DISTRESSING AFFAIR IN SYDNEY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5494, 26 June 1879, Page 6

DISTRESSING AFFAIR IN SYDNEY.

■ —• "On Saturday eight an incident occurred at the Central Police-station of a kind that should move all hearts with pity," reports the Sydney Morning Herald of 26th May. "In a room lighted dimly by a candle, which stood on a table, and near by a phial of medicine, and one or two little comforts provided according to the direction of the police Burgeon, sat a poor woman nursing her child, a girl of about seven years of age, who was delirious, and dangerously ill with acarlet fever. Both the mother and her child—because the little one was ill with an , infectious disease—had been literally turned into the streets, and but for the shelter , afforded at the police-station, would have been houseless. The mother's name is Caroline Ogilvie, and with her child, Christina, was in service at Petersham. , On Thursday last, the child was taken , ill, and on Friday a doctor pronounced the ; sickness to be scarlet fever. On Saturday . morning the mistress of the house sent the . mother and the child in a cab to the Sydney Infirmary, but the doctors there, notwithstanding that the woman had nowhere to go, and that the poor child was extremely ' ill, would not admit it into the institution, nor provide accommodation for it in any outbuilding. It seems that fever patients are not admitted there, and apparently there is . nowhere but a police-station they can go to, . notwithstanding the many thousands of I pounds annually expended or squandered, ■ both of public and private money, in estab- '. lishing and maintaining almost every form j of alms-house that can be devised. So the doctors, or the infirmary authorities, gave the homeless mother and child a few shillings, ■ and sent them away in a cab to the Central Police-office, and there the kind hearted sub-inspector and his men made the little patient and her mother as comfortable as circumstances would allow. It can easily be understood that, after so much moving about through the streets, and from one place to another, the child was in a burning fever, and the mother almost borne down with grief, when they reached the police-station. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the police surgeon, Dr. Egan, who was quickly sent for, came to see the child, he should pro- ; nounce the case a very serious one. Plenty of blankets, and afterwards a mattrass, were procured, and a bed made for the child on the stone floor, and the mother, very grateful for what had been done, sat by and tended the sufferer. The delirium of the fever produced a restlessness tbat was at times quite distressing to witness; and all Saturday night the little patient was delirious, and at times her shrieks and cries are said to have been heartrending. It was really sad to see the two in the station. The room, notwithstanding the kind attention and services of the police officers, was certainly not home-like, and looked very bare ; and after all, it was but a room at a police station, not many feet away from the cells where thieves and drunkards were confined, and who were, of course, as liable to contract the disease as would have been the inmates of the infirmary, had the patient been admitted there. From the time the mother and child were brought to the station, Sub-Inspector Anderson had his men searching over the city trying to find eome philanthrophic person to take in the houseless unfortunates, but up to Sunday morning in vain. On Sunday morning JVlr. Anderson sent several men to make a house-to-house inquiry to see if they could find eome place for the child, and at II o'clock one of them found a good Samaritan and a suitable place at the house of Mrs. Morgan, John-street, Pyrmont, where the child and mother were taken, with the bedding that had been provided for them. The life, however, that might probably have been spared had public benevolence and chanty ran in the proper channel to meet such distressing cases, had ceased. The child had been but a few hours under long-sought-for shelter when "death came with friendly care " and put an end to her sufferings.