CORRESPONDENCE.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 30, 27 April 1878, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

We arc always willing to givo insertion to letters of explanation or interest, but wo wish it to bo distinctly understood that wo do not endorse tho opinions oxprossed, or lnnguago used, by our correspondents. Our ideas of passing events will bo found in our local or editorial columns. TO THE EDITOR OF THE SAMOA TIMES. Sir, —Another sad dynamite accident on Saturday last leads me to address, through tho medium of your paper, an appeal to tho merchants of Apia, uud our three Consuls. Thus is now the soventh dynamite accident which has happened in this group, and is the most serious of all. Tho unfortunate sufferer was brought to me with his right hand blown to pieces, his left hand with only two fingers remaining, and his face, neck, and chest very soverely burnt. Could any of the dynamite-sollers have seen the mangled stump of what had been his right hand, with nothing left beyond the wrist but a few mangled fragments of skin and flesh and the long drawn-out white sinews hanging down, I fancy tho sight would have made them resolve nevor to sell tid. worth of dynamito again. Surely the trade in this artiolo has not a single argument to justify it, and those who sell itknow that its indiscriminate sale is prohibited in nil countries where thorp is a stablo government. It ..renin to mr that tlio.lo who soil it, after the e\pericnoe we hn\* had of it

here, are almost guilty of culpable homicide. Some one will reply thai i: Jieople teill buy it, and use it oarelesslv, the blame lies solely with them unci not with the seller. This is true in a | measure, but I maintain that tho ratio of accidents from the use of dynamite in I fishing is so fearfully great in proportion ' to the number of those who use it as to (prove that the sale of it is really culpable. Those who sell it are, for a few paltry cents profit, putting it In the power of those, to use this article, who have not the strength to resist the temptation, and in too many instances at the cost of limb; —yes, and of life too. Fortunately no lives "have yet been lost in Samoa from these accidents, but that has been, humanly speaking, because the unfortunate sufferers have been successful in obtaining the aid of a surgeon. In the one case which 1 did not attend to personally I was able to secure the kind attentions of the surgeons of H.M.S. Sapphire. But the time may yet come when no surgeon is at hand and then, in all probability, the result will be a painful death like that of the recent Governor of Vavau.

These seven men have among tliem lost seven right hands, one leftjhand. one right eye, and portions of two ljwer jaws. Surely it is time the slaughter ceased. I appeal then in the name of oomuion humanity—to take no higher ground—to all our merchants to stop the sale of the article ; and to our respected Consuls to stop the sale of it by outsiders, viz., by the captains and supercargoes of vessels trading here, and trusting that this appeal will not be made in vain,

I am, sir, Yours kc, Gko. A. TURSEB, M.D, CM, Apia, 25th April, 1878.