WATER AND DRAINAGE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 66, 18 March 1911, Page 8

WATER AND DRAINAGE.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir,—Mr Robert Allan is Blenheim's Yankee calculator of mortgages on the Borough when trying to prevent the public from having drainage and water. Last year there were thirty cases of diphtheria here I through bad drainage. Each patient j was ill, say, three months on an averj age. Their earnings when well would average at least £2 per week, or £720 I for three months. Their doctors' expenses came to another £2 per week, or another £720. Two died, worth £1000 each or more to the Borough, •which value is arrived at by capitalising them, not, as Mr-Allan does, but at 5 per cent on their earningpower. These figures make a total of £3440 loss to the Borough for one year. Will Mr Allan kindly capitalise this annual loss or otherwise rate from one source alone by the same tables as he calculates the drainage rate, and tell the public how much more mortgage is on the Borough through, not having drainage? If the loan is defeated and diphtheria or some other deadly disease breaks out again this winter, at whose door will these deaths lie? Surely not at the door of the man who votes for the loan, but at the door of the man who votes against drainage, so that he can hoard up a few shillings more per year. Ratepayers remember who is, to blame in the winters to come when you see your child in an agony of death or dead through disease caused by bad drainage. Won't you then rise up_ and curse the selfish money-grubbing crowd, who, for their own ends, have caused your child's death, or who, through misrepresentation of the benefits of drainage and • water, caused you to vote against the loan when, by voting for it, you could haye saved many lives and much pain. ANTI-STONE AGE.