From the News

Dated: December 27, 1918

Food and accommodation on Steamship Northland described as “Rotten”

Newspaperman Says He Saw Nothing so Bad

Meals in Ship’s Hospitals Not Fit for Patients to Eat

Toronto, Dec. 27 – Vigorous complaints about conditions on the steamer Northland, which arrived at Halifax this week are voiced by returning soldiers through this staff correspondent of the Toronto Star. Whose dispatch from Halifax includes the following:

“Rotten” was the mildest epithet applied to the food on board the troopship Northland by the Toronto soldiers who came back with the vessel.

Last night in the casualty clearing depot, a crowd of them surrounded the correspondent, and poured out a constant stream of invective against the treatment accorded them on board.

“Not fit for dogs” was the expression that rang like a refrain through the angry chorus.

A New York newspaper man who had never been in Canada until he came to enlist with the first contingent spoke with the knowledge of eight different transports. He had travelled in Egypt and Salonika, but his verdict was that he had never seen anything like the Northland.

Food was “Punk”

“The food was absolutely Punk,” he affirmed. “The coffee was poisonous and the tea absolutely undrinkable. When I came on board they packed 28 of us like a lot of dogs into a little space filled with bunks only 1 ½ feet wide and 5 feet 10 inches long. I was a ‘B-3’ man with a bad knee and was sent to the hospital on board, where the food was even worse than the men’s quarters.”

His statement about the food in the ship’s hospital was borne out by an orderly who attended him. “I had to go to the chief steward himself and tell him that the food was not fit for the patients to eat.” The latter declared. Not only was the food poor, according to the unanimous statement of the men but was badly served, dirty and insufficient.

According to several men, the Northland was verminous. To use their own expression they got “lousy” because they could not get a bath. There was only one bath on he whole ship, they said, available for the 1,000 men on board.