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the voyage, and that the said Surgeon has seen every person on Board during the twelve hours immediately preceding the visit of the Board- ing Medical Officer and is satisfied that they are all in good health."
The Governor in Conncil should have power to extend this Regulation to any other port in the colony, by proclamation in the Gazette, and should ensure that the certificates of duly qualified medical practitioners only are accepted. Bubonic Fever-Under this head Dr. Clark discusses the etiology of the disease. In con- clusion he says:-The marked recurrence of cases in houses previously infected, even after an interval of more than twelve months, has convinced me that only the most thorough dis. infection, and even in some cases the removal of all existing unsound woodwork, will eradicate the disease from an infected dwelling, and I have decided to abolish the process of disinfec. tion by burning sulphur and by washing the floors with some coal tar preparation, which have hitherto been in vogue in this colony, and to adopt the system of disinfection which has proved so successful in Paris of spraying floors, walls, etc. with a 1 in 1,000 solution of Per- chloride of Mercury; the rooms will subsequently be exposed as far as it is practicable in the ill- ventilated and mostly back to back dwellings in which these cases occur, to a free current of air by opening all doors, windows and ventilators as fully as possible, and keeping the premises unoccupied for a few days. There is, however, but one course for the Gov- ernment to adopt, if this colony is to be kept free from this and other filth diseases, and that is the absolute prohibition of back to back houses, and the compulsory provision of an adequate amount of light and ventilation in all the Chinese dwellings in the colony.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
years ago I suggested the probability of enteric fever germs retaining their vitality in a sewage-laden soil, for as long a period even as twelve months, and that such is actually the case has quite recently been experimentally proved by Robertson and Sidney Martin, so that it may be no easy matter to trace the antecedent case in those instances that are at- tributable to choked or defective drains or sewers, but that such a case must have occurred is one of the first principles of the germ-theory of disease.
Common Lodging Houses.-There are now 1,001 registered common lodging-houses in the colony as compared with 840 during 1896 and 457 during 1895. These lodging-houses are licensed to accommodate 16,905 persons, but there must be many more Chinese dwellings which come within the legal definition of com- mon lodging house seeing that there are more than 100,000 unmarried Chinamen in the colony. Prosecutions.--317 summonses were issued for various offences during the year and 289 convictions obtained, the penalties imposed amounting to $2,085.
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Staff. No. serious epidemic has occurred during the year, and the staff have therefore been able to press forward the various sanitary improvements which had been already legislated for but which in many cases had not been carried out by property owners, such for instance as the concreting of ground surfaces, the regu- {lation of cubicles and cocklofts, the registration of common lodging-houses, the occupation of basements, etc., and the good results of such general improvement in the sanitary condition of the colony will be found in the reduced death- rate which has already been recorded in this report. These duties have been performed in an efficient and at the same time, I venture to think, in a judicious manner, and I consider that the Sanitary Board has every reason to be satisfied with the work which the staff has per- formed during the past year.
Smallpox. No less than 293 cases of this disease were reported during the year, of these 200 occurred during the first quarter. The number of imported cases was 37, of which 35 were imported during the first quarter of the
Insanitary Dwellings. In an appendix is year, and Dr. Clark considers that the ex-given a tabular statement of the sanitary con- tensive outbreak of smallpox daring that dition of former health districts 5 and 6 (now quarter was largely attributable to the importa-practically 5, 6, 7, and 8) proposed for the use tion of these 35 cases, many of which would have been prevented from landing, if there had been a systematic medical inspection of all persons entering the colony.
Enteric Fever and the Sewerage System. Sixty-five cases of enteric fever were reported during the year, and no less than fifty-one of these were Europeans. During the month of June six cases occurred within a few days of one another, and as they all obtained their milk from the same dairy it is reasonable to suppose that the infection was conveyed to them by this medium. The system of manuring vegetable gardens is described and comsumption of raw vegetable in salads is deprecated. Dr. Clark also suspects that the infection may be conveyed by oysters, since it is no uncommon occurrence for baskets of oysters, imported into the colony by Chinese compradores, to be kept alive and it may be perhaps fattened, by being suspended over the Praya wall in the immediate vicinity of the various sewer outlets, until some customer may send an order for the supply of these delicacies. With regard to the sewerage Dr. Clark says:-The sewerage system of the city of Victoria has, during the past year, come in for more than its usual share of opprobrium in connection with cases of this disease, and the discovery of certain old sewers, outlets to which had been blocked by the Praya Re- clamation works, while they were yet re-. ceiving a small and probably intermittent flow of sewage from some old private drains, the existence of which was unknown, certainly came at an opportune moment for the advocates of this theory of the transmission of the disease, but although I will grant that foul emanations from choked sewers will undoubtedly produce vomiting, diarrhoea, profound depression and even slight fever, I am not prepared to admit that a genuine attack of enteric fever can be produced in this manner, except in those some- what exceptional cases in which the blocked drain or sewer contains the excreta of some other typhoid patient. When, however, the sewer does contain the necessary infective material, derived from some antecedent case, I certainly think that the emanations from such sewer are capable of transmitting the disease. Some
of the Insanitary Properties Commission. The total number of houses in the district is 3,095, and of these only 565, or 18 per cent, are pronounced to be in a fairly good sanitary condition.
THE WATER SUPPLY,
We are indebted to the Director of Public Works for the following statement in connec- tion with the water supply a
On 1st April, 1898, the water in Tytam Reservoir was 29 feet 2 inches below the over- flow representing a storage of 187,933,000 gal- lons, while the water in Pokfulum Reservoir was 7 feet 9 inches below the overflow, repre- senting a storage of 48,754,000 gallons. The total storage was thus 236,687,000 gallons.
The following are the figures on the corres- pending dates last year:
Level
Tytam 20 feet 11 inches Pokfulum 19 feet 7 inches
Total.
Storage 237,000,000 24,809,000
261,809,000
The total consumption for all purposes dur- ing March was 88,313,000 gallons, giving with an estimated population of 177,450 an average daily consumption of 16 gallons per head.
For the corresponding period last year the total consumption was 79,868,000 gallons or an average daily consumption of 15.2 gallons per head for the population of 169,000.
The Government Analyst reports the water to be of excellent quality.
[April 9, 1898.
THE DEPARTURE OF MR. WODE- HOUSE.
The Hon. H. E. Wodehouse, C.M.G., left the colony for good on 6th April by the CP. steamer Empress of China, having retired from the public service. Mr. Wodehouse came ont as a cadet in 1867 and has seen service in acting or substantive appointments in most of the Government departments. Since 1881 he has been Police Magistrate and Coroner, and in that, as in all the previous offices he filled, he has given his whole hearted service to his duties and has earned the respect of every one, even the lawyers, notwithstanding their frequent complaints that they had great difficulty in making him see their points when arguing before him. In his earlier days Mr. Wodehouse was an active member of the Victoria Recreation Club and for some years acted as Secretary. He was a capable organiser and his services were requisitioned as Hon. Secretary to the Hongkong Commission in connection with the Indian and Colonial Exhi- bition, for which he received the distinction of C.M.G. He was also Hon. Secretary of the Committee which had charge of the arrange- ments for celebrating the Colony's Jubilee in 1891. Mr. Wodehouse, we may also mention, is the inventor of the fire dispatch box used by the Fire Brigade, which has been found useful in extinguishing incipient fires. We wish Mr. Wodehouse a speedy recovery from the effects of his recent illness and many years of health win hich to enjoy his well earned pension. FAREWELL SPEECHES AT THE MAGISTRACY, C.M.G., the European members of the Hong- At the request of Hon. H. E. Wodehouse, kong Police Force assembled at the Magistracy on Monday afternoon 4th April to take part in a farewell ceremony.
At Tokyo on 23rd March, at about 2.30 a.m., fire broke out in a store shed at No. 6 Nichome, Harukimachi, Hongo, owned by Mr. Yokoma kura Shotaro cf Ichome, Harukimachi. The flames, fanned by a strong north-easterly wind, spread very rapidly and 1,112 houses were re- duced to ashes, including the Haruki Theatre and many other important buildings. It was not until 6.30 a.m. that the fire was got under control. During the fire one person is reported to have been burnt to death. The cause of the fire, though not accurately known, is believed to have been incendiarism.-Japan Mail.
Mr. Wodehouse referred to the important duties of the Police in their conduct towards the Chinese population. He said the police were the real exponents of British rule. Magis- trates administered the law and the Police, as the executive officers, were the exponents of the law with which the Chinese more especially came into contact. The position occupied by the Magistrates and the police were not the highest positions, and yet they were the officers who ore especially came into close contact with the Chinese, and hence it was more im- portant that they should impress upon the Chinese the equity and purity of British rule. During his occupancy of the Bench he had always found the Police Inspectors willing to come to him in all questions, and wherever he had been doubtful as to whether he
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could do justice to a case or not be invari ably asked the Inspectors their opinion of the case, as by their contact with both sides of the case they would be in a position to judge of its merits, and he believed with the assistance thus rendered by the Inspectors; justice was done in the case. Referring to the unfortunate occurrences of last year he hoped that now the matter had been settled it would be the last affair of the kind in the Police Force. They must remember that though a constable's pay was small he occupied a most honourable position, and while they discharged their duties faithfully and did not fall into temptation they were doing a great service to- duty to enforce the municipal and other regula- wards the community in general. It was their tions. He need not say he had his own views of how those regulations should be enforced, but he knew that in their present Captain Superintendent of Police they had one who
had ordered the enforcement of these re- gulations with due tact and regard to Chinese thoughts and ideas, and those officers who had been promoted to take the place of those who had gone would, he felt sure, in every way justify the choice of the Captain Superin- tendent of Police, and do their duty fearlessly and honestly. In conclusion, Mr. Wodehouse, who was deeply affected, said he was extremely sorry to have to bid them good-bye. He hoped the few remarks he had made would be given due consideration and that those whom he had addressed would benefit from them.
Chief-Inspector Mackie, replying on behalf of the members of the Police Force, thanked Mr. Wodehouse for his kind words. He added that as Police Magistrate Mr. Wodehouse had