INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 January 1919, Page 3

INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

The influenza epidemic in South Africa is referred to in the following extract from a letter received by Mr. C. R. Chapman, of IXinedin, from a resident magistrate in the town of Alexandria, not lar from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, dated November 1:—"I must write and tell you of the terrible time we have had, and are still having, here and throughout the district owing to the epidemic of so-called Spanish influenza. It has swept through this little dorpie, leaving not a house that I know of unvisitea, and there have been many deaths both among the Europeans and colored people. The disease has .played, and still is playing, havoc among the colored people and natives. Scores of them have died owing chiefly to their filthy habits and herding together at night in their huts. They cannot be made to understand the edicacy of fresh air and oven rudimentary rules of cleanliness. The consequence is, when once they contract the disease, they stand very little chance of recovery. It is not only this insignificant corner of the Union which is affected, but, as perhaps your papers have reported, the whole country—-Capetown, Port Elizabeth, and al! the large townshave paid a heavy price in mortality, and the end is not yet \V» wtre taken quite unaware, and it was not for quite a week after the outbreak, that any effective means we're obtainable to counteract the scourge."