Sessional_Paper_1887-1888 — Page 441

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467.-Were Mrs. WRIGHT and family subject to fever?

A.--I think Mr. WRIGHT was.

468. And the children?

A. I never saw them but they looked perfectly healthy. I never heard of them having fever. They had measles or something of that sort.

469. And Mrs. BLACKBURN's children?

A.-Mrs. BLACKBURN's children had fever in 1887 or one of them or two. One of them had no fever there. That little child that was so sick in the Queen's Road and at the Peak was in perfect health all the time it lived there.

470.-Had it not an enlarged spleen and intermittent fever?

A.--Not in Richmond Terrace Mrs. BLACKBURN told me. It had fever before it went there.

471. Have you had any complaints about servants not wishing to live in Richmond Terrace?

A.-Not with mine.

472. And your tenants?

A.-Captain JOHNSON told me he had a little trouble with his servants, that they said they got fever, but on his testing them with the clinical thermometer, he found their temperature was normal. On one occasion his cook's wife came to him and said her husband who had just left on account of fever had died, and she wanted his wages. He told her to bring a certificate of death, and he would pay her. Three or four days afterwards he saw the man sitting down at the foot of the road. The fact of the matter is with reference to fever among the servants in the west, they know it has had a fever reputation. Formerly when they wanted to go away, it was "My father have die, my mother have die, or my grandmother have die," but now they come and say they have fever if they want to get a better situation or go away. Personally I have had no trouble of that sort. During the first year after the houses were built there was a good deal of sickness among the servants. I think that was undoubtedly true, but it was distinctly attributable to certain causes. The floors were almost flush with the ground and of porous tiles. There was simply a catchwater drain at the back intended to carry off rain water. That was not deep enough, and it had become, I suspect,

filled up

with rubbish. A heavy fall of rain came and overflowed the quarters and made them damp. These porous tiles soak up water like a sponge, but I think even on the ground floor quarters since that has been remedied, and cement put down in place of tiles, and the walls chipped and coated with cement they are as healthy as any other quarters in the Colony. However I have put another storey on them to make quite sure, not only on account of that but because people living in the terrace keep more servants than we thought they would.

By the Chairman.

473.-Has an extra storey been put on all?

A.--I am doing them as fast as I can. I have put an extra storey on three houses and I am now putting one on my own, and as soon as we get an opportunity of completing the others we shall do so.