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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2794, 8 March 1882, Page 2

Qui s’excuse, s' accuse. The apologists for the Timaru Hospital authorities would do better if they were to frankly own (what is really the case, viz,) that the said authorities have allowed mattersto proceed in the old jog-trot style until they cannot go on any longer. It is within our own knowledge that the Commissioners have been experimentalising and squandering their funds for no better purpose than to encourage scientific experiment.. It is also within our knowledge that every resident surgeon the Hospital has had has been unable to inhabit the rooms with comfort, or even safety. With the laudable view of putting an end to the nuisance one or two boards were lifted here and there. Noses were on the alert, but wherever a board was lifted everything was found sweet and wholesome. The Commissioners never dreamt of taking up the whole flooring. Such a measure would bo far too revolutionary, and stinks are better than a disturbance of the Conservative calm that has so long prevailed. We are not of the number of those who would endeavor to throw cold water on, or obstacles in the way of, those who discharge the onerous and thankless duty of looking after our public institutions. Had it been merely a quarrel with the doctors, or any embarrassment involving technical considerations, we should have thought nothing of it. But,that a charitable Institution,reared at great expense, on which architect’s fees have been lavishly expended to an amount quite in inverse proportion to the results attained should, literally, stink in the nostrils of the inmates, surely calls for castigation.