AUCKLAND HAPPENINGS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 14 November 1918, Page 2

AUCKLAND HAPPENINGS.

[From Our Own Correspondent]. Auckland, Nov. 8. A TERRIBLE VISITATION. The Hon. G. W. Russell, idk Auckland this week, says thav while the influenza is in evidence all over the Dominion this city of ours is the danger centre. Our position is 'certainly an unenviable one. It is not the influenza that kills the patients ; it is the pneumonia that follows influenza in such a regrettably large number of cases that is the principal cause of the trouble. And Mr Russell declares that in 90 per cent of these cases of pneumonia supervening it is occasioned by the neglect of the patient to follow the advice of his medical adviser. Unfortunately, owing to the shortage of doctors in Auckland, a very considerable number of patients have no medical adviser. And in innumerable other /cases the patient cannot afford to lay up. I have, heard of cases of shopgirls who, attacked by the " flu," have gone home and gone to bed for a , couple of days, but dared not risk remaining away from their billets any longer, and I have heard, also, of drivers of tradesmen's carts continuing to work although so ill they could hardly hold the reins and have actually fallen off their carts. It is the people with money and leisure who come off

best in a time like this. They can afford to lay up until all danger is passed. And when you have a really bad attack of "flu" you must lay vp —or run the risk of pneumonia or bronchitis. LIQUOR AND INVALIDED I SOLDIERS. The first /prosecution in the Dominion Jbf a hotelkeeper for supplying liquor to soldiers undergoing hospital treatment eventuated in Auckland this week when the licensee and the barman of the Caledonian Hotel, near Grafton Bridge, were charged with supplying liquor to two soldiers from the Hospital Annexe. The offence was admitted, but both defendants pleaded ignorance of the regulation. The soldiers, who limped slightly, wore no distinctive uniform. They both said , they were unaware of the regulation. Council for the defence urged that there was nothing whatever in the soldiers' appearance to suggest that they were hospital patients. The Magistrate said the licensee should have known of the regulation, and fined each of the defendants 40s and costs. It is, of course, important that the regulation with regard to supplying intoxicants to men undergoing medical treatment ' should be observed. At the same time it must be admitted that it is not an easy matter for any licensee to tell at a glance that men not wearing uniform and only slightly lame should not be served. The Caldeonian Hotel is a busy house and it would be the easiest thing in the world for men in civilian dress to enter the bar, walk up to the counter, and come to a standstill without the fact that they were limping a little when they caipe in being observed. The law apparently throws the onus entirely on the hotel people, just as it does in the case of prohibited persons. Probably scores of drunkards are prohibited in each of the principal centres of the Dominion every year, and although they, or any of them, may be perfectly sober and well-behaved when, in defiance of the order out against them, they enter a bar and call for liquor, the licensee and his assistant must recognise them, at once, as being prohibited and refuse to serve them—or take the consequences—which may be serious. AT LAST! Since the foregoing portion of this letter was written the authorities have decided to close at once all places of public amusement during the epidemic. Also billiard saloons, hotel bateclubs, schools, etc., in fact, aJRf places where people are likely tSP congregate. This trouble has got" to be fought, and d&perate diseases demand desperate remedies, and unless most energetic measures are adopted to stamp it out the consequences may be far more serious than they are already.

Read the Health Department's notices re influenza-warning* and precautions. More than 60,000 ministers of the