QUARANTINE AT AUCKLAND.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2767, 4 February 1882, Page 2

QUARANTINE AT AUCKLAND.

The system of quarantibe now enforced with respect to vessels from Sydney is a conception so prodigious that the name . of its author should be immortalised on the historic roll of New Zealand’s men of genius. This is (says the “Star”) what happened yesterday on the arrival of the Hero, and it is typical of the ordinary course of procedure ;—The steamer arrived off the North Head about a quarter to ten o’clock in the morning. Thereupon, for postal purposes, she was regarded as an infected vessel, which no one must communicate with under pain of the terrible penalties of the Quarantine Regulations, six months’ imprisonment, added to £3OO fine, being among the smallest of the threatened consequences. A boat was accordingly despatched, into which the mails were deposited and towed down to Motuhi, where an actual death from smallpox has lately occurred and a number of people are detained on suspicion of having been exposed to the contagion- Meanwhile the Health Officer went down to the Hero, quietly boarded her, and pronounced her not an infected ship, and she came straight up to the wharf, berthing alongside, landed her passengers with all their unfumigated belongings, opened her hatchways and proceeded to land cargo. The mails could hardly have been landed at Motuhi before the Hero was securely warped alongside Queen street wharf. Packages and letters by hand were delivered hours before the mail came up from quarantine, which was not until late at night. Could anything be more supremely ridiculous ? The vaccination of passengers, which is relied upon to charm away the disease, only adds to the absurdity of the situation. Is it supposed that the virtue of the lymph will not only preserve an infected person, but his tainted baggage from develop-

in" an incipient disease? or is it to protect him from contamination by the people he is coming amongst ? The procedure with the mails is still more unique. They, and the persons in charge of them, are sent from a vessel which the Health officer declares to be clean, to a place where small-pox has been rampant, and which people are prohibited from approaching under the heaviest penalties.