MR. BURDETT-COUTTS'S CHARGES.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 116, 13 November 1900, Page 6

MR. BURDETT-COUTTS'S CHARGES.

A correspondent sends the London Times the folloAving extract from a letter from his son, avlio is serving Avith tho 9lh General Hospital at Bloemfontein : — "A great deal of Avhat Mr. Burdofcfc-Coutts says is true, but he is very unfair, bocause he only saw ihe hospital, for instance, under one condition — :uul a very unfavourable condition — Avhen Aye avci-o undermanned, Avithout proper stores, and before avo had got 'into Avorking order ; becauso you must remember avg are chiefly composed of volunteers, and avo all had to learn our work Avithout any one to help us in it. He calls us a tainted city of pestilence ; he did not stop to enquire the condition in Avhich avo received patients — enteric cases, some convalescent, somo having just got it, travelled three or four clays in ox Avaggons and open railAvay trucks to us ; imagine the state of collapse in Avhich avc received them. I knoAV of a case' where a man died on a stretcher Avhile he Avas being can-ied from the railway. I have had several cases of men being brought into my marquees and only living an hour or two. Believe me, everything has been done, and is being done, to alleviate the sufferings here by all alike — doctors, volunteers, nurses and all — and, considering the difficulties, the sanitary arrangements are very good indeed. At the start there were' from ten to fifteen deaths a day, noAv there is one death in tAVo days."