TRAGEDY OF THE BACKBLOCKS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10263, 15 June 1911, Page 4

TRAGEDY OF THE BACKBLOCKS.

Every now and then the grim tragedy of life in the hackibJookis, where there iare no doctors', no nurses, no telephones, is brought home to the people of this Dominion, and city folk are made to wonder at the (sacrifices of those who go out into the wilderness to carve for themselves a home. Only the other day a poor woman named Shepperd, living in the roadless country beyond Gtunui, a bush village off the Main Trunk railway, was taken seriously ill, and died a martyr to the exigencies of the bush. The Taihape paper tells a pathetic tale of how (twelve neighbours of the woman ibore the "body on their .shoulders over twelve miles of road to the nearest township. It was a touching sight to see the little procession pass 'along thev.streets, the body, covered with a fug, lying on .the roughlymade stretcher and carried by its four bearers, while the rest of the party marched 'behind—grave-looking settlers' in their working clothes, rendering their last aieighbourly act to (their deceased friend, and not knowing •v.faen they might require the same services themselves. It is a spectacle such as this that drives home to the dullest imagination what isolation means, and urges tEe necessity of breaking down that isolation at all costs. 'Roads,, bridges, and telephones may seem prosaic things, but they are in reality threads on .■.which._ (human>lives are huhgi' r The\ country .should make every sacrifice , to secure these services-for the people. :