STILL A MYSTERY

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9093, 12 July 1915, Page 9

STILL A MYSTERY

THE SICKNESS AT TRENTHAM. NO OFFICIAL INFORMATION AVAILABLE. An official statement concerning the 'nature of the trouble that caused the Government to hurry the troops from Trentham and put the place into quarantine is still lacking. The Ministers to whom dengue fever is mentioned neither affirm nor deny. They state that they are waiting for the report of the expert bacteriologists who are conducting an investigation. The Prime Minister was asked on Saturday for a definite statement on the point. “The medical authorities,” he said, “told ns that the complaint from which a number of the men were suffering was infectious, and there was no nrnbnh'F+y of being able to cone with it unless the men were shifted at once.” A very strict ouarantme is beinw enforced at Tren+hhmT Some civilians, who were working in the camp on Thursday last, have been refused permission to leave, and it was reported yesterdav that a military officer who visited the camp in search of some of his personal belonging* had found himself compelled to stay there. l>r ChnmntalouD. the. bacteriologist who 13 coming from Dunedin to assist the authorities, will not arrive here until to-morrow. Attention has been -drawn to thefact that the decision to move the troops from Trentham had been reached before the House of Representatives rose on Thursday afternoon. Ap-

parently the first steps were being taken at the very time that the Ministers wore replymg to criticism in the House by saying, in effect, that_ tho camp was all that could he desired. This evidence of an extraordinarily sudden change of intention is being interpreted to mean that the medical autho-ities made a startling discovery of some kind, but no exact information was to be gathered yesterday.