The Tauranga Argus.

Tauranga Argus and Opotiki Reporter, Volume 1, Issue 4, 15 December 1866, Page 2

The Tauranga Argus.

s " Sworn to no master- — " Of no sect am I."

SATURDAY, DECEMBER, 15.

In another eolumn will he found 2, \ letter from a correspondent relative : to the melancholy end of the sailor, Edward Elliot, which we reverted to in our last impression as heing dangerously ill The poor fellow after suffering the intensest agonv died 111 the Court House 011 Thursday at 110011. The case of this ma 11 ... develories painfully a systein . sustained with crejlit uotil recently, | in Tauranga, tliat is,. of military and civil hospital aceommodation.A very meagre cortege passed our office door, and a train of tlioughtful surmises were hrought to mind. It will be in the recollection of many of our readers the death of Kelly, who died in a shed in West Quoen street, Auckland. He refused to he taken to the Hospital : hut here we have a case of a 111 an ho is actually refused in a dying state admission into the Hospital. On this subject we do liot speak from hearsay, for gentlemen can he produced, who went to the Hospital authorities and requested that he he admitted, and were refused point blank. We also wish to bring prominently forward auother matter in connection with this sad case. On some medicine heing required necessary, in order to save or prolong his life they were refused. We are , ashamed to acknowledge the fact thatwe ourselves made an application for two men to assist in looking after poor Elliot, and likewise refused by the officer in temporary eommand. His answer to us being 4 I'll see about it,'— which of course hedidnotdo. When the application was made, (and as we wish to exonerate the doctor), who was absent at the time, no blame can be .attached : but we believe had Colonel Hamilton been here, Elliot would

have been admitted into the Hospital. It is a lasting disgrace to us. , and one that we trust, as long as we live in a Christian eountry never again to see repeated. It has heen told us that a Distriet Hospital wa& ahout to he established in Te Papa, and that there in fnture would be all necessary assistanee rendered in sucli a case as it has heen our duty to record— but let us pause, has the life of Elliot been imraolated on the score of military red tapism, or was it that the man himself preferred to seek assistanee from a stranger. His case, from the utter inability of anything approaching to self-assistance, is the more glaringly disgraceful. Had it not heen for assistanee, rendered freely, and with a holy Christian spirit, Edward Elliot* must have lain do.wn in the streets and died. All honor to those who did wliat lav in their power to achieve, and when Death, that dreaded monster, knocks at the door they will he consoled with the reflection, that I did it ! " even to one of these/' i — _l — uli —