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79
Managers have done all this. In addition to the Atlas and the
Endymion, they have purchased and converted the twin-ship
Castalia. These vessels are moored off Long Reach, opposite a
piece of land, about eight acres in extent, on which laundry,
mortuary, and other administrative conveniences have been provided.
The Ship-Hospital Atlas, and her tender the Endymion,
were lent to the Managers by the Admiralty originally, but they
have now (June) been acquired by the Managers at "breaking-up
price," viz., £8,400 for the Atlas, and £6,500 for the Endymion.
The Atlas accommodates 200 patients, and the Castalia about as
many. I have referred already to the services rendered to the
Metropolis by the Managers by the removal of numerous cases
direct from their own homes to the Ships which now receive the
bulk of the small-pox patients and are Hospitals. These hospitals
have been the principal feeders of the
Darenth Convalescent Camp Hospital, to which great
numbers of convalescent cases have been transferred. At the
present time the Camp is what its name signifies, a collection of
huts and tents, but it is proposed to build a permanent hospital, on
the site (about 135 acres in extent), a step which would have been
taken some time since, but that the Managers felt unable to move
in the matter, beyond the preparation of plans and estimates, until
the important case
Fleet and Othees v. the Managers had been brought to an
issue. This cause, decided in favour of the defendants, by Mr.
Justice Pearson, in November last, after a hearing extending over
a period of six days, was an action brought by an owner of land
at Darenth adjoining the property of the Managers, the two estates
being separated by a public roadway only. Mr. Fleet's application
was for an injunction to restrain the defendants from
maintaining the Camp and from collecting or keeping smallpox
patients on the site of the said Camp, or otherwise at
Darenth, in such manner as to create a nuisance or otherwise
damage the plaintiffs,* or any of them, or the property owned
*The other plaintiffs, it may be mentioned, were tenants of Mr. Fleet,
joined with him after the action had been commenced and exempted by him from
any pecuniary responsibility