A SCARE AT AUCKLAND.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1061, 18 July 1883, Page 3

A SCARE AT AUCKLAND.

fPBB PRESS ASSOCIATION.J AUCKLAND, This day. The steamer Penguin came into port last evening at half-past nine o clock from Fiji. Her master brought the vessel alongside the wharf to enable the passengers to get ashore without delay, and within half an hour of the time of mooring to the wharf there was hardly a passenger on the decks. Whilst the Penguin was coming into port, the following telegram dated from Wellington at twenty-five minutes to nine on the 17 th was being flashed along the wires to the health officer, Dr Philson : “ Fiji declared infected place,” signed G 8 Cooper. The telegram reached the hands of Dr Philson about ten o’clock. In the meantime the Penguin bad reached the wharf. Dr

Philson hurrio-i t<i--iho-whnrf and found the vessel alongside. Capt Cromarty assured Dr Plii!son lluit he was ignorant ot the fact that Fiji had been dech.rcd an infected place by the N. Z. Government, bat as nil the passengers were by this time gone away, he could not see how the matter was to he remedied. Dr Philson ordered the mails to be fumigated before being sent ashore, and then agreed to give Capt Cromarty a clean bill of health. Capt Cromarty assured Dr Philson that there was no sickness at Levnka, his last port of departure on the 13th but that cholera, small-pox, and measles were prevalent at Suva, which port he left on the 4th. The Herald blames the Government for delay in issuing tiro notice as it was known a week ago that the other colonies had declared Fiji infected. The following from the Suva Times of the 23rd of June explains the action of the authorities at Sydney and Melbourne in declaring I 'Fijian ports infected places:—The ship Poonah arrived on Monday last from Calcutta with 495 souls on board exclusive of captain, officers, and crew. There had been twenty-six deaths from the time of departure until arrival, the majority from cholera. Five cases of smallpox were reported, but no deaths occurred from that disease The engineers died from cholera'. The vessel is quarantined, and the present proposal of the Government is that she shall proceed to Nnkalan, and there discharge passengers and stores, leaving the colony without habing abtained pratique. There will be a difficulty in placing the men under proper authority, and in exercising due vigilande over the cargo, which will also have to be landed. A fresh outbreak has been reported' since the arrival of the vessel, and the Government have issued posters printed in the Fijian language, notifying natives that infected coolie immigrants have been placed in quarantine on the island of Nnkalan, and warning them not to approach or fish on the reef near it under the usual penalties.