DISTORTED NEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 10, 12 January 1934, Page 12

DISTORTED NEWS.

HOSPITAL I NURSES , BEER. 1862 STORY BROUGHT UP TO DATE. News about New Zealand sometimes takes strangely distorted shapes by the time it reaches,the other eide of the world. The latest example of" this is the report that a daily beer allowance is attracting a -large number of applicants for admission to the new Chrisjttihurch Nurses' Homej published in "Pearson's Weekly" (England) of November 4, 1933. Had the reportappeared in 1862 (says the "Press'') it would have been partly correct, but then, of course, there was no nurses' home, and the Christchurch Hospital employed only two nurses. A correspondent forwarded a copy of the report as it appeared in "Pearson's Weekly." This reads ae follows: "There is keen competition among New Zealand nurses to enter the Christchurch Nurses' Home, which has just 'been erected. This is not due to superior comfort but to the fact that the regulations prescribe a pint of beer a day free to each nurse. If they do not take the beer they may have the cash equivalent. But most of the nurses prefer to take the beer!" The correspondent, who signs himself "Cuckoo," asked whether the report was true. The answer is that it is not true. It is recalled that on October 7, 1933, at a ceremony attended by early settlers and others at the new Nurses' Home, Dγ, W. Fox, medical superintenr dent at the hospital, reviewed its 'history, quoting from records compiled by the official historian, Dr. P. Clennell Fenwick. After mentioning that the first hospital was built in 1862, he said that the staff then consisted of two nurses, one laundry maid, and a porter. The nurses drew a 'beer allowance, and the ration was a popular one, apparently, as it was recorded at the end of one month that 41 pints were missing. Somebody in .England apparently decided* to bring this story up to date, and, the wish toeing father to the- j thqught, the Christchureh nurses in 1933 were given the 1862 beer. But they do not .get it, except in -the- -realms -of -|