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were appalling - 500 cases of meas 1es were stated to have occurred in
the first months of 1867; in March there were 27 deaths , in April 35 ,
in May 6, altogether 68 deaths in three months , 75 deaths all told in the
first six months ended June 30, being more than one ninth of all the
chi ldren in the establishment .
I have a return of the dates , ages and causes of death
of 72 of the number . Every medical practitioner I have
shown it to regards it with horror. No sanitarian can
doubt what ' the physical condition of these children must
have been to have produced such a terrific mortality.
In comparison there were 267 cases of measles at the Queen 's Asylum in
Hobart Town in 1867 , without a siṇgle death , though some of the cases were
very severe ;
in a previous epidemic of measles in 1861 and 1854 , the
deaths were respectively 13 and 27, indicating very preci?ely the
improvements in sanitary science;
in the last two years there had not
been a single death and in the last five and a half years only 7, a death
rate of 3 per 1000 .
This marvellous improvement in the children of the Queen 's
Asylum owing to the improvement in dietary and other
sanitary measures is without parallel in any similar
establishment .
With biting \'lords he upbraided the Mercury fol' unwarl'antable and unfair
conduct , detrimental to the best interest of the colony by withholding
facts important to the hygienic superiority of Tasmania under proper
sanitary care .
If Hall's impres sive statistical figures were not enough
to justify Coverdale's position, and to condemn May's, certainly his
parting shot \.,ras memorable:
The one short visit in company with ladies to the Queen 's
.Asylum and his presence at the Annual Distribution of Prizes
last year did not, I imagine, fit the Editor of the Mercury
to write so dictatorially and dogmati cally on the management
of the Queen 1 s Asylum ... Hearsay tales of the three ·black
crows kind do not afford very instructive lessons for the
management of such important institutions .
The Tasmanian Times obviously agreed:
It is, of cours e, easy to practise economy if the result is
to be not a child but a corpse. l 8
For all that , Coverdale 's thinly-disguised attempts to placate
the Parliament and the Public and to win approval for his management at
the Orphan Asylum by reducing expenditure , remained a continual source
of anxiety to Hall, forcing him in August 1868 to protest to the
1 8
The Tasmanian Times , Aug . 8, 1867 .
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