The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, JUNE 25, 1903. A TASMANIAN CRIME.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 925, 25 June 1903, Page 2

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, JUNE 25, 1903. A TASMANIAN CRIME.

II would Lie a good thing if occasionally States could be punished according to their deserts, in which case (hi! punishment, to he meted out to Tasmania would lie severe indeed. •That beautiful garden of the Commonwealth, the fair spot to which thousands /lock every year to enjoy its recuperating gifts, has permitted itself to become a low pest-house—a dirty slum among clean States, and a disseminator of vile disease. We. can all. sympathise with the State that is alilieted with an outbreak of contagious disease; hut there can he no language too strong to apply to a .State that not, only neglects all ordinary precautions, but actually shows extraordinary carelessness in allowing a pestilence to stalk abroad Of such a crime against civilisation, Tasmania has been guilty. The cable tells us that fifteen persons recovering from small-pox, and liable to spread the disease in all ‘directions, were liberated from the hospital—an evidence of the bad fruit borne is given in the fact that a number of fresh cases have broken out. Among the patients is the house surgeon of I he. hospital at Launceston. When

a State can be so neglectful of its duty to civilisation it. deserves lo ■stiller a bitter lesson. The. prompt precautions taken in this colony after the little oversight at the outset saved us from a. disastrous outbreak, but the need to be ever watchful js shown by the scandalous neglect in

Tasmania, and in regard to that Stale there must in future be grave suspicion.