[IX]
Now I should like to have a copy of the Registrar General's Rules on such subjects, and if in forty-eight hours such a place as the Chinese hospital and in such a condition exists in this town, I shall consider that the Registrar General does not carry out his duty.
He had better take this paper and wait on the Attorney General to consult him as to the best means of promptly terminating the evils reported, and punishing such parties as can be legally punished for the heartless and inhuman conduct detailed in Mr. LISTER'S report.
If further legislation be required--which does not seem to be the case--I am pre- pared to undertake it.
23rd April, 1869.
R. G. McD.
(Report by Mr. Lister.)
I am glad to be able to report that the horrors of the "I-Ts'z' exist no longer. Through the co-operation of Dr. MURRAY and Mr. DEANE I have cleared out the place and the survivors are in Hospital. Mr. STEWART is to hold an inquest on one of the bodies (sent from an Emigration House) this evening at four. I think the suppression of the place will be known to the public this evening.
The keepers, who will of course attend the inquest, are white-washing and other- wise cleansing it. I have nevertheless forbidden all further admissions on pain of being instantly summoned as a nuisance. I very much hope that this opportunity will enable me to mature a scheme at which I have been working in conjunction with Mr. FAN A-WYE for a year, i.e., a proper Chinese hospital. I never could before discover what made certain influential Chinese so obstructive to Mr. A-wYE's project, but I perfectly understand it now. I may mention that a hospital for out-door patients estab- lished through his means at Wanchai is a model of order and cleanliness. In regard to His Excellency's query as to the Rules of this Office for Inspection of Emigration Houses, I may point out that the places from which the emigrants have been sent to this wretched hospital are the "Depôts" named in the Hongkong Emigration Ordinance 6 of 1867, section 3, and such Depôts by section 6 of that Ordinance are placed under the control of the Harbour Master. Whether the Registrar General was intended to exercise a general supervision as well, I do not know, but I have hitherto always tried to do so, mostly because I was acting wrongly under Ordinance 8 of 1858, section 19, which does not apply, because when the emigrants become "actually and bona fide engaged" to emigrate they pass from my control.
Nevertheless I always did keep as much vigilance as I could on these points :-
1. Sleeping accommodation,
2. Provision for the necessities of nature,
3. A supply of drinking water,
4. Reasonable cleanliness ;
and it was always a source of uneasiness to me that I could not go personally as often as I should have wished. I can say honestly that only the very great amount of work absolutely pressing at this Office prevented me. When I could not go myself I always
sent.
I do not think the Emigration Houses amiss, as Chinese places go, but this ques- tion of sick emigrants has arisen suddenly on account of the new plan of getting men from Chin Chiu and elsewhere. Only the most wretchedly abject and poor come, and