CONDITIONS IN CAPETOWN.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16426, 21 January 1919, Page 2

CONDITIONS IN CAPETOWN.

"B VTTLE WITH WHOLESALE death."

IT Turner Australian Red Cross - J Capetown, in a letter Commissioner at Cape from a Melbourne doctor # rTtf thc S wnditiJ»s in Capetown cr & " p " e "' "There is a r '^L. tion> but as the to the n ! an , ne } virulent in Sierra disease liad bee . ber there seems Leone early m p down the ( little doubt it "" 1 ;\ nd appear- . "f • , co ,"ht ttis- rffi»« » f ed in this .11 however, caus- > l,at a r wpa""s to. •*« ms any a FP?' e " Octo ber its pneudead were pick°anie ' IL toijtav public alarm, the were made to all p becanie so r p d ,i i™ that Nothing ncrly »I> proaching a collapse took place in dead were cvorywhere-some-time? four or more in a house, mixed •+l. +Uo livinf who were too ill to s2t = b x° d «p~ curable for coffins, while men to vioiu up what there was were not available. Graves could not be dug fast enough, and at the close of each day hundreds of bodies were unbuned— usually un-coffined—-in the houses and morgues. The traffic in Sir Lowry road, the main avenue to the cemeteries soon became by day practically an stream of funerals, # fed by the croas streets from No. 6 District, Woodstock, and Salt river—a few hearses, manj waggons carrying six or more coffins, hand and mule cart*, many stretchers, and, saddest of all, many bodies of the verv young sewn up in somo old cloth, earned in men's arms. So extensive was the infection that all the ordinary utilities of urban life were suspended for lack of the necessary labour, and for some days business had to cea.se, and the streets, but for funerals, were deserted. The'authorities did their best, but in this unprecedented battle with wholesale deatli they were hopelessly outmatched, and it was not until the sound citizens, women aniT men, recovering rapidly from the first shock, got together and formed district relief committees for the distribution of food and medicines and advice that any abatement of the scourge was apparent. Many went down in this great work, and some laid down their lives in the service, but in the end their self-denying labour of feeding and cleansing the poor, ministering to the sick and encouraging the we'll, won the day so surely that in little more than three weeks the death rate, though still above normal, was enormously reduced. Perhaps the figures of this visitation are more terrible in their significance than thoso of any similar occurrence in our time. The average death rate in the peninsula is Bto 10 per day. During the bubonic plague of some years ago it rose to 30 per day, while for several days in the first fortnight of the past October it stood at over 600 per day. The correct totak will never be known, but it is a conservative estimate that at least 8000 people died in: Capetown and suburbs during the first three weeks of the month, or practically 10 per cent, of the total population.''