DEPLORABLE STATE OF MATTERS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2325, 4 June 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEPLORABLE STATE OF MATTERS.

A well-informed correspondent, on whom (says the Scotsman) reliance may be placed, writes : —An epidemic of fever of a malignant type has broken out in Glen, Island of Tabbay, parish 6f Barra, and many of the houses in the township have several inmates struck down. The conduct of the people and of the sanitary authorities has been disgraceful, and the circumstances of the cases are most, distressing. One man, named Allan M'lutyre, a widower, died about midnight on Friday,' lSth inst. He and two of his children occupied one bed, their only attendant being another child, a young boy, who was himself only recovering from the disease. He was so weak that after his father's death he was unable to lift the other children from the bed, and there they lay beside their father's corpse until 6 p.m. on Saturday, when assistance came. A coffin was procured, and on Sunday the children, with their own hands, managed to coifiu the body, and then dragged the coffin out at the door, whence it was carried away and buried, no one venturing to enter the house. In another house Andrew Sinclair, his wife, father-in-law, and sister-in-law are all. lying ill, with no one to attdndthem but a child of five or six years. The disease is attributed to want, overcrowding, anel dirt, bat the local sanitary authorities have done nothingl the police constable being the only man who seems to have any humanity and any energy to act in the painful circumstances.