388
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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 4TH JUNE, 1881.
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do much good, but I think we may, perhaps, rely upon the good sense of those who employ them and have confidence in their empirical knowledge and skill. But even the European community and the Government of the Colony owe a debt of gratitude to some of those Chinese doctors. Hongkong is peculiarly situated with respect to the possibility of an influx of small-pox. Perhaps no other port in the world is more liable to a visitation from that disease, and yet, though occasionally I get a report from the Harbour Master of a case or two that may be brought here, it does not spread in the Colony. How does that come to pass? I was talking not long since to the Health Officer, Dr. ADAMS, and he tells me he has to examine the Chinese who emigrate, and he finds nearly all the young Chinese have He says he was often puzzled three or four vaccination marks, or inoculation marks, upon the arms. to know how this vaccination came to be apparently so perfect among the Chinese. Well, the fact is, that for some years past the doctors of the Tung-wá Hospital have vaccinated extensively, and some of them have been employed as travelling vaccinators, who go about this Colony, and who, since 1878, visit the mainland and vaccinate all through the neighbouring province of China. Thousands upon thousands have been vaccinated by them. The returns are printed in our annual Blue Books. But when I saw the Thousands thousands have been vaccinated during the last four years.
upon annual returns sent in by the Colonial Surgeon not many weeks ago, I appended the following minute · to that document:-"I cannot find any return showing the number of vaccinations by the Medical "Officers of the Colony. Ascertain how many persons have been vaccinated every year for the last "four years by the Colonial Surgeon, the Health Officer, the Superintendent of the Civil Hospital, and "the Deputy Superintendent." This appears to have been sent to the Colonial Surgeon for a report. Whereupon, my The report of the Colonial Surgeon was very brief:-" No return has ever been kept. honourable friend on my left (the Acting Colonial Secretary) writes to the Colonial Surgeon asking him if he could from his memory, and approximately, furnish the number he has himself vaccinated, and get The reply of the Colonial the same information from the other Medical Officers of the Government. Surgeon is:- I have the honour to inform you that ten persons were vaccinated in the Hospital by "the Superintendent. I have not been able to obtain any more information from the Superintendent. I have performed 32 "The Acting Health Officer vaccinated his own child twice without success. "vaccinations on children, fifteen unsuccessfully, and about as many more on adults." And then he proceeds to state that he distributed lymph, which I send to him (it comes to me every mail in my despatch bag from Downing Street), amongst his professional brethern in the Colony and at Canton. He adds, that in future he will take care that a record of the vaccinations by the Government Officers is kept. It may, of course, be said that the Colonial Surgeon and the other Officers of the Government were aware of the fact that this semi-Administrative duty,-in fact, a duty of no slight importance to the Government and the Colony, was actually being performed for them by the directors of the Tung- wá Hospital, and, therefore, they did not think it necessary to interfere with the Chinese doctors, who were vaccinating thousands of people and doing it so well, and who have protected the Colony so thoroughly. Passing from the doctors, we come to the druggists, who have also increased from 164 to 243. I find, for the first time in the professional life of the Chinese in this Colony, that we have three dentists. About eighteen months ago I visited one, not professionally, but for the purpose of seeing the instruments he used, and I then found he had the same apparatus we find in all dentists' establishments. In fact, he did work for the first-rate American dentists we have He was a gentleman of intelligence, and here, being fully capable of making or repairing sets of teeth. impressed me, I must say, as favourably as a dentist could. I also find Chinese architects for the first time, five in number. For the first time, we also have in the list one geomancer. I have not seen that gentleman, but I find in the list perhaps an antidote to the geomancer; for the first time we see in this list a Chinese barrister-at-law. I think we may all congratulate ourselves on his appearing not only in the census returns as a barrister, but as being also a member, by the Queen's favour, of the Legisla- ture of the Colony. I find also on this list three newspaper editors, but there were three in 1876. They are not exactly the same three, because one, a gentleman who was enumerated in 1876, was a friend of mine, the editor of the Chinese Mail, Mr. CHUN AYIN, and I believe that newspaper editor is now receiving a salary of twelve hundred pounds per annum as an officer of the Chinese Government in Cuba, where, I understand, he is the Consul-General. I don't know whether I am right in classing them amongst the professional portion of the Chinese community, but I find we have 84 fortune-tellers The schoolmasters have increased from 114 to 171, and students in the Colony, instead of 46 in 1876. from 341 to 2,562. These students are not to be confounded with school-boys, who are dealt with in another part of the census. Most of these gentlemen who return themselves as students are, no doubt, young men, but some of them possibly are old men, who devote themselves to literary pursuits. Por- trait painters have increased from 170 to 200, and photographers from 30 to 45. Story-tellers have decreased from 5 to 1. Musicians, also, I am sorry to see, have fallen from 70 to 30. If it were not one of those statistical fallacies that sometimes occur, even in the best regulated Registrar General's the Office, it would be a melancholy fact, that when our Chinese bankers and bullion dealers come upon scene, the story-tellers and musicians seem to disappear. Perhaps great material prosperity is not without some drawbacks.
On the whole, it is manifest we have in this Calony an increased Chinese community of great importance to the commercial interests of England, and, therefore, we may at once answer the question as to this large dealing in land, and may admit it was a just and natural process, and that this transfer of property from Europeans to Chinese was not of a merely speculative kind.