Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] Being the extended title of the Wairarapa Daily, with which it is identical. TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1892. TYPHOID IN WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4069, 22 March 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] Being the extended title of the Wairarapa Daily, with which it is identical. TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1892. TYPHOID IN WELLINGTON.

Lately many rumours have reached tho country of tlie prevalence of typhoid fever m Wellington, but even these have hardly prepared us for the startling state of things which is dis* dosed by our Wellington Correspondent in his news-letter elsewhere in this issue. The word" disclosed" is used advisedly, for we have distinct reason to believe that not only are our correspondent's statements absolutely free from exaggeration, but that as far as the city press is concerned there has been almost more than a desire to avoid the creation of unnecessary alarm-that with every fact available there has been an unwise reticence on the subject, , approaching, in short, a tendency to " hush things up," With close upon 1 fifty cases of typhoid in the Wellington Hospital and with many more on the private lists of the city doctors, it should be no longer possible for the most infatuated Wellington citizen to close his eyes to the faot that in the absence of a scientific and complete drainage system in the metropolis, there exists a certain generator and conductor of disease of the' most fell type. Wellington people are indeed slumbering over a volcano, and matters have become so serious that, viewing the apathy and of the past whenever the drainage question has been the subject of either consideration or action, it is time they were roused to a sense ,of the danger of their repose, and nothing is more likely to cause prompt and welladvised proposals to be drawn up, Itnd to secure in their favour the vote of the citizens they will vitally benefit, than a recognition and admission of the necessity for instant action. Wellington has, indeed, been tinkering with experiments in eleotrio lighting; and certainly as yet, the only result has heen to depreciate a good water supply for a bad light, for it is admitted that at times the supply of water in Wellington is now dangerously short through the strain: put upon it of supplying motive power to Mi De Castro's absorbent luminant. Although the result of Wellington's fiegleot of adequate sanitary drainage is. proving disastrous enough, its malignant effects ip ypt well within control; still it will not do tp fe,od and harbour the disease fiend a day longer than is necessary: to do so is simply to cater for the epidemic which sooner or later will set in. 'Perhaps tjje evidence that it is useless to longer deny the unhealthy and hazardous state of their oity-pusfld solely by neglect—and foolhardy, to blind themselves to the danger ot the situation, may : rouse the Wellington people to cope with the question. > Or perhaps the knowledge 'that their gruesome conditionis known, to their neighbours, may have greater efiect than more momentous motives. .To refrain from' facing' the insidious, enemy is to harbour a sltelgton in the cupboard,