MAIDSTONE IN MOURNING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 276, 27 November 1897, Page 3 (Supplement)

MAIDSTONE IN MOURNING.

FIFTEEN HUNDRED TYPHOID CASES IN TEN DAYS. The epidemic of typhoid at Maidstone, which lias in a few days struck down upwards of fifteen hundred persons, killing fifty-four outright, arises entirely from the gross carelessness on the part of the local water authorities. It ishoped,thoug\h scarcely expected, some of the latter will get two years for manslaughter. Certo.iji.ly it would be richly deserved. T! c misery and horror their criminal neglect has caused cannot be even measured yet. The bustling-, prosperoi.s county town has changed in ten days to a desert. All people who could afford to do so have gathered up their families, shut up their houses and fled. Nurses hurry along- the silent streets, and doctors' carriages rattle to and fro. Otherwise the place seems lifeless. Shops are many of them open, but customers are few. The country folk, who ordinarily ci'owd the old-fashioned market place on Saturday, now shun it. The faces of the people reflect the gloom into | which everybody has been plunged— they have that subdued expression which denotes intense anxiety. Maidstone is too small a town to be swept by an epidemic without all its inj habitants having- the gravity of the I situation thrust upon them. When ■it is realised that one person in every ■ twenty-five of the town's population j has been smitten with the malignant I disease it is quite easy to picture the ! consternation which prevails. On the I other hand, it must be said that no panic prevails. In the early days of the outbreak the feverish anxiety, from which panic often springs, prevailed, but the prompt measures taken by the municipal authorities relieved the strain. The townspeople now realise that the authorities are pluckily coping with the epidemic, that all that can be done is being- done, and they are loyally adopting the suggestions and obeying the instruc-

tions issued from the Tovra. Hall. The suggested -precaution of boiling all water and milk used for domestic purposes is being generally adopted, jand it is quite obvious tp sensitive I nostrils that the liberal use of dig* i infectants recommended b5 r the comi mittee is general and consistent. The i leading shopkeepers of the town have j issued joint-circulars assuring- their j customers that typhoid fever is nob infectious, and that they run no risk by entering the business premises in the town. It is to be feared, however, that this effort of the tradesmen, will be of little avail. Infectious or not infectious, people are chary of entering the town so long as they can avoid it. The passion for selfvpre-< servation ignores logic. On Sunday ! the congregations at the churches presented similar evidence of the depression generally prevailing in ths town. Numerically the congregations suffered considerably in many cases, and the services were almost all influenced by the outside gloom. Maidstone preachers have --okeiv, and are still speaking, in no tmmeasured, terms in condemnation of the almost criminal carelessness which has brought about the awful catastrophe. One vicar has solemnly and publicly declined to use the special prayer in, the Prayer Book which refers to the plague as 'a visitation from God' because he believes it to have been caused by the omission of men. There was scarcely a church in which evidence of personal bereavement was not discernible in the costumes of the worshippers. WETWANG-CUM-PEMBA. Who shall decide when experts disagree? A curious and amusing scene occurred at the meeting of a Yorkshire Dialect Society last week. Lord Ripon occupied the chair, and the Rev. E. Maule Cole was learnedly explaining the name of the ancient village of Wetwang-eum-Pemba. He was in a hurry, having to catch a train, so he wound up with the remark: 'What I wanted to tell you was that Wetwang is the one word in the English language that tells you trial by jury came from Iceland. The wetwang was the place in Iceland where they met to transact business and their trial by jury.' Professor Skeat, of Oxford, jumped to his feet at once in horrified protest. 'Wet is wet' he said, 'and wang is wang; plenty of wangs in Lincolnshire. Wang means a field; wetwang1, wet field! Here was a t commonplace pricking of a mystery! What would have happened on discussion one shudders to think, brt the Rev. Mr Cole caught his train, and Wetwang-cum-Pemba stands where it did.