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remark, and is still a vexed question, the Public Works Committee of the Legisla tive Council having unanimously rejected the proposal to purchase a destructor.
It is not the case, however, that nothing has been done towards obtaining an incinerator. The necessary apparatus has been ordered and should shortly arrive. in the Colony.
The statement that diseased carcases are frequently disinterred and used as food is misleading. In the first place no such disinterments have taken place ex- cept in the case of freshly buried pigs, and the disinterments have not been fre- quent for the reason that a dead pig is not easily smuggled through the streets.
The officers in charge of the Animal Depôts and the Police in the neighbour- hood exercise special precautions to prevent such disinterments.
12. The recommendation regarding limewashing in the villages referred to in paragraph 24 was only made by a majority of the Board.
In the Legislative Council the Bye-law was almost unanimously rejected, only one member spraking in favour of it.
It must not be forgotten that under the existing law a householder whose dwelling is found to be in a dirty condition can be required to cleanse and limewash it within a week. This provision of the law seeins sufficient to ensure cleanliness in villages, where owing to the small number of houses inspection is not difficult by the l'olice officers on the spot who are also Sanitary Inspectors, without sub- jecting householders to the half-yearly compulsory linewashing which is enforced in the City.
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13. In paragraph 25 the Petitioners state their belief “ on good Medical au- thority" that the recurring epidemics of Plague would have lessened in virulence and duration had the Government seriously applied itself to the task and not trifled with proposed measures of Sanitary Reform;" they quote an opinion of Dr. Low- son recorded immediately after the first visitation of Plague in 1894 that “if pro- per sanitary precautions are taken no civilized country should ever be the seat of an epidemic of Plague ;" and they state that since 1894 practically nothing has been done on the lines of recognised prophylactic measures against Plague or to improve the Sanitary Conditions of the Colony."
That measures of Sanitary Reform and the improvement of the Sanitary Con- dition of the Colony have not been neglected the enclosures B. and C. conclusively prove. But they do not contain by any means an exhaustive statement of the measures taken. They were only drawn up in answer to the particular allegations made in the letter of the Chamber of Commerce of the 7th of June last.
In 1894 upon the outbreak of Plague the Sanitary Board nominated a Perma- nent Committee consisting of Dr. Ayres, Colonial Surgeon, so often quoted in the Petition. Mr. J. J. Francis, K.C., and the Captain Superinten lent of Police as a working Committee to deal with the epidemic and with those gentlemen were associated later Major H. E. R. James, a very able officer of the Army Medical Staff, and Mr. R K. Leigh, the well known local engineer and architect.
These gentlemen under the energetic and able direction of Mr. J. J. Francis, who was Chairman of the Committee. adopted extremely drastic measures-so drastic that their action undoubtedly contributed to the enormous exodus of Chi- nese which took place and brought much of the business and trade of the Port temporarily to a standstill.
After the epidemic was over Ordinance No. 15 of 1894 referred to in enclosure C. was passed, and besides making provision for the structural and other improve- ments therein referred to it enacted that the ground suriace of every domestic