Groat Mortality at Charters Towers.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5437, 29 March 1889, Page 4

Groat Mortality at Charters Towers.

The Northern Miner of March 0, pub- r liahed at Charters Towers, Queensland. Speaks quite frankly of ihe mortality there It says: -"During tho last two days, the verandah posts have been literally covered with thosQ ominous looking black ed^ed notices, conveying the Siid intelligence of the patEiug away to that luuuio from ■whence no travel' r returns, of old and . y< ur.g residents n •"•c field. There has , been a hurrying hitlui' and thither of , undertakers and their ataffi <f workmen, j and ufc almost every hour of tho two days past, a funeral procession might be seen wending its way to tho cemetery. Men, ■women, and children, of whoso lives a lease might have been taken a few hours previously, passed away on Thursday and Friday, and, up to a late hour last night news was being brought in of another, and yet another, having departed from otir midst. Pooplo yesterday looked quite astounded at the intelligence, which was but too true, that hourly alinos*, a human being was breathing his or her last ,ar.d as the undertaker's man moved along tacking up his sombrelookingnotices, exclamations of nstoniahmeut might be heard on all ■Idea. The average number of deaths per m>n:h in Charters Towers is under 30. Darin? tho month of February there were 28 deaths. On enquiring at the office of tho Registrar ab eleven a.m. yesterday (March 8) wo were informed that during tho present month, up to that time, notices had been received of no leas than 30 deaths, six of them having been registered this morning. During the day notices cominued coming in, and at three p.m. fully half a dozen more had l.een added to the already lon* list of deaths. Thi3 surprising mortality can only be accounted for in one way— the terrible heat of the past few days, as, although typhoid fever is known to be prevalent, non-j of the deaths reported are siid <o havo occurred from that causo. The thermometer yesterday at midday registered from 112 to 116 in the shade. This phenomenal temperature came under our personal notice, but a much higher amount of shade heat was reported to us from the lowlying portions of tho town. Three deaths from sunstroke mentioned in nur local columns as having occuvr d yesterday are not mentioned in the foregoing,