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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6376, 11 February 1892, Page 2

It is singular how similaily Englishmen act under like circumstances, no matter in what part of the world they occur. We in New Zealaud aro not unacquainted with hospital management, hospital scandals, and their exposures by newspapers, and similar experiences are met with in other British colonies. There is the hushed-up scandal, followed by the leaking out of the news, and then comes the enterprising journalist who blurts the matter out and writes an indignant article. This latter is, of course, promptly contradicted, aud tho newspaper is held up to scorn as untrustworthy. Well, all this oft-repeated tale has hud its repetition in Georgetown, Demerara. The Government of Demerara, or, more correctly speaking, British Guiana, is peculiar. The Governor and a Court of Policy rule tho country, and it is necessary that this should be stated to understand the power His Excellency can exercise. Now, it appears that a person of tho name of Dempster, a patient in tho hospital at Georgetown, died under circumstances that led the Argosy to assert that his life had been sacrificed through neglect: And subsequently to that tho same paper published an article ou the cooking aud serving of food, which ia de«eribed as unspeakably loathsome. Such a statement as that " fetched " tho Resident Surgeon, who declared that the newspaper was incapable of expressing an honest opinion ou the adn.ini-iratioii of the hospital. The Argosy returned to the charge, and said its description of the food wan based upon " one or two shuddering glimpses of it." " Only last year," it says, "we had the word of one of iho most promising younir men who ever joined the medical service of the colony, that the feeding of the patients was like the feeding of swine." A correspondent writing iv the same number ot the Argosy says he has seen " tho food carried iv open buckels across the yards, aud the buckets were black with greasy stuff, and dozens of people complaining of the 'unpHhitableuess of the food." Again, another vsitor saw that the food was served without spoons, and it was not until the ma-ter was threatened to be reported that these articles were supplied. " Conceive a room full of patients slobbering up their food with their fingers, and in due time wiping their bauds on their bedclothes." The result of tho exposure was that the Governor ordered au enquiry, and then there was such " a getting up-stairs" to put things, right that altered the whole state of things. The moral of all this is, that though a newspaper may sometimes exaggerate, it has always something to go upon, and tho public derive the benefit from the fearless exposure of abuses.