The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1881.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3911, 12 July 1881, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1881.

Thb poet Burns wrote of " man's inhumanity to man," but the Thames» we should have thought, would have been the last place to exemplify the assertion. Yet such is the case, for the treatment to which the poor fellow: James Beatty was subjected last night was the most inhuman and cruel possible. People seem to lose their" senses when once an infectious disease is. mentioned, and it only requires to'inen; tion the matter to set them qflfj Isfid cause them to do the most inconsiderate of actions. The majority of the people, who were brought into contact with the man referred to, last night, if we are to believe all we hear, acted most foolishly and without sufficient warrant s—in5 —in fact, Captain Moore, of the Patiki, did the only charitable action, that of giving the man a passage to the Thames from Te Aroha. The facts are simple : The man, believing himself suffering from diptheria, and told so by a Dr Harvey at Te Aroha, determined to go to the Thames Hospital for treatment. He applied to Captain Moore, who gave him a passage down ; but while waiting at the Shortland wharf for a cab, it got abroad that he was suffering from scarlet fever. The Hospital refused to take him in ; the doctor was referred to, but he appears to have been as mad as any of the rest, and of course took it for granted that the man had scarlet fever, and advised his removal to a house whose inmates were suffering from that disease. (A cool proposal, to attempt to turn a man's dwelling into an hospital just because his child had an infectious disease !) The Mayor was next brought on the scene: but the man came from the County, therefore Mr Hollis, County Clerk, was the proper person to apply to —no thought for the sufferer at all, just because he lived the other side of Grey street. Mr Mason, Believing Officer, was next pulled out of bed to keep the poor fellow company. Mr Hollis, we must say, acted wisely and promptly and ordered such steps to be takeu as were thought advisable," without a question as to cost, which the County, he asserted, would pay willingly; so it ended that the poor man, after knocking about the township for three or four hours, every chance given him to get really iil enough to cause his death, at last was put into a cold room at the old Court House in Shortland. We leave our readers to imagine anything more cruel, more unkind or inhuman to a feliow creature, a stranger and one suffering from sickness—and all because he was said to be sick of scarlet fever. Why, if it were leprosy or small pox, the sufferer could not have been subjected to worse treatment. Yet, even after the man-was in bed, and had been visited by Dr Payne, that worthy could not then say that the man was suffering from scarlet fever. Why bad if; not been determined at first .what disease the patient was suffer? iag from, instead of subjecting him to a course of treatment of itself sufficient to make a healthy man ill? The result of a consultation held this mornfog is that the man haa not scarlet fever, and he has been ordered to the Hospital for Ireatment.