The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-12-28

STANDARD, SATURDAY, DEC
existence can only be formed after
weighing the cumulative effect Of the
monthly official reports on each indi-
vidual camp, there being about thirty
of the camps altogether.
Here and there in the reports you
will find the officials citing the sever
ity of the weather or the heavy rain
among the causes of sickness and
mortality. The apologists of the min
istry eagerly lay hold of these pas
sages to prove that the results have
arisen from causes beyond our control.
Beyond the control Of the officials. no
doubt, and the officials, therefore, are
entitled to plead them. But that
does not touch the responsibility of
those who decreed that young and old,
men and women, should be driven in
thousands from their homes and ex-
posed to all the rigors of the south
African climate in tents or temporary
buildings totally unfit for their recep-
ton. An English landlord who evict-
ed family and pulled down the
house at midwinter, leaving the in
mates to perish in the snow, could
hardly excuse himself of inhumanity
by pleading that the fault lay with
the climate. Nor is it any better when
the blame is thrown upon the ignor-
ance and dirty habits Of the refugees.
If I. crowded herd Of cattle into a
shed which could not manage to
clean out, and kept them imprisoned
till the dirt and filth Of their surround
ings engendered all manner of disease
and suffering among them, it would
not avail me much, when the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ami
mails brought me before the magis-
trates, If pleaded that all the mis-
chief was due to the dirty habits of
my cattle. Or take case, such as is
often before the public, where some
baby farmer or inhuman parent is
found to be keeping children on his
premises who are perishing from neg
lect, infested with vermin for want
of soap and water, and covered with
sores through the foulness of their gar
ments and bedclothes. Would any
jury hesitate to convict in such a case
on the ground that children in general,
and these children in particular, are
dirty in their habits and cannot be
convinced of the benefits of cleanli-
ness? 1t is nothing less than disgrace
full to us as nation that a paper like
the Times, not to mention the others,
should Gull from the medical reports
Il few sensational examples of the ig-
norance of those poor peasant women
and seriously offer them to the public
as absolving anybody-except, of
course, the doctors in attendance
from blame for the awful mortality
in the camps which has lately "stag-
gered humanity"
Everybody who knows the poor in
country districts knows the nostrums
they employ for medical purposes
nostrums quite as absurd as those of
the Roer women, and some of them
scarcely less disgusting; to say moth
ing of their ignorance of the proper
method of dealing with disease and
their rooted objection to many Of the
most elementary precautions that doc
tors prescribe. Hundreds of country
clergymen and doctors can bear me
out in this. If such q state of things
can be found in highly civilized coun-
tries, where every parish contains its
educated clergyman and most of them
its doctor, there is nothing abnormal
nor surprising in the discovery of I'M
cleanliness or ignorance in the treat
ment of sickness among isolated fam
lilies on the outskirts of half-civil-
lied region, where medical science Is
unknown, sanitation as our town life
has developed it unnecessary, and
epidemic disease practically non-exis-
tent. 1t is no exaggeration to say
that were an invading army to occupy
one of the rural districts of Great
Britain or Ireland that I have refer
red to, to burn the farms and cottages,
and collect the inhabitants in huge
extemporized camps containing from
1000 to 10000 inmates apiece, the re-
suits would be in no degree less dead
ly than those of the same operation in
south Africa; nor would less sensa-
tional examples of the uncleanly hab-
it's and primitive ignorance of the
people be forthcoming.
Nothing has happened in south AZ
RIGA. nothing is reported in this Blue
Book, with all its records Of misery,
suffering, and death, but what every
man of ordinary intelligence might
have foreseen as the natural conse-
quence of the operation of Clearing"
such n country and driving a race Of
half-civilized peasants from their is
plated homestedds into state of cap
tivity in hastily organized towns,
where, from the nature. of the case,
only the most primitive arrangements
cOllld no modaS fo,. housinr +1,o,,, 3o