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June 6, 1895.}
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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MR. FRÁNCIS AND THE RECOGNIwith the partionlars to render it necessary for | who had any business with the Committee, and them to do more than refer to them, and they, generally of watching over and co-ordinating TION OF HIS PLAGUE WORK,
A BILVER INKSTAND D CLINED.
The following correspondence has been for- warded to us for publication :-
Government House,
22nd May, 1895.
Sir, By the direction of the Marquess of Ripon I have great pleasure in forwarding to you the accompanying handsome Silver Ink-
stand.
You will find engraved upon it the following inscription: Presented by the Hongkong Government, with the approval of Her Majesty's Government, to J. J. Francis, Esq. Q.C,
Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board, in recognition of services rendered during the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague at Hongkong in 1894. '
therefore, left it to your Excellency to report to the Secretary of State on the precise nature and details of the services rendered by me to the colony.
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I did not feel at liberty to ask your Excel- lency to let me see your report sent home with the Committee's letter, nor to ask for a copy of if, as such documents are usually confidential, in your reports to the Secretary of State, did bat I am bound to assume that your Excellency, full justice to the Sanitary Board and to the Permanent Committee, and put the Secretary of State in possession of all the materials necessary to enable him to form an opinion of the work done by all its members.
I think your Excellency will agree with me that the following are the material facts in the
0380:-
partment of the Local Government, acting, like 1-That the Sanitary Board was not a de-
For those services you have already been
the Public Works Department, under your Excel- thanked by me, and also by the Secretary oflency's orders and by your authority, but was an independent body, popular in its constitution, State for the Colonies. In again expressing possessed of statutory powers and jurisdiction, my appreciation of the work which you then legislative and executive, taking orders, as the performed so willingly and so ably, it only re- Attorney-General, Mr. Goodman, put it the mains for me now to ask you to accept this other day, from no one, and invested with very Inkstand from the Government of Hongkong extraordinary and almost dictatorial powers in as a slight recognition of your disinterested and the event of any epidemic appearing in the valuable labours during the Epidemic of 1894.——
colony. I am, sir, your obedient servant,
WILLIAM ROBINSON,
Governor, &c., &c. J. J. Francis, Esq., Q C., &c, &o.. &c.
Bank Buildings, Hongkong. 27th May, 1895, Sir.I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your holograph letter of the 22nd instant, in which you inform me that, by dires- tion of the Marquess of Ripon, you have much pleasure in forwarding to me a handsome silver inkstand with an inscription to the effect that it is presented to me by the Hongkong Govern- ment, with the approval of Her Majesty's Government, in recognition of the services rendered by me as Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board during the epidemic of bubonic plague at Hongkong in 1894.
Your Excellency is also so good as to remind me that I have already been thanked for these services by yourself and 'also by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and, agáin "expressing your appreciation of the work done by me so willingly and so ably, you ask me to accept the inkstand from the Government of Hongkong as a slight recognition of my disinterested and valuable labours.
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the work of the entire staff. That the Com. ❘mittee could only meet in consultation for about an hour or an hour and half in the evening of each day and that much had to be left to the judgment and discretion of the Chairman.
7. That the work of the Permanent Com- mittes did not end with the disappearance of the plague, but continued, although with the A.M.S., and of Mr. R. K. Leigh, until every in valuable assistance of Surgeon-Major James, sanitary basement in the colony had been cleared of its inhabitants, every illegal mezzanine and cubicle removed, and every house in the Chinese quarters-east and west-and in the villages had been cleaned and whitewashed, and until the resumption of Taipingshan, first suggested and recommended by the Committee, had been carried out on the lines recommended by them, altered and amended broadly as advised by the and the sanitary laws and by-laws had been
Committee in their letters of the 28th and 29th June:
8.That the Chairman of the Committee in
addition to his direct work on the Committee gave your Excellency's Government every ad- vice and assistance in his power in all matters arising out of or connected with the special plague or general sanitary legislation, in draft- ing Ordinances or otherwise-an assistance most handsomely referred to and recognized in Coun- cil by the then Acting Attorney-General, Mr. Leach.
2. That the Permanent Committee consisted at first of three members of the Board, to whom the Board, in a great emergency, delegated all These are the simple facts of the case, perfectly its powers, and that, as the older and more well known to every resident in the colony, experienced member of the Committee and, perfectly well known to your Excellency from probably, also because of my legal knowledge your interviews and correspondence with me as and training. I was constituted by the Com-Chairman, perfectly well known to your Colonial wittee its Chairman.
Secretary who, for the first month, was present at nearly every meeting of the Committee. These are the facts which Mr. Ackroyd, in his letter, did not think it necessary to refer to in detail, but which were left to your Excellency, as Her Majesty's Representative, to bring pro- minently to the notice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and these are the facts on which the Committee felt justified in recommend- ing me to Her Majesty's Government for some recognition of or reward for my services of a class and character higher than anything they could give. They felt that a medal or piece of plate, however valuable, was no sufficient acknow. ledgment for such services.
3. That this Committee was appointed when the plague was in the very midst of us and that it bad to take up its duties without a moment's time for consideration, without any previous knowledge or experience of plague work on the part of its members, and with on one in the colony, who had any greater knowledge or experience, to advise them. That they had to prepare by-laws, to organise a staff of workers, to devise, on the spur of the moment. the best plaus for tackling the plague and to carry out these plans with firmness and decision amid a perfect clamour of contradictory opinions and advice.
4.—That, for at least the first month of the plague (to be well within the limits), and until the organisation was complete and in perfect working order and until there had set in a sen- sible daily diminution in the number of cases, your Excellency's Government, most wisely, In reply to an inquiry I addressed to you, you stood aside and left the entire duty and respon have been so good as to send me a copy of the sibility of combatting the plagus wholly to the letter of the 3rd December, 1894, addressed to Sanitary Board and to its Permanent Com- your Excellency by the Chairman of the Committee, on whom it was imposed by Ordinance, mittee appointed at the Public Meeting, held at the City Hall ou the 27th September last, for the purposs of giving dua recognition to the services rendered the community during the plague, and to inform me that this inkstand is the sole response of the Secretary of State, so far as I am concerned, to the recommendations contained in that letter.
referring every question of plague administra tion to their decision; acting, in all things with- in their province, on their opinion and advice, and simply providing money and lending to the Permanent Committee such officers and men as it requisitioned for. !
I am sure your Excellency will feel with me that it is impossible for me, under such circum- stances, to accept the inkstand you have sent me and which I now beg most respectfully to raturn. Will you say to the Right Honourable the Secretary of State when forwarding to him this letter, of which I furnish you three copies for transmission, that I am perfectly satisfied with the thanks of the community conveyed to me by their Committee and with their recorded opinion as contained in their letter of the 3rd December already referred to. I am much obliged for the expression of thanks received from your Excellency and from the Secretary of State. I shall have a sufficient memorial of the plague year and of my work during 5.-That all officers detailed for plague duty,it in the gold medal to be presented to me by all Medical Officers lent by the Naval or Military my fellow-citizens and in the state of my fee I find in the copy of the Committee's letter Authorities, or who volunteered for the work book. I am not at all ashamed to say that I the following passage :—
(except two specially engaged by the Medical should have been highly gratified if Her Majesty "7.-The Committee consider that to Mr. Department) reported to the Permanent Com- had thought fit to honour me as my friend and Francis their best thanks are due for all his exer-mittee, took their instructions from it, and re- colleague, Mr. May, has been so deservedly hon- tions and the time he devoted to the wants of ported solely to it as to the performance of their oured; but the gift of a silver inkstand from the colony for so many weeks. As Chairman of duties. That when the assistance of the troops the Government of Hongkoug is, if your Excel- the Permanent Committee Mr. Francis had a bad to be asked for, the Military Anthorities lency will pardon the expression, so Indiorously heavy, troublesome, and laborious task to per- were put in direct communication with the Com. inadequate to the services rendered, even to the form, and throughout the duration of the epidemic mittee, with which all detailed arrangements mere time expended by me in working on the he was unremitting in his devotion to his duties were made.
Permanent Committee, that I can only coma to and gave up a great portion of his time, no 6. -That while the Colonial Surgeon was busy ouo conclusion, and that is, that the Mar- doubt to the detriment of his extensive practice, all day in his hospital and general medical work, quess of Ripon has, in some strange fashion, to carry ou the work he had voluntarily under- and Mr. May was fully occupied in superintend- been left under the impression that taken. Your Excellency is too well acquainted ing, from daylight till dark, the actual work of I was simply Secretary to the Permanent with Mr. Francis' services for any need of fur the house-to-house visitation, the removal of the Committee, and not, from force of circumstances ther mention. Our Committee decided that sick and dead, the general cleansing and disin. and because of the necessary division of labour his actions are deserving of the fullest recogni feoting, the clearing of Taipingshan and the between us, its brain and motive power. Tais tion, that the best thanks of the community, with housing of its inhabitants and the thousand is not said in any way in 'derogation of the a gold medal, should be tendered to him, and and one multifarious and most responsible ability or skill of my colleagues, who deserved that his valuable services and useful work duties of the Committee out of doors, the the very highest praise and commendation, but should be brought, through your Excellency, to duty fell upon, the Chairman of the Com- they themselves coustituted me their leader, the special notice of the Secretary of State." mittee (and the responsibility) of consider accepted my leadership, and would be the very I have taken the liberty of italicising one or ing and deciding upon many, if not first to admit and proclaim that in our five two words in this extract.
most, of the questions of administration that months' campaign against the plague, I was the were continually cropping up, of giving all
General in command. It is usual in England, orders for supplies, of carrying on the entire or at least it always has been, to award the correspondence, of interviewing every person honours of the campaign to the leader, however
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The Committee in their letter did not enter into any detail of the work done by me, knowing that your Excellency was " too well acquainted
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