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Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3752, 6 January 1881, Page 2

The inquest yesterday, and the verdict of the jury has given rise to a considerable amount of comment. There is no doubt whatever, according'to the testimony of three qualified medical men that midwives should not be allowed to conduct a case such as the one which caused the inquest. So long as ISTature does all that is required for the invalide, the attention given by an inexperienced person is sufficient, but in a case wh|re grave apprehensions of danger exist it is simply ridiculous and wicked to entrust it to a person who has not undergone a special course of training, and any woman who has the self-confidence to undertake it is guilty, to say the least, of culpable selfconceit. As Dr Eilgour remarked yesterday, by entrusting such a case as the one referred, to to an unskilled midwife the life" of the invalide is placed in jeopardy. Hundreds of cases' of the same nature, and attended 'by the same deplorable consequences, have taken place, and juries have again and again protested against the employment of unskilled women in order to save a fee, or from false notions of delicacy, but their riders have had no effect on the legislation in'connection with the subject. It is quite time Parliament took action in the matter, and passed an Act absolutely forbidding the employment of unskilled mid wives in cases where the slightest symptoms of danger are apprehended. There is little doubt Hhat had medical assistance been called in, we should not have had the deplorable necessity of reporting tbe decease and subsequent inquest of a lady whose precious life we fear was sacrificed through the self-confi-dence and stubbornness of a woman totally unfitted to discbarge the difficult duties connected with the case.

As will be seen • from a paragraph in another column a slight fire was discovered yesterday morning in the premises occupied some time ago by Kaithby, Muir and Co. The owner is much to blame in allowing these dangerous .premises to.remain, as they are a source of- apprehension to the neighbors. Larrikins find in spot a congenial

place for enjoying the fragrant fumes of tobacco, and polite conversation, and their proverbial carelessness in the use of lucifers renders a fire by no means improbable. It will be remembered that it was only a short time since there was a fire on the same premises.