sin of cheapness", against sweat-shop labour in the clothing industry. The cause was taken up by George Fenwick in a series of articles written by the newspaper's chief reporter Silas Spragg (1852 -1935) and published in January 1889 which described working conditions in Dunedin. In response to newspaper's articles which stirred many of the local community into action, a royal commission on sweating was established in 1890. Its conclusions and recommendations formed the basis of many of the country's social reforms of the following decade. In 1894, the newspaper attacked conditions in Dunedin's slaughter-houses, which resulted in a poll in April 1895 which approved the establishment of public abattoirs. During Fenwick's editorship the newspaper also supported funding of the University of Otago, a women's hospital ward, the expansion of the University of Otago Medical School, and the Hocken Library. Sid Scales was a cartoonist for the ODT for 30 years until his retirement in 1981. Since then Queenstown artist Garrick Tremain has been the principal cartoonist. Controversy In December 2019, the Otago Daily Times was heavily criticized for publishing a cartoon by the Queenstown–based cartoonist and painter Garrick Tremain which seemed to mock a measles outbreak in Samoa. The measles crisis caused 4,000 confirmed cases and killed 55 people, most of them children under the age of 4. The newspaper later apologized, saying, "The content and timing of the cartoon were insensitive, and we apologise without reservation for publishing it". On 23 December, the New Zealand Media Council ruled that Tremain's cartoon was "gratuitously hurtful and discriminatory" in response to 130 complaints. University of Otago student, Millie Lovelock, was a student columnist of "A Situation Report" from late 2014 to March 2017. She addressed issues of sexism, cuts to humanities courses and concerns on the future for young women. Her views on misogyny and the "toxic masculinity" evidenced by the nation's rugby culture drew considerable complaint in the ODTs letters to the editor pages. ODT journalist Vaughan Elder reported that she was "so polarising" and that "predominantly older white men" took issue with her opinions. After finishing her Master's degree Lovelock left journalism to continue her career as a musician and won the Taite Music Prize for Best Independent Debut in May 2020 for her album Relief (2019). Editors 1861–68 Sir Julius Vogel 1868–71 George Burnett Barton 1871–77 William Murison 1877–78 George McCullagh Reed 1878–83 James Ashcroft 1883–90 Richard Twopeny