The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1874.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1489, 18 November 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1874.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong Ui&t needs resiutanceb For the future in the distance. Aad the ceod that yre ctn do.

While we earnestly hope that the malady of scarlatina will be stamped out on Motuihi, it will be of some interest to know to what circumstances we are indebted for its introduction. And when we say that it was through the grossest and most culpable carelessness on the part of the immigration authorities at home, we say that which will not take many by surprise. It appears that it was carried on board the Hydaspes by a family among whom the existence of scarlatina was known to those in charge of the despatch of immigrants. This family had been placed on board the ship Douglas, bound for Wellington. Previous to the actual departure of that vessel from the shores of England, but while she was under way, the symptoms of the disease had been discovered in one of the children, and in consequence the whole family had been stopped and placed on board of a quarantine vessel. There they were detained for three weeks, and then placed on shore again. After being but a single day on land they were transferred on board the Hydaspes, which immediately sailed, and it was among the members of that family and on their boxes being opened out that the disease first broke out on board. There is no possibility of mistaking the link of connection between cause and effect in this case, and it will be but simple justice if Captain Babot can establish his claim against the Government for the detention of his ship and all other loss and damage contingent on the sickness and quarantine. It appears that scarlatina,

measles, and various other contagious diseases of a virulent type are rampant in the districts in which intending immigrants are temporarily lodged before embarkation, and the wonder is that Dr Featherston's cargoes of human beings are not decimated befolre they reach our shores. The moafc 'Culpable negligence appears to perv&ae the whole arrangements, while Dr Featherston, with the serene dignity of an oriental nabob, cares for none of these things. We have heretofore been singularly exempt in Auckland from the visits' of peat ships, but this has been more of good luck than of good guidance, and it is evident that until some other and effective arrangements are made whereby selected immigrants may be kept apart from contamination for a reasonable period before embark-

ing, our quarantines must become very important institutions in our immigration System. We earnestly hope that Captain Babot's claim for compensation will be pressed, and if it carve no other general purpose, it will at least awaken public attention to the gross and culpable negligence that exposes hundreds of unoffending men and women and children, couped up for months between the sides of a ship, to sickness and possible death.