THE SWIMMING BATH.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 827, 15 February 1877, Page 3

THE SWIMMING BATH.

lo the Editor of the Globe.

Sir,—l have not been able even to feel a little bit funny since I was so catawampously sat upon by Cr Hawkcs on Monday last. As I have been privileged once or twice to listen publicly to that gentleman’s flights of fancy, I can easily imagine from his paternal characteristics how, while he was administering the castigation, he pitied my juvenility; and though following that rigid line of duty he owed to the ratepayers, performed the operation in a “I must be cruel if I would be kind” sort of manner, his mind’s eye at the same time welling freely as he wept while he woppccl me. Of course I can easily under stand how annoying it must be to one who has acted so disinterestedly and solely for the benefit of the citizens in the matter of this bath—l mean since it assumed a pr actical shape, for if my recollection of reading various reports is correct, I think the late Mayor, Cr Ick, and others, took a not inactive part in first promoting the bath movement —who never dreamt of popularity until blessings on his head were echoed throughout the length of the city by the united voices of 1168 persons, backed up by the more substantial £l7 Us 9d; who, when the bath committee was appointed, closely telescoped every foot of the river to find the best site, and having struck Eureka 1 heralded forth with such a flourish of trumpets the suitableness of the present one, and instantly wired in by resolutions to complete the work he had fathered. I can easily understand, I say, after all this, how annoying it must be to find an error of judgment was committed, or at least great want of forethought displayed in not thinking something about the drainage from a public institution standing not 400 yards up stream. The worst of it is that the. error is not admitted, and the evil sought to be burked with pooh • poohs by those who know nothing about the matter because they won’t take the trouble to do so; but as facts are always the best argument, I shall recite a few a little more plainly this time. Here we have it again! “ Enquiries were madewe don’t read investigation, or personal inspection, but always enquiries; and after the enquiries it was then found (when it had been previously supposed that all the 4 4 refuse and stuff” was drained into a large concrete tank, and removed every night) that 44 certain drainage from the new woman’s ward did flow into the river.” From this Cr Hawkes would have us suppose that all the drainage from the Hospital used to flow into this large concrete tank, and that the evil I have been writing of is simply of recent date. Well, gentle public, read this : —This tank was erected solely to receive the washings of the dead-house, from which compartment pipes were only laid to it; that not one drop of the other drainage was ever emptied into it; and that with the exception of the ward I spoke of in my last, every particle of drainage of every description from the whole institution, including the fever wards and wash-house has always drained into the river. This tank was filled in from 'fifteen to eighteen months ago, and tho drainage from the dead-house was then diverted to the river, which has received it ever since. Perhaps you will now think that the medical men who pooh-poohed the idea of any contagion from Hospital drainage must be accepted as rare authorities when they really didn’t know that the result of their labors ip the mortuary Imd gone i u t o the river for the last fifteen qr eighteen months, and that even now they only think the urine and bathings from the new woman’s ■ward drain into it, and iron* PtUer por-

tion of the institution. But how could they be supposed to know. I should think the practice is the same here as elsewhere, that when an honorary member of the staff has gone through his list and prescribed, he has something more important to himself to do than meandering round the premises looking after drainage. We will now see what really does go into the.river. Here is “one more poor unfortunate” who has died of internal abscess. When the post mortem is being made perhaps as much as two gallons of “ virulence” will be taken from the body, and of necessity there will be lying about scraps of human liver, lungs, and intestines. All this will be washed down in a lump and meet the even worse abomination in all its thickness oozing from the wash house channel. We won’t say anything about the other drainage as, with the exception of the fever washings, I should not care much about it, only for its unpleasantness. Well, all this will reach the river, go slowly for about ten yards, when the outcomings from the Antigua street drain, wheezzling lazily along, and quite as bad sometimes, will be fraternised with, and then this matter which, from its very nature alone, would take a very long time with a large body of water before absorption could be looked for, reaches the centre of the current, has only to travel a few hundred yards when it goes through the bath—done in a very few moments—and then, gentle public (including the ladies, for your room is about finished), we are coolly told that this stuff is “ but as a drop in ten millions.” Ugh ! Now lam only a person, and a very ordinary one at that, still I am entitled to one person’s opinion, and it would take the whole of the Christchurch Medical School (I duck three times in deference to the majesty of that body), and the two steamers of our Fire Brigade, playing several airs on me for a long time, to convince me there would be nothing contagious, in a person with a cut through both skins (not professional that) or one with an inflamed eye, coming in contact with such a bed of germs ; and I think I could place the point of my thumb on an authority to whom, in deference, the medical school would even bob. Let us take a more common-place case—for everyone is not favoured either with a cut or sore eye what can you fancy would be the feeling of a bather if, some fine day, he was playing at whales, and blessed with about half the sized mouth I am represented as having in a valentine received last evening, if supposing during the spouting operation he took in a trifle of the “ one in ten millions,” don’t you think his first movement would be to hurry up his toilet, and make straight for the nearest friend, whom he didn’t hold in much esteem, to present him with his monthly ticket '! And you wouldn’t blame him much for his extravagance, would you i More astuteness ! “Or Bird thought the remarks of Cr Hawkes were a very good refutation to the statements that had appeared in the papers,” Citizen Chouki, remembering the foregoing, says, “I think so neither.” Well, at any rate, the “ no doubt intended to be a very funny style” has had the effect only desired—viz, that of directing attention to an evil which must only have increased each day, and which has uoav been taken in hand by the proper authorities. But how in the name of common sense is the nuisance to be remedied in a month, or even in three, four, or live. Where can the drainage from the Hospital be sent but into the river, until the proposed General scheme shall have been initiated at least for some time? Let facts be faced as they exist, fairly investigated, and not pooh-poohed. Perhaps the remedy might be found in the erection of large tanks in different parts of the grounds, which could be emptied nightly; but to carry out this a very large expense would have to be incurred, and as the General Government do not seem to have money for even permanent works, it is somewhat unlikely they would find it for those of a temporary nature, and the expense must then fall upon the district, and would I fancy be in the aggregate—say for seven or eight months—greater to the ratepayers than the £l7 Us 9d received, or Ihe somewhat doubtful benefit derived from the dips. Here I should like everyone to think that I am acting purely from disinterested motives, as personally I should like at a future date to see the banks of the river studded with baths and wash houses. A nuisance was found to exist -this was positively denied; then the denial modified; and now there is an attempt to make the whole appear a “trifle light as air.” This hasn’t washed, nor won’t; for, having heard the plain common sense expression—“ After a post mortem at that hospital I wouln’t bathe in the Corporation baths for twenty pounds”—from one whose practical experience was worth four miles and a half of theories founded on imperfect knowledge of the circumstances, I felt I was simply doing a duty in writing as I did. And I feel sure, in their calmer moments, the first action of the bathing committee when I have seen that everything is all right will be to present me with a season ticket, to be used once a week whether I require it or not. Pomahaka has spoken. Yours, &c, February 14th, Choukiezeb, Jun. P.S.—Please Mr Editor stop the press while I extract a bit of a fad I read in one of this morning’s papers:—“After Monday next hours every day will be set apart for the ladies. Efforts are being made to establish a gentleman’s club in connection with the bath, and a 300 yards race for a silver cup is being arranged for Saturday week.” 0 ! Crickey! February 15th.