.0 (95%CI 2.5-28.6) respectively, compared to NZE children. The OR for children from deprived neighbourhoods (NZDep2006 areas 7-10) living in cold and overcrowded houses and being exposed to SHS were 4.1 (95%CI 1.8-9.6), 5.7 (95%CI 1.9-17.0) and 4.1 (95%CI 1.6-9.6) respectively.Among children admitted to Wellington Hospital there is a high prevalence of exposure to cold, damp and overcrowded houses and many children are exposed to SHS. Maori and Pacific children and children living in socioeconomically deprived areas are more likely than others to be exposed to these potential risk factors for childhood hospitalisation. This audit of child admissions could be repeated to provide surveillance of modifiable risk factors. A shortened version of the questionnaire could be used to screen children to identify those with harmful exposures in their home environment, provided suitable intervention programmes can be established.

T HE Esterhizy castle in Eisenstadt, for a long time a center of Haydn research, still contains a collection of valuable manuscripts which have been more or less bypassed by scholars. At the end of the First World War, when a portion of western Hungary, the Burgenland with its capital Eisenstadt, was allotted to Austria, Prince Esterhizy removed the bulk of his Haydn treasures to Budapest.' However, he left behind the very substantial collection of church music preserved in the Eisenstadt castle. Perhaps he felt it unnecessary to move this music because it was meant for performance and did not contain autographs. In any case, the sacred music of the castle, preserved in beautifully written parts, is still to be found in large cabinets outside the chapel. As was to be expected, this repertory, which is arranged in alphabetical order, includes a considerable number of compositions by Joseph Haydn, among them some surprising items. Neither the political changes nor the years of the Second World War with the subsequent occupation of Eisenstadt by the Russian army seem to have damaged this collection.

RARELY has the honorary title of Doctor of Philosophy been bestowed upon an artist with such well-founded justification as in the case of Johannes Brahms. When in 1879 the University of Breslau named him doctor honoris causa, it was for the great composer that the distinction was intended. The faculty probably did not know that they were simultaneously conferring the honor upon a man who was also entitled to it through the exceptional breadth and profundity of his culture. For Brahms, whose regular schooling had ceased in his fifteenth year, strove from his earliest youth with uncommon fervor to deepen and extend his knowledge. By his thirst for information and his never-flagging industry, this son of a poor musician became an authority esteemed not only by fellow artists but among men of science as well. It was no mere chance that Brahms's circle of friends and acquaintances included scholars like Spitta, Nottebohm, Pohl, Chrysander, Jahn, and Mandyczewski, the music historians, Wendt the philologist, and the famous physicians, Billroth and Engelmann. Already in his early years this hunger for knowledge manifested itself. As a schoolboy Brahms always used his pocketmoney for a subscription to the circulating library; and when, as a youth, he played dance-music in little pubs and pothouses, he would set a book before him on the music-rack, eagerly reading while his fingers mechanically performed the long-familiar tunes. He made diligent use of the library of his teacher, Marxsen. Here for the first time he had the run of a valuable and well-ordered collection of books and music which he studied with the greatest care, copying out in full anything-such as Beethoven symphonies -that particularly interested him. Later on he ransacked the Schumanns' library, as he himself wrote, with great delight (mit grosser Wonne); and he only too gladly undertook the task of arranging its books and music, in order to become acquainted in the process with their contents. During his summer visits to Thun, in 1886-88, he would wander over to his friend Widmann in Bern with a large leather travelling-bag in which to abduct as many books as possible from the house of that widely cultured writer. In the last years of his life, too, he was a frequent visitor

It is a regrettable fact that the opportunities for hearing, or even for studying, the works of Joseph Haydn, still leave much to be desired, and that, in spite of the composer's popularity, to-day not more than a tenth of his music is ever played, and hardly one-third is accessible in print. The remainder is scattered through the world's libraries in manuscript, or in old, exhausted editions.