SCARLET FEVER.

North Otago Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1198, 14 February 1876, Page 2

SCARLET FEVER.

• The following letter appears in the " Waimate Tribune " of Saturday last :— To the Editor of the " Tribune." • Sir, — The inhabitants of Oamam owe you a debt of gratitude because your paper has been the medium through which they obtained the only definit e account of theoutbreak of that dresdscourge — scarletfever. Thelocalpaperhas kept rery quiet all information and particulars : the reason is obrious. A son of Mr Hardy is employed at the Nobth Ota«o I Times office, and as no isolation or any re* ; striction has been enforced, he is daily in and out amongst those who are down with the j fever in his father's house, and he is at work j in the printing office. So much a secret has | the whole thing been kept that Mr Hardy's

nearest neighbours were not aware of the cause of medical attendance at bis house until it was made public in your columns. Elsewhere, newspapers are in the habit of doing battle against oppression, wrong, and insidious death, but our looal organ evidently wishes to make the printing-office the medium of spreading death and disease. Trusting that you will have the kindness to find space for this, I am, Sir, Yours truly, William: AimeS. Reed Street, Oatnaru, February 10, 1876. Mr William Aimes, in rushing off to Waimate to put his effusion into print, has done well, and he would, have done better had he rushed a little further, so that his precious production, in the way of letter- writing, should not have found its way to Oamaru at all; for one of two things must be true, viz.: either Mr Aimes does not know the facts of the case, or else, knowing them, wilfully makes statements which are at variance therewith. In the first place this journal has not kept quiet the fact that there were cases of scarlet fever in the town ; on the contrary, we have not only stated it, but have urged the taking of every precautionary measure against its spread, but we have not felt it our duty to publish the names ot families afflicted that is certainly not the business of a newspaper — if it anyone's it isthat of tha Local Board of Health. '• A. son of Mr Hardy's is employed at the printing office," as Mr Aimes states, but as to his being " daily in and out amongst those who are down with the fever in his father's house," that is entirely a fiction of Mr Aimes' brain, the young man in question never having taken a meal, or slept, or in fact been inside the house for five weeks. How likely it is, as there are six or seven married men working in our office, that we should wish to " make it the medium of spreading death and disease," seeing that those first attacked would certainly be ourselves ! Mr Aimes had better stick a little more closely to probability in future, even if he does not care about truth.