This part of the province is at present being scourged by the most serious epidemics known for many years. Influenza, scarlet fever and diphtheria are all raging in various places, and the victims in the aggregate must—number thousands, In this city and suburbs the demands on the coffin-shops are far beyond the available supply. Coffins have doubled in price, and the carpenters have been reduced to using thin boards instead of the heavy planks usually employed. While the greatest mortality has been among young children and old people, not a few young men and women' have been carried away also, so many in fact that in the case of the men the supply of labourers has been very seriously affected.
In the face of a crisis such as this it is interesting to observe some of the methods the people employ in their ignorance. In one village where there had been 60 or 70 deaths from contagious disease, the people said the deities must be propitiated by theatricals, so these were arranged and people came flocking from all the surrounding country. The result in the dissemination of the disease may well be imagined.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.