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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2487, 10 March 1881, Page 2

There are still, we regret to-learn, a good many cases of typhoid fever under treatment in Timaru. Experience, the proverb tells us, is always dcarlj r bought. It is to be hoped that the present outbreak of disease will have at least one beneficial effect—that it will teach people that sanitary laws cannot be neglected with impunity, and that when the most ordinary precautions for tho preservation of health are persistently ignored, it can hardly cause surprise that sickness should result. But people are still apathstic. With disease at their very doors they are quite prepared to believe that their next door neighbour may suffer but that they should be personally attacked never seems to enter into their calculations. They still go on allowing heaps of vegetable refuse and other filth to accumulate about their premises heedless as to the consequences such culpable conduct may bring about both to themselves and to their neighbours. The refuse of many households is thrown out in this way “ to save trouble,” and because the occupant of the house does not think it worth his while to request the borough scavengers to remove it. Thrown outside the door the rubbish rapidly accumulates ; then comes rain perhaps, and after that may-be a warm day,and the hoc sun causes the petrifying mass to reek and emit noxious fumes which are wafted in all. directions, carrying tho seeds of disease with them. The rubbish heap is the source of another evil. When liquid is thrown upon it, or it becomes saturated with rain the drainings enter the ground, and very frequently taint the household water supply. Illustrations of the disastrous effects of undrained yards and private rubbish depots abound at present. The hospital is gradually becoming filled with them. Whole households, young and old, master and servant, are on the broad of their hacks —fever-stricken. Inspector Typhoid is doing his annual rounds,and he is no respecter of persons. Neglect of sanitary precautions is bringing tho doctor and the undertaker to usually healthy domiciles. If the residents of Timaru will be warned against allowing rubbish to gather in their yards—often, unfortunately, too small—and if the authorities can be induced to take action against tho owners and occupiers of badly drained and filthily kept premises, they are receiving plenty of warning. There are small hovels in Timaru, occupied by large families, with yards so circumscribed and surrounded with closets that they are little better than pig-styes, and yet the rent demanded for these places is something enormous. It is high time that the Borough Council did their duty, and that for the sake of the health of the population general cleanliness and a due observance of sanitary laws were enforced.