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New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 310, 28 March 1879, Page 19

A sad case has lately come to light in the City of Montreal, Can., waere a minister of the Church of England literally starved to death in the midst of plenty. Mr. Checkley, the unfortunate man in question, received a salary of 8 dols. a week, with which he had to support himself and wife, five or six children, among them being an adult son, who lately had both hands amputated, two children of a dead brother, and an invalid sister. Mr. Checkley was of a courageous disposition, and always had a cheerful word for everybody. For nearly two years he and his family.had existed almost entirely on bread. Butter never entered their house, and they had forgotten the taste of meat. The conclusions of the Yellow Fever- Commission are : First, that the disease is not indigenous, but brought from foreign ports ; second, that a system of rigorous quarantine would almost certainly keep it away. The commission recommends a strict surveillance of ships at the time of sailing from infected ports to any port in the United States, and their inspection, detention and disinfection upon reaching American ports. It has made some estimates of the cost of the last epidemic. There were from eighteen to twenty thousand deaths. The persons dying represented a value of 12,600,003 dols. to the country. There were 120,000 cases of sicknesss, and. the loss of time from this cause is computed at 1,500,000 dols. Than the time that was lost in attending to tae sick represented at least 000,000 dols. The total loss, by injury to business, etc., was somewhere between 1,000,000 dols. and 2,000,903 dols. Mr. Gradgrind was not on the Commission, but it is strong on figures nevertheless. Business in Alsace and Lorraine has nearly come to a stand-still, and misery meets the eye everywhere,