HEALTH DEPARTMENT REGULATION'S AND HOPGROWERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 7 March 1925, Page 11

HEALTH DEPARTMENT REGULATION'S AND HOPGROWERS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—One cannot, help feeling sympathetic towards the Health Department in general and Dr Keith, the acting Health Officer, in particular, when one reads the statements made by the latter in last night's edition of your paper. It is quite evident that our local Health Officer is i xpericncing a. most vexations titue with the hop-growers. The doctor must he a new arrival in this district, or he could never have come in contact with these most unsophisticated simpletons, not realise that the plain eontmottsense regulations laid down by the Department- are quite beyond the ‘intel■hgent grasp of tlie average grower of hops, li these foolish people will, spite of all warning, persist, upon congregating in their hop fields at picking lime, instead, of allowing nature to take its course and let- the hops pick themselves; then it necessarily follows as the night t lie day, that their extraordinary method of conducting their business must result in the Department inking proper steps to- keep children under sixteen years of age in seclusion. Whai may happen to children over sixteen under those circumstances is not slated, hut it. is presumed that tne Department does not hold ilself responsible in any shape or form for them. L is apparent that some brighter individuals have conceived the idea, of get I children only to gather their hops. This is doubtless because adults ;mly are incapable, of conveying the inTeetion of infantile paralysis. But tliev wore __wrong also, as a. careful study -of Dr Keith’s explanation will show. The mistake made all along the lint* by these ignorant hop-growers is, that tliev will insist in congregating. The bucolic nmul might possibly get a clearer conception of what the doctor is driving at if ho would define in plain English the word congregation, and give examples. For instance, would anv number of pickers be a congregation if they wore scattered in a hop field at intervals of, say, ten feet, or ten yards'/ Would one woman per acre be a congregation / Within the meaning of the i egul.itions / Lastly, would children playing on a road-line be in danger of infection from a congregation of lionpickers 50 yards away? St Is a, moot, point whether possibly infected pickers should he allowed to return to their homes at. night, and tints carry the germs, or the worms, or the parasites, or whatever the source may be. to their loved ones.

My bettor half, who has been looking over rny shoulder as I write, suggests Jliat there may be oilier places ' than hop-gardens, where people are liable to congregate. The Supreme Court. TraJgcii -&trep.t ou late night, nrul -small ocys anxious for na tiers everv yveniiwin front of The Mail Office.'are cases which readily occur to the mind. Dr Keiih will confer a boon to our rustic minds- if be will reduce to tbeir very lowest terms the simple regulations issued by the Department of Health. Of course, it would be too much to expect, him to give reasons.—l am, etc.

muddled