Friday, May 13, 2005

100 years ago

An outbreak of bubonic plague had been reported at Leith. It appeared that a labourer named John Hughes, residing in one of the poorer quarters of the town, was admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital suffering from what was believed to be typhoid fever. Two days later however, the development of the disease led the medical officer of health to suspect that it was bubonic plague. This suspicion proved correct. After three more days the man died. His widow and two children were also suffering from what was believed to be plague, and they had been placed under observation. Energetic measures were being taken to prevent the spread of the disease. Twenty-five occupants of the tenement in which Hughes lived had been removed to the reception house for observation, and the authorities had taken measures to close the dwellings. Rats, it was believed, may have brought the plague from some ship at the docks.

50 years ago

Recent legislation over horror comics had forced careful thinking about what was suitable literature for children. It was observed that whilst not all comics were horrible, many being harmless and sometimes interesting, we were, through their aid bringing up a race of illiterates, who could only absorb stories if they were presented in the form of strip cartoons. It was a depressing thought that some adults also preferred to imbibe their reading matter in this form, for it meant that they were sufferers from arrested development. They were too lazy, or too ignorant, to make the effort of running their eyes along a line of print, and of taking its contents into their minds. The Minister of Education had recently said in the House of Commons: "I take the view that one of the best ways of killing these comics is to provide decent literature."

25 years ago

Central areas of York could degenerate into a "giant souvenir shop and caf," the local Ombudsman, Pat Cook warned. Mr Cook, a former chief executive of the English Tourist Board, made a plea for quality rather than quantity in the city's tourist trade. "Old-established businesses could be driven out by high rents, to be replaced by shops for tourists," he said at the annual Livery Dinner of the York Company of Merchant Taylors. "In the long term, the numbers game was no substitute for quality and value for money," he continued. "I hope we shall not see some central areas of this celestial city degenerate into a sort of giant souvenir shop and caf, sucking a quick buck from the day trip and downmarket tourist trade."

Updated: 11:54 Friday, May 13, 2005