NEW BRUNSWICK LEPERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 5, 31 October 1890, Page 15

NEW BRUNSWICK LEPERS.

One has not to go to far Molokai to wi'ness that awful blight of the flesh, leprosy. Hera in this out of the w*y Bpot of New Brunswick, on the shores of the great oceau, are sights calculated to make the soul sick indeed. Heie are )i erally immured a score or more of wretches touched with the foulDesa of leprosy. The Dominion Government bas erected a commodious hospital on the banks of the Tracadic Kiver, overlooking the gulf into which the slender streamlet tails. When the lazaretto was established, about forty-five yenrs ago, the poor creatures were like beasts, drawn by ropes and bea en with long poltß to force them toward the lazaretto. .No me would touch them. They were torn from the bosoms of their families, although in many cases they were the sole support of wife and chilireu. The cottages which then constituted the hospital were filihy and u'neared for. Males and females were cast together, and the contamination of immorality was added to the oiber horrors. Their food was laid down on the giouud, to be eaten where and when they chose. To the people in the surrounding country the name " lazaretto " was clothed with all the horrors of Gehenna. Little wonder, then, that when a member of a family was attacked wiih the loathsome disease his relatives took every precaution to conctal bin condition. It maj well ba supposed that this secrecy tended to spread the disease. The condition of the lazaretto at length became a public scandal ; so much bo that in 1868 it reached the ear* of Sieter St John (Miss Viger), of the Hotel-Dlen, Montreal. She volunteered to go and ca c for these poor outcasts. Other volunteers were asked for and every Sister in the house tendered her services. Seven were chosen, tanfully instruc ed in the treatment of leprosy, and then they started a mission c impared with which the t^sk ot cleaniDg the Augean stables »as a light, one. They found the l»zaretto a veritable abode of the damned. But the Bisters cheerfully set to work aud in a very few years everything was transformed. The provincial Government of New Brunswick, glad to have the scandal removed, provided all necessary funds lor meeting the expenses of the institution. From beiDg a loathsome charne.l house it was transformed into a home. The inmates and the house itself are kept scrupulously clean. Hired attendant? do all the inaaaal work, The intnatee bare no

taski imposed upon them. Their path to dea'h is smoothed and relieved of cares. They have a small farm with which they may do wiut they choose. They have boats in which they may fish and trawl or simply idle away the summer days.