THURSDAY ISLAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 8206, 31 July 1905, Page 6

THURSDAY ISLAND.

A report from Thursday Island states that there arc now twenty-eight confined at the leper station on Friday Island, one of the group of islands in Torres Strait. Of theso cases twelvo were sent there durwig the past year. During the past twelve months five of the. patients were i eleased by death from further suffering. The spiritual welfare of the stricken people is not neglected. The lepers have constructed ti small building out of a number of discarded packing eases. In this primitive building church services arc held, occasionally by the right Rev. Gilbert White, M.A., Anglican Bishop of Carpentaria, and also by the vicar of the parish. Considerable inconvenience has been caused on the station by the arrival of a female leper who was sent to the island with the last batch of sufferers. There is no adequate provision for the separation of the sexes, and the poor creature has to be accommodated in a small hut adjoining, but not altogether cut oil from the quarters occupied by the men. Ono of the lepers has his wife living with him, the woman having gone into voluntary exile for her husband's sake. These two people have several young people with them in the settlement, and their prospects under the circumstances are awful to contemplate.