THE CASE OF THE LATE WM. AMOS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 115, 14 May 1908, Page 3

THE CASE OF THE LATE WM. AMOS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Having received inquiries as to why we did not accommodate the late Wtn. Amos, I would be grateful if you would allow mc to explain our position exactly with regard to this unfortunate case. On Saturday, May 9th, we were rung up from the Kingscourt boarding house, asking if we would send a conveyance for a sick man. who needed The Matron who answered the telephone) replied that we had no bed in the house with the exception of fourenny bunks, and that we could not put a sick man in one of these. In spite of this, the poor fellow was told to go down to the Army, and it would be all right. When the man arrived the Matron tcld him we could not take him in, and advised him to go to the hospital. These are the bare facts of the case, as far as \va are concerned. I would like to explain, for the benefit of the public, that the fourpenny bunks are situated in a dormitory, and to put a man in the last stages of consumption in a room with eighty other men would have been cruel to the man, and utterly wrong to the other men, who would thereby have been exposed to the gertns of a most awful infectious disease. Wo could not do it. Neither will the health laws of our country permit it.—l am, etc., J. J. TO'OMER, Manager. The People's Palace, May 14, 1908. [In connection with this case, the proprietor of the Manukau Hotel explains that when the deceased applied at that hotel every bed was full, and there were besides three shakedowns in use. Apart from that, the applicant, being in the last stages of consumption, the hospital was obviously the right place for him. His condition was such that he could not receive proper attention in any private boarding-house, nor would a board-ing-house keeper who had not special accommodation for such cases be justified in taking him in.—Ed.|