“INTOLERABLE”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21822, 27 November 1940, Page 5

“INTOLERABLE”

Shelter Conditions; Exposed By Telegraph—Press A*. relation—Copyright (Received November 26, 8.15 pm.) LONDON, November 25. Intolerable conditions in shelters or revealed in “The Times” in a leader? which, basing its structures on Border, which, deplores the absence of a central co-ordinating authority to improve the situation. It says specific shelters, notably in the East End, suffer from known defects and are scenes of known scandals. They are consistently and vilely overcrowded, lack in some cases all sanitary provision and, where such provision exists in a primitive form, it lacks all privacy. They lack any reasonable degree of lighting and also leak. They have mud floors. Hundreds pass the greater part of their days under these conditions, stench, filth, vermin and darknessconditions which have continued without improvement sometimes even witli gradual deterioration for 10 weeks. These appalling shelters are except tional but constitute a sore which} unless it is cured, may result in widespread pollution of minds and bodies. The leader declares that persons endangering the health amenities of fellow-shelterers cannot be removed, Verminous adults are uncleansable, also, otherwise offensive persons cannot compulsorily be removed. These are cases of persons suffering from infectious diseases who had to stay or be allowed to stay for many hours in the shelter before their removal could be arranged. It seems, therefore, that there is not only divided and uncoordinated responsibility but also in directions a lack of necessary powers by any authority. The “Daily Mail” in a leader asks why, after Mr MacDonald (Minister of Health) promised shelter improvements, are conditions unchanged in some tube stations. They may be better insofar as the human animal has adopted himself but worse insofar as the season of infectious disease and lowered vitality is upon us. Doctors have warned that if influenza and diphtheria become rampant among the tube population they will produce unprecedented epidemics.