Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 614, 31 January 1879, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1879.

We thank our correspondent, signing himself "A Parent," for having directed our attention to what is of vital importance as aftecting the life, health, and well-being of the children on the roll of the Gisborne Government School. . We have visited the School, and we fi^g^L.upon enquiry that a large nuflitie^ of children are laid up at theip jbomes, stricken down with fever.. .f,,"sfe find; children now attending school sickly, pale, and delicate, who^have, bnlyjjately recovered from the' prevailing ■•epidemic. We see other children dull of eye, inert, pallid, with leaden complexions, all indicating coming illness. We are assayed } with a horrid stench as we leave and enter the building. Up" on inquiryjwtf find there are, close to the schoolbuilding, two cesspool water-closets for 250 children — boys arid girls. We enquire further, when we are told that the two cesspools are emptied once a month. Wet enquire* m what manner the contents are removed, and are told they are not removed at all. The night soil man digs a shallow hole ia- the sand close alongside of the closets,; into wY«ch he empties the soil, covering it over with a few shovelsfull of sand. Whefc the closets are next, emptied the, oljl hole is reopened for the same purpose. This is' what we were" told, but refused ttv believe until fifty as confirmed by'p^rsonal'insifecrtioii.^ And this is the state of things :— ThejQ are two foul* cesspits within less fifty a dozen yards,: from the. school-hous\ and along-side of these cesspits are holes filled with night-soil. The late high winds have blown off the topping of sand, and there they are m all their

filthy ugliness. Our Government School is, at this moment, no better than a fever depot. It is not a safe place for any child to be sent to, and we urge upon all parents, who consider the health of their children, as even of more importance than their education, not to allow them on any account to attend the Government School until its sanitary conditions* are altered. We ask of the School Committee that they direct the school to be closed at once, without one hour's delay. Let the rooms be fumigated and ventilated for a fortnight. Let the walls and ceilings be thoroughly from all impurities. Cause the closets drenched and scrubbed, to free them to be removed further away. Use abundance of chloride of lime or other deodorising material. Let the stench pits be filled m with many layers of earth —not sand —beyond the power of any foul exhalations rising from them. To do these things, and m the interests of the public generally, and particularly of the parents of children, we demand that the school be shut up. We demand, m the name of all that is humane j we demand it for the health of the townspeople, that the doors of the school buildings be closed the absolutely-necessary sanitary reforms have been effected. We entreat parents not to allow children to go within the precincts of the site upon which the school stands. We have no doubt that many of these fever-struck children carry infection into their houses, causing diseases to spread, and cases to multiply.