Appendix P. VII,
Appendix P. VII.
P. XXII.
[vi]
patients in the so-called hospital. One, apparently dying from emaciation and diarrhoea, was barricaded into a place just large enough to hold the board on which he lay, and not high enough to stand up in. Another room contained a boarding on which lay two poor creatures half-dead, and one corpse, while the floor, which was of earth, was covered with pools of urine. The next room contained what the attendants asserted to be two corpses, but on examination one of them was found to be alive, a fact which the coolic who discovered it greeted with an oath, and other rooms contained miserable and emaciated creatures, unable to speak or move, whose rags had apparently never been changed since their admission, and whom the necessities of nature had reduced to an inexpressibly sickening condition."
7. Mr. STEWART states :-"I quite agree with everything Mr. LISTER has said. It is impossible for me to convey in words the impression made on me by a picture of filth, misery, and neglect which I did not expect to find even in China.
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8. Another eye-witness describes it as follows:—
"The 'I Ts'z' consists of two small rooms, which are in the foulest condition. Sometimes as many as thirty patients are huddled together in it. There is not, as there could not possibly be, any classification of patients. Those who are afflicted with the most contagious disease lie side by side with those who are ill, may be, from old age."
9. The Governor took prompt steps to put an end to the disgraceful state of affairs at the "I Ts'z" and in a few days after his first visit Mr. LISTER was able to report that "the horrors of the 'I Ts'z' exist no longer." The better class of Chinese were, according to the Governor, much ashamed of the very public exposé in connection with the "I Ts'z," and the opportunity was thought to be a good one for reviving a plan, which had been mooted before, for the establishment of a Chinese hospital to meet," us the Appendix Governor states in his despatch No. 726 of the 21st June, 1869, "certain Chinese special wants and prejudices which are not provided for by the existing Civil Hospital- as may be seen by last year's returns which shew admissions of Europeans and Indians to the Civil Hospital to have been 934, against 223 Chinese" out of a population of 100,000 Chinese. And in the same despatch to Lord GRANVILLE, Sir RICHARD Appendix MACDONNELL continues:-" Your Lordship may hence infer the large aggregate of misery, wretchedness and disease which must be either wholly or inadequately cared for in this city; and I believe there is no effective remedy for such an evil except inducing the Chinese, as I am doing, to build a suitable hospital and refuge, open to European surveillance but under Chinese management and direction, so that there may be no such reluctance to go there in the minds of the natives as that which generally prevents their voluntarily going to the Civil Hospital."
P. XXI.
P. XXXIII
10. The idea of establishing a native hospital was taken up warmly by the leading Chinese residents and in August 1869 the Governor was able to report to the Secretary Appendix of State that the subscription list circulated amongst the Chinese amounted to $30,000. In the despatch forwarding this report a petition from the Chinese was enclosed which shows clearly on what conditions they understood the new hospital was to be established. They state:"Now one of the regulations agreed upon on a former occasion in con- nection with the hospital says—
1. XXXIV.
6
The general conduct of affairs and the framing of regulations will devolve on the Chinese, in whose hands the management will be.' This regula- tion was submitted to and approved of by His Worship, and, at a personal interview, petitioners had the honour to receive his sanction to leaving the framing of regulations and the management of affairs in the hands of the Chinese, so long as they kept the place cleanly and in good order.”