AUCKLAND HAPPENINGS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 28 November 1918, Page 3

AUCKLAND HAPPENINGS.

[ fFROM Our Own Cor respondent]. Auckland, Nov. 22. GETTING IT UNDER. Auckland, usually so busy and bright, has been "' under a cloud " for several weeks, but the indications, at the.time of writing, are that the worst is now over, and 8 it is hoped that things will soon return to normal. It has been— and still is, to a a lesser extent — a terrible time. A local paper estimates xhe number of deaths from influenza and its complications, occurring at various city hospitals to date, at 600.^ To these must be added the deaths which have taken place in boarding-houses, hotels, nursing homes, and private houses. Probably it is not exaggerating the situation if the deaths are put, approximately, at fully 1200.

WHAT THE EPIDEMIC HAS REVEALED. One result of the scourge . has been to show that our beautiful " Queen City " is not; without its slums. The noble band of workers who, at the risk of their own health if not of their lives, have penetrated to these unsavoury quarters of the city have seen things that ought not to exist in a young country; they have found men and women and little children surrounded by dirt and squalourand misery almost beyond belief, prostrated, by the epidemc, and in many cases without food, or medicine, or anyone to minister to them in their sore need.

A PERPETUAL MENACE. The existence in Auckland of so many delapidated and insanitary dwellings is a standing menace to the city. The present outbreajjiof influenza is proving serious enough. But suppose the plague came here, or a bad outbreak of smallbox were to occur? In either of those cases we might safely reckon the deaths not at a few hundreds, as in the present instance, but by the thousand. I understand that the sanitary inspectors employed by the civic authories are not empowered to enter any dwelling. They can only deal with backyards, and so forth. If that is so the sooner their powers are enlarged, and they are authorised to demand admission to any building whatsoever, the better. THE CLOSING OF THE BANKS. The sudden closing of all the Banks of the Dominion for a week, practically without notice, has occasioned an immense amount of inconvenience to Auckland business people. How ever necessary or advisable the closure may have been in other centres it was certainly not necessary in this city, which, the first of;the principal centres to be seriously affected by the epidemic is the first to show signs that so far as it is concerned the epidemic is passing away. What are the larger firms here to do with their cash takings during the week that the Banks remain shut up? —trust to their safes. That is all they can do. And what are the workers who are told,this week-end that because the Banks are closed there is no money available. to pay them their week's wages?—go without. And this at a time of general sickness when money is more precious than ever!

A BUSY TIME AHEAD. Notwithstanding the gloom caused by the epidemic in our amidst there appears to be every prospect of a large influx of visitors from the country and other centres during the Xmas holidays, J understand that there is a brisk enquiry for hotel accommodation for the festive season, one of the big hotels having booked every available corner for Christmas week. It is to be hoped that before Christmas arrives Auckland will be what the Health Department calls " a clean city," and I think there is every probability that this will be so. For several Christmases past and gone our merrymaking has been over* shadowed by the war. But for the havoc wrought by the this coming Christmas would have been a brighter and happier one than Auckland has- known since war broke out. But death has been busy in too many of our homes lately to make Christmas 1918 quite what it would have been under happier circumstanf7es. And, in any case, our joy at the termination of the war must be tempered by qur sqrrqw

that so many of our boys have fallen in the great struggle for Liberty and Justice.

KISSING OBJECTED TO. A local paper suggests the abolition of kissing, on sanitary grounds, and recommends as a substitute for osculation —what do you think? the handshake! There aTe, of course, people one could refrain from kissing (were the practice prohibited), without exercising any self-denial worth mentioning. Ladies, for example who are accustomed to embrace each other when they meet, although they may be the merest acquaintances, ought not to find it very difficult to dispense with kissing. But how about engaged couples ? Would the handshake be considered a satisfactory substitute by candidates for matrimonial bliss V Kissing may be an insanitary practice, but I rather fancy it has come to stay all the same. WHO GETS THE PROFIT? With hundreds of sick people, in a feverish condition, and longing for oranges and lemonade, the demand for citrus fruits in Auckland has naturally been very heavy lately. Before the price of oranges and lemons was fixed at 3d apiece as much as 6d and even 8d each was demanded, in some cases, for these fruits. Who get the profit ? On Tuesday a man purchased half-a-dozen oranges at city fruiterer's and paid 2s for them. Subsequently he returned and asked for a refund of 6d. This was refused, the shop-keeper declaring that he could not make any rebate. Told that he was compelled to sell at 3d each the fruiterer remained unconvinced. So the customer requested to be served with a4d orange, and paid that price for it in the presence of a witness. The subsequent development will be awaited with interest. Meantime the principal of a large firm of fruit auctioneers gives an emphatic denial to the report that quantities of oranges and lemons have been placed in cool store in order to inflate prices. Oranges, of course, come to Auckland from the Islands and Sydney. But plenty of lemons are grown locally. It would be interesting to know what the growers are at present receiving for their lemons. Is it Is per dozen ?