New Britain herald., 1917-05-11

vaccineted children must share the responsibility, and more than all I myself am to blame that I have not more persistently and urgently worked to secure universal vaccination. When we enforced vaccination we found that but about 20 in all had been vaccinated before.
 Tt sounds well for the author of the letter to say 1t is the duty of the selectmen to protect the public, but the first duty of the public is to pro- tect itself. and if as the gentleman says he was selectman and did not have the authority he would take it. , I can assure him that if he were se- lectman at the same time was health officer, and attempted to assume an authority he did not possess, he would find himself in hot water as quickly as if he was the humblest and most in- conspicuous man in town. This is not intended as any personal reflection on the gentleman who wrote the letter referred to, nor Is 1t intended to, in any way detract from the admiration, I with many others, have for his many admirable and likable qualities, but he must not think for a minute that he can attack the writer of this letter either by insinuation, as he did, or publicly, and not have a come back waiting for him.
 ''I try to do what I believe to be my duty to the public both collective ly and individually. and when at- tackled in my capacity as a private citizen never take public notice of 1t, for always have been able, and I hope for some time to come to be able to give any man as good as he can send, but when am attacked in my capacity as protector of the public health and safety, am going to fight without gloves, and as hard as I can.
 There has never been anything in the situation to be alarmed at, except that by constant stirring up of a commotion by people who had not much else to do, . state of public alarm has been created which has re- fiected discredit on the town. and greatly aggravated what would other wise have been only a moderately un- pleasant situation, such as many other towns in the state heve experienced. Except for this uncalled for fright and hysteria. there was no more reason why the health authorities of New Britain should have quarantined against Berlin, and deprived 8 large number of men of work. than why we should have qisarantined against New Britain last summer when they had a number of cases of infantile paralysis there.
 Tn closing wish to say that for the past week we have had all kinds of baseless rumors coming into our of1ce from all parts of Berlin and East Berlin, about rumored cases of smallpox We have spent hours. and several times most of a day looking them up and found every case to have been fake. In future if any one has . suspicious case that they think the health ofIlcer should look into, and they Will put their request in writing, d the low requires may be done, will rive 1t immediate and close atten- ton but If one Is not willing to iden- tafy themselves with complaint, no attention will be given to 1t.
 s.Meantime if every one would simply go ahead and attend to busi- ness the same as usual, put in their time at some useful work, and each night offer up this little prayer: "oh. Lord help me to do my own daily work 50 well. that will have no time to interfere with the work of my neighbor,''s then things will soon assume their usual serene aspect, and in a short time every one will have forgotten that we ever had smallpox in Berlin.
 '.R. M. GRISWOIlD, M. D.,
 .eHealth Ohacer, Town of Berlin. i"
 Dance Postponed.
 At the monthly meeting of the Sonx of Veterans association held at the