THE WAIMATE HOSPITAL ASSAULT.

Evening Star, Issue 10399, 21 August 1897, Page 2

THE WAIMATE HOSPITAL ASSAULT.

The man John Whitelaw, who attacked a warder in the Waimate Hospital on Monday morning, inflicting on him serious injuries, was taken out of the hospital there only to be removed to the Timaru Hospital. Dr Reid, who ordered the man’s removal to the latter institution, informed the Board that he considered it was scandalous to take the man out of the Waimate Hospital in the state he was, with inflammation of both lungs. He needed hot poultices all the time, and they took him from the hospital and put him in a cold lock-up, and then carted him to Timaru. He found him, with his’ temperature 102, lying on the floor of a cell so cold that his breath went off in thick clouds, and be told the warder that he would not be responsible for his life if he remained there—he did not think he would have lived till morning. He therefore took the responsibility of sending him to the hospital, and told the nurses to put him near some of the stronger men, so that they could look after him if he got up. Though Whitelaw was delirious, Dr Reid said he saw no sign of lunacy about him. If the man had not been sent back to a hospital ho would soon have been sent to the cemetery. '

250 large reading lamps, 2s 4id each, at Montague’s annual stock-taking sale; odd {dates, etc., will be cleared out at any price.—[AdVt,]