SHELTER SHEDS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 73, 9 January 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

SHELTER SHEDS.

The following letter from a miner at Tua : peka has appeared in the Daily Times Sir —The melancholy fate of Hyde and Love, the last two victims to the severity of the climate on the mountainous regions of this Province, is surely sufficient to attract increased attention to the best means of preventing occurrences of a similar nature, which have been passed over often enough almost without comment. Let us not allow ourselves to grow callous and heedless of such disasters, and to look upon an occasional death from exposure to cold, or from being lost in a snow-storm as an ordinary casualty, which may be lamented, but not prevented or avoided. Nothing is so destructive to all the finer impulses of our nature as the habitual and inactive contemplation of human suffering ; and surely the two inquests lately held at the Manuherikia, with the plain unvarnished tale of the sole survivor, will at last cause such measures to be taken as will satisfy the public mind in the event of any loss of life hereafter from similar causes, that what could be done in the way of prevention or reducing the frequency of such disasters has been effected. The Government have not shown much unwillingness to move in this matter, and money has been spent in erecting poles and cairns for the guidance of those that have lost their way, and to prevent their being buried in the snow drift; these are very well in fair weather, but more, much more is needed. The same want was felt and remedied _ nine years ago in Victoria. There, where the climate is genial, and where for nine months in the year the digger on the tramp can sleep out in all weathers, with little inconvenience, and no danger, where snow is unknown and deaths from exposure unheard of; even in that mild climate the Government considered it necessary and advisable to erect "shelter sheds" at intervals between the different diggings and the metropolis. These were much appreciated by the diggers, and whenever the weather was at all threatening they were crowded. In course of time they were gradually superseded by restaurants and shanties, after having fully answered the purposes for which they were intended. Now if the Victorian Government wisely and humanely studied the comfort of the miners who were developing her vast resources, how much more should our rulers take action in a similar manner, when the very lives of our most enterprising colonists are in continual danger. The population is decreasing in the mining districts, and not the least cause of this falling off is the difficulty and danger of travelling from one diggings to another, without which the digger cannot exist—migration is a part of his very nature. The cost of provisions, through the expense of packing on horseback, is much increased by the hazardous nature of the journey, the danger of which would be much lessened if there were some well-defined resting places, and guide posts directing thereto, erected at intervals along some of the most dangerous tracks. The most feasible plan seems to be to erect huts of stone or turf on the most exposed situations, and to offer some inducements to persons to occupy them. A few acres of land and a spirit license might be granted free to induce parties to inhabit these huts, and the value of them would soon be felt. In most places sods suitable for building these huts are very plentiful, and, where stone could not be procured, would answer very well. Sign-posts would direct to these huts, and with such shelter (even if uninhabited) there are few of our hardy population of diggers, but would weather the storm without much inconvenience.

In conclusion I would call attention to the fact that the cases brought to light through the discovery of and inquest on bodies found in the snow do not form one tithe of the actual sufferers from like causes. The hospitals on the diggings are continually occupied by patients frostbitten or frozen, who are taken care of and cured, whose cases do not appear in the paper, but who perhaps have been almost within the jaws of death for the want of some such provision as I have herein suggested.