A QUESTION OF HEALTH.

Evening Star, Issue 3639, 21 October 1874, Page 2

A QUESTION OF HEALTH.

To the Editor. Si R,—“Coming events cast their shadows before. ’ Ihe mortality in Uunedin will this approaching summer increase to a considerable rate, far beyond what the statistics have heretofore indicated, unless active measures are, at once taken to prevent the contagion that must of necessity arise from the nightsoil exposed and accumulating in this crowded, if not over-crowded City, sleeping with my window p irtly open, I was awoke the other morning by an intolerable steach arising from the nightsoil being removed. Figures would alarm were the quantities t u lg 7^ oil given in P ro P° r tioii to the area of the City; but some;hing more than alarm would be experienced were it possible to give an analysis showing the extent to which the air we breathe day and night is vitiated by the exposed nightsoil. I write this with the view of arousing public attention to the existence of a lurking deadly enemy that if not speedily grappled with, will swell the number of premature graves. Being only a few months a resident in Dunedin, L am not a public man ; otherwise 1 should agitate to prevent not merely the. nuisance, but the effects—the bloodpoisoning effects-of the exposed nightsoil. it is a serious matter, and should he dealt with at once. No doubt there are difficulties; but it is a case of necessity, and necessity has no law but the law of necessity, hauitary measures must claim a first place. The early morning air is not so pure as it ought to be in Dunedin. The few fine mornings that 1 have been able to take a walk at sunrise have not been without the unpleasantness of odors, anything but suggestive of eau-de-cologne works Let any one arise in the morning at five or half-past five, and his olfactory nerves will be sensible of a stench fog overhanging Dunedin.—! am, &c„ Dunedin, October 20. Yita.