THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1959.
A Story Of Terror And Desolation.
PLAGUE 1894
THE story I now have to tell runs the whole gamut of human experience. It is a story of terror and desolation, of high courago versus abysmal ignor- ance, of efficiency obstructed by blind prejudice, of a penultimate triumph, and an ultimate farco-made all the more ludicrous by chicanery in high places.
J
Should the reader grant that I can tell it best in my own way, then I beg permission to digress in order that all that follows will fall into place as an objective relation of facts and incidents which occurred in this Colony in the year 1894.
The next
JOHN LUFF
Preenutions were urged, to take
11
The truth of the matter is, it hed come
to a showdown be- tween
a form of citizenship which found self-sufficiency in a tradition of life, unaffected by the march of progress Over thousand yeurs, and a young and vigorous way of life form- ed by a nation then leading the However, using
logical, world in scientific application. formed upon such feet immediately, by Dr H. process Kai, Mr Lau Wai-chem, and Mr premises which were · known,. The truth is the squatters in 3,3. Francis C. And wohong ibe Sanitary Board of Flong Taipingshan had a violent pre- the precautions urged were a kong consisting of the gentle Judice against Western doctors, thorough cleansing or Chinese men named above, plus They doubted their motives, quarters.
Assistance from Dr Penny, B.N.: Dr Lowson: and Surgeon- Major James; issued the follow. ing Instructions,
·
This was on May 10th 1894.
and the very same day the Oli-
Earlier roference to thede articles will have Inforined you that
among the crowds who
symptoms were larutular swellings which oc- curred in the neck, the armpit, and the groin, which rapidly swarmed into this Colony froth rew to the size of a-hen's egg, the Chinese mainland were, for most part, people who The swellings were exceedingly the tender: then,, with or without earned their living as best they a decline in fever, the patient could. invariably rank deeper into a state of coma-and died.
Those who read an earlier series of articles oor Administering the Govern- will perhaps recall that I tried to tell in my own ment, The Hon. Mr O'Brien way way just what happened in Shanghai after the obliged to inde a proclamation present Government of Mainland China took`over. declaring Hongkong an infected
What I want to my is that the victim would fail fato a state of port. obstruction the present Chinese stupor. Government received was match akin to that received by the British Government in Hong- long in 1804, Jne of the first things the Government of Chica tried to do was to catablish pet- among ter sanitary conuiuions the ignorant iterate folk who swarmed into the towns, There
und penints, ignorant
un- mindful of modern hygiene by their very primitive Comuni tits, established Test zones. The were absolutely opposed 1 Instruction, and it was only by laking stern measures that they were forcibly taught to co- operate in a mode of life more suited to the aspirations of progressive Government,
ה
It is necessary to remember that this took place 65 years
A little ching, a little pirst- ing a litle hijacking, in short, anything that came to land, and as the Viceroy of Canton said, many undesirable Chiness citizens had found refuge in Hongkong.
But the headache of the
05
ago. Today such symptoms would be easily diagnosed. But, Hongkong Government on May then neither the symptoms nor 10th 1894 was not caused the causes were known, and their lawlessness so much as Hongkong was at least a month their primitive way of life. away from England, three months by the time news was sent and an answer returned.
by
by
Such was
the situation the British Government faced years ago.
☆
7
The winter of 1803-91 was n
Hongkong had to act on its own initiative.
in droves
They had settled above what Wh почу call
Special Hospitals to be established an
(f) On board the Hygela, a special ship in the har- bour.
loy considered the Western doctor a kind of necromancer who, with his drugs and scalpels, would in some way exercise i ainister influence over them.
A SCENE AT THE BOTANICAL GARDENS,
NOTE THE WORKER'S UNIFORM,
Ohe
Consider
this:
avenged 75 a
day, and
Hongkong Gradually all came to a deaths in hospitals and the lives by commerce! by the standstill; all was quiet while dead bodies recovered from the quarantine regulations then the angel of death beat his So in that festdring.conglo- plague area were 100 a day, placed into operation against winge fearfully above a con- meation of squatters huis,
her, everyone, from the talpen demned city. The placid waters (2) At Kennedy Town Follos during the blistering summer
The axodus,--aires dy begun, who lived by trade, down -to of Hongkong harbour was empty Station.
heat of 1804, these poor stupid now assumed olarming pro- the humblest coolio who loaded or ships. The godowns were Ignorant_people refused to ap- portions. Hongs were deserted, the ships, lost thelt living. silent, the great bales of goods proach Government.
chair coolles left their chatra in Chinese hong merchants retired were stacked unwanted upon the streets and fled the elty to mainland, leaving their the floors, They hid their slek away, Servants demanded such money premises and. left them to die amidst the us was due to them, and left for their commercial undertakings Equator of their hote And their homes on the Mainland, in abeyance until such time as when ast their maglo failed Roadmenders left; clerks, fed the plague was and their friend died, they erept their employment::- the Re of "way and left his corpse to be the Colony was nigh at a stand- discovered by who ever chauded still.
(3) At the Glam Works, Ken.
nedy Town.
Númpera one, and two were to be administered by Govern- pient; number there was hahšed over to the Tung Wah Hospitai Comtuittee and was worked by doctors under the Chinese supervision of the Colonial and Dr Penny, Medlent Staff
R.N.
But immediately the Commit tee, rati up against blind pre- Judice and primitive obstruc-
tion.
Just how the disease reached Hongkong, we do not know, but
Some it is easy to conjecture, flea-carrying rats, or some traveller from Canton, already nding shelter Alck,
among crowded hovels, bulit on the lower slopes of the Peak just above Snl Vin Poon. This art, we should call it a squatter aren now, was known as Tal- pingshan."
In those days of unobstructed Kennedy Town, did as tradition terrible one for the whole of passage between Hongkong and would have them, they erected South China. There was searzt - Canton, there was always danger their filmsy establishments one
One moment the plague was ly any rain and a water famine of a pestilence being carried on top of the other. Their in
Conton, the next H Whi coveted the countryside. The
narrow lines raging in Taipingshan, a dis- into the Colony, and the Hong. sewers wore the rummer came early and hot, und kong Telegraph was sharp oft they permitted bewien one aster complete, threatening the with [{ came ominous tales the mark. Noticing that this
and row of shacks
another very existence of the Colony, which altered through from discose held
the Waste food, all the householă swuy ID Canton.
all sanitary lowliest and dirtiest quarters of rubbish, in short Canton, the Hongkong Telegraph administration was effected by for Hongkong, and throwing all wastage out of the demanded
immediately the door.
The news, which began a whisper told of a strange pestii ence which was soonrging the poorer quarter of that alty, People were returning to their crowded airices hovels cotur laining of feverish headaches, This was followed by what we
The Hongkong Sanliary Boord would now describe as light- mút to discuss the probability of leadedness' after which the the plague reaching Hongkong.
* spoke
strictest supervision of Hong- kong households, poining out that the disease seemed not to exist alongside with cleanliness,
A British Crossword Puzzle
But these but dwellers of Tal- pingshan were impervious to appeal or threat. They refused
""
upon it.
10
caretakers, und
defeated.
This placed thre
English merchants 1n
dreadful position for they were left with merchandise on their hands beyond the contract time. The only thing to do was to fall back on the bunks and seek overdrafts,
Thus encouraged, the plague. knew no bounds. It began to spread
beyond the Infected are and creep into the town. One morning, after short Terror_sprend rapidly. None, it conference, three hundred men seemed, could withstand this in- walked out of the China Sugar
Trade is usually considered sidious creeping death. Ponte, Factory and started to walk to
an- dire panie, struck the primitive their homes at Swatow, a itis by the long-haired and
informed, mundano
affair quarter of the new proud town tance of 180 miles.
best left in the hand of morons. of Victoria. Those Chinese who could find the money, began 10
the commercial Consider this then-that at that brief, leave the Colony.
interests of the Colony were hour, with a Colony nifty years threatened to such an extent it old, men stood facing rain. All that imagination had conjured, rer seemed they
up from a bare rock, stood perish.
In
cover.
·
could never
Shipping suffered worse. You
About the middle of May, 1894, the drought held to be responsible for the plague, wa broken by a heavy fall of rain.. Twenty-three inchra of Tain recall that Hongkong was de- fell in a short period. Everyone was delighted. Now the plague clared an infected port on May was balted,
ta
10, 1894, and from then on Is not there romance in the fret that they stood their foreign owned lines refused to ground, refused
to quit, and greater
to
take Chinese passengers, French planned aboad for
'Hongkong? Such was not the case. Rather and German Iines refused did the plague Increase and mortality
new touch
while castal heights.
vessels stopped calling at Hang. period kong altogether.
climbed
It WALLE at this
to
to co-operate, and even those that the admissions to hospitals who lived a more permanent Of course, they were ridden establaḥments and had com- with vennin, and although none parative amfluence in the saw the significance at the time Colony, sided with their -they were overrun with rats. ignorant brethren,
CROSSWORD
12 P
9
TARGET
How many
words of
LA four letters
or mors can
20 ké from th.
letters in the
}
P
T
the left, In
T
A P
moking each word, the
square cr
22
31
ACROSS
1 Mix up (4).
30
4 Torment most painfully (7).
8 Republio of Ireland (4).
9 Ornamental jumper (4).
-10 They may be consumed (7).
11 A Bédsor? Yes (4).
12 Manhandle (4).
14 Bed landing made on a Tues-
day (7).
1. Tako over and give the girl
akies (3).
10 Exhausted onc's money? (51.
22 A different throne, not the
ašto uno (7),
20 Cirens güre (4).
27-grant sain7. (4),
20 Woman of fashion (7).
21 Eager for ́ a, sixpence? (4),
30 Man in "The Divorce" (4).
31 Part of a hearty musi? (7). 32-Explait (4)
32
DOWN
3 H's bound to be worn on the|
head (6).
3.Entertain sumptuously (8).
4 Ono way to mako a stealthy
move (5).
$ A police bird (0),
6 It often describes capacity
(6).
7 it's abnormal (5).......
12 Two,degree parent "(4),
19 Loosen (4)
18 Decláre (4).
if Dinos perhaps (4).
18 Toverish (0).
20 "Hoist with his own---?" (8),
Across
3. Times of nonvient craffio, 14, 21 1. Nose, (6)
11. May describe a thØNDEN. (E) ik. Wore. (9)*
13. Bound with tremulotis vibratipa
38. Mummatimi's Fornign Minister, 151
17.- Moist (4)
df mind, t
2) Veteran. 10:
1. Lang in Bootland. (a)
22. Naposary. (81
Dow
A. Puzas with malignancy, thi
3. TEATe” pronoustra with
6. The science of measuring time.
(8)
1. exp. (4)
19. Dilence
of
Noc at homo. (31
ornamental R
mia (7) "UPINA
12. Must need.; ATAM
[headed." (0)|
Skype, tej
(0)
10. Bind,, (4)
มงม
CHESS
WY LEONARD BARNEN.
21 He is obviously not wicked, F
tuit needs time to learn (6),
23 Not anybody (8).
24 Oliver's tobacco? (8).
26 Old magisfadto (5),
YESTERDAYS CROSSWO RD-ASTORE: 1 Einal, d Tra
6 Cache, 9 Carbon, 10. Items, 11 Toast, 13/Lido, 13 Toans, G Porled:18 Mourne, 20 Fupii, 22 Atary: 23. Lintu, 25-MITS 26 Ričit, 27. Nalle, 28: Reign, -20 Solused," Darbai:
fottery k
t
each of the ainali oquures may be ered ones only. Each word, must contain the later letter in the
quare, and there must be least und nine-letter word in the No piurais; no foreign 150 proper names, "TODAYA TARGET: 21. yerde
27 words, Darle
good: $3 excellent.
tomorrow.
YHTEYDE
CATES,
*
Local landlords were unable to collect their rents and shared with their poorer tenants the further hardship of having to purchase food at fifty per cent above normal prices.
Every day the dead were collected and hurried from the town where, their 'disease-rkkien bodies could no longer strike at the living.
The Governor, Sir William Robinson, wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies (The Marquess of Ripon).
Sneaking of the plaguo, he been introduced from Canton, continued: "Doubtless, it has but further information leads me to the conclusion that it is impossible to speak definitely on this point, and hardly safe to hazard a guess.
"Slace the cutbreak here, it has been endemic in one or both jrees for the last seven years, and while it has been extremely severe in Canton, It has provali. according to the Governor of Indo-China, all over the South of Chins.
"Hongkong receives a regular end constant supply of pigs for 5 of the Chinese from Pakhol, dearly all the other sid cofood are obtained from Canton, with which this Colony is in hourly connection.
THE OLD PREMISES OF THE HONGKONG CLUB
The same
May
sald of Minero, but
is
ba #
A curious fact that, nothwithstanding the frequent communication, and notwith- standing the Immigration of thousamis of persons from Hong- Kong to Macao during the Inst month, not a single case of plaque occurred In that Colony."
No mention of rats, you will notice!
Sir William Robinson called a meeting of the Legislative Council on June 12, 1854, and tremendous and drastic leci- slong were made, which in another way, were a threat to the life of the Colony,
And this was the decision that was to cause all the trouble. That Talpingelian should be destroyed by fire, and that the Western end of the town bo also destroyed and rebuilt on more hygienic lines,