Lepers Trust Board Extends

Its Work

From Our Own Correspondent NOUMEA. April 17. mHE New Zealand Lepers’ Trust Board.

X which over a number of years has done so much for leper colonies in the South Pacific, has donated to the French leper station at Ducos Peninsula.

New Caledonia. £5OO worth of men’s and women’s clothing, foodstuffs, sweets, tobacco, toilet and other useful articles.

A portion of the gift, which reached the island in 40 large packing cases, will be reserved for lepers in the Loyalty Group.

The gift makes a particularly friendly impression on our French and native allies, and the Governor (M. Tallec) and the head of the local Health Depart ment (Dr. Sellier) have expressed their thanks to the Board’s secretary.

The Ducos settlement has a history going back to the 1870’s —when the penin sula on which it stands was the home -of many hundred transportees of the Paris Commune, and it was from here that the noted pamphleteer, the Comte de Rochefort, with two or three companions, made his dramatic escape to Australia and so caused the dismissal of the island’s Governor as well as of many penitentiary officials. As a leper colony, however, the Ducos settlement dates back

only to the early days of the present century. fItHE New Zealand Lepers’ Trust Board X assists lepers irrespective of creed and colour, and has hitherto made it a practice to function through the well-known Fiji Government central sta tion at Makogai. Last year, a special appeal was made for lepers outside Makogai, and as no central leper hos pitals existed in the British South Solo mons and the New Hebrides, the Board made grants of £5OO each to the follow ing religious bodies doing medical work in these areas; the grants being ear marked to provide and equip dispensaries for the treatment of patients and not for religious purposes: The Melanesian Mis sion (Anglican), the Presbyterian Mis sion, the Methodist Mission, the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, and the Marist Mission (Catholic). In 1942 a grant of £250 to provide Christmas comforts for lepers under their care was made to some of the largest bodies working in the Solomons.

That the Board is extending its work in the South Pacific is evident from the first goodwill present from New Zealand to the 422 patients in New Caledonia (including 60 Europeans),