[VI]
Secondly; I suggest that the above Commission should report what they think ought to be done with the "I-Ts'z" itself. The ground is entirely-by terms of the (Enclosure Government Letter, January 17, 1851-under control of the Government, as the
original condition of not using it for any purpose but as a temple has been violated.
5.)
(Enclosure
6.)
I think its use as a depôt for coffins, etc., might be still permitted, but that it should be closed as a receptacle for the moribund-or a pretended hospital. This, however, is a question which I leave to the Commission.
I also enclose for the information of the Commission, a report of the Surveyor General in June 1866, as to the "I-Ts'z," with Memoranda of Mr. QUIN, myself and the Colonial Surgeon thereon. The latter was in 1866, and had for years previously been aware of the existence of the "I-Ts'z," and thought its use "as a receptacle for dead bodies a necessity"-in which opinion, if it had otherwise been well conducted, I entirely agree. When I inspected the place the other day there was not the least offensive odour perceptible from the coffins. I am also bound to add that any person visiting the Temple, and even the depositary of coffins in the rear, might have done so fifty times without being aware that the small rooms on the west contained moribund patients instead of merely the coolies and servants connected with the Temple.
It is, however, remarkable that Dr. MURRAY even then was aware of the practice of taking in the living but moribund friends of poor people expressly sent there to die.
Had Mr. WILSON, however, kept his eye on the place-once his attention was drawn to it-and taken warning from the Memo. of Dr. MURRAY (to which I drew his attention), the recent abuses could never have occurred. Dr. MURRAY, however, himself, in his evidence recently before the Coroner, seems to have forgotten his Memo. of 1866.
R. G. McD.
No. 27.
(Enclosure 2.)
REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, April 22nd, 1869.
SIR,
I have the honour to draw your attention to the defective nature of the provision made for sick emigrants from this port.
The statement that a man had been thrust out of an Emigration House to die, led me to inquire as to its truth. I was assured by the heads of the Emigration Houses and a Chinese doctor whom they employ, that such a thing could not be, as any sick were at once removed to a native hospital, where their expenses, medical attendance, and burial charges, if necessary, are defrayed by Mr. BAAK, the Emigration Agent, and where they had every necessary.
This sounded very well. This morning I visited this native hospital, and found a picture of negleet and misery which I shall not soon forget.
I wish to be distinctly understood, I do not complain that the place is small, dark, and filthy, Chinese places mostly are, but that there is absolutely no care whether the poor wretches placed there live or die, no record of them, and no check on anything that
goes on.
At my first visit there were, dead and alive, about nine or ten 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