November 4, 1899.]
Council the then Surveyor-General, Hon. | J. M. PRION, said the clause was inserted because it was s assumed that in respect of this colony, as of every other civilised ́country, a human habitation could not do without a provision of this kind. So most people unacquainted with the peculiarities of the Chinese would imagine. After very careful consideration, however, both in the Legislative Council and the Sanitary Board, it was held finally by the Gov- ernment that the balance of the argu- ment was against the provision. In an- nouncing the withdrawal of the clause, Go- vernor Bir WILLIAM DES Vœux said he had come to the conclusion that to enforce the keeping of a privy in every private house in Hongkong, under the conditions in which the people live, would in all pro- bability do more harm than good. His Excellency's reasons for this conclusion were that it would be almost impossible to ensure that the privy should be kept clean without continual Government supervision, which, even if it were practicable at all, would mean continual intrusion into private premises. Owing to the way tenements were let out in Hongkong, His Excellency said, it would be no one's particular duty to see the privy was kept clean and there- fore the probability was that it never would be done. Even the head of the Public Works Department, he added, who at first felt very strongly on the subject, was now also convinced that to have privies in all private houses would probably result in more instead of less insanitary conditions. That particular provision of the Bill was therefore allowed to drop. That is ten years ago, and the condition to-day, as des- cribed by Mr. DRURY, is as follows:-The private accommodation generally consists of a leaky wooden bucket placed in the yard, on the roof, and even in the kitchen, and if the surface is unsound the subsoil is polluted; and a great number of the people empty their night-soil down the most con- venient gully under cover of night, thereby fouling the storm-water drains, and this after the Government have expended $275,000 to divert sewage and sullage from the storm-water drains. It may be doubted,
Sir WILLIAM DES VOEUX once wrote, whether the evidences of material and moral Achievement, presented as it were in a focus, make anywhere a more forcible appeal to eye and imagination than in Hongkong and whether any other spot on the earth is thus more likely to excite or much more fully justifies pride in the name of English
man.
But from a sanitary point of view the city of Victoria is but a whited sepul- chre, and few of the European community, living in their pleasantly situated villas and terraces, have any idea of the rottenness and corruption to be found within. Our moral and material prosperity is now threatened by the steadily recurring epide- mics of plague, and the evidence warrants the belief that the persistency of the disease the persistency being greater here than in any Chinese city is due not alone to overcrowding but also to our defective methods of dealing with the night-soil question. In view of the important issues involved we need offer no excuse for obtruding such an unpleasant subject on the attention of our readers.
It was reported at the Central Police Station on Monday night that there had been removed to the Government Civil Hospital Martini Ag. paris, a seaman on board the Argentine training ship Presidento Sarmiento, who had been stabbed
the back by a shipmate of his named Wane ki, who was still at large. The wounds are not
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
875
OVERCROWDING AND ITS EFFECTS | coolie en produce one or more wadded
ON PLAGUE EPIDEMICS.
we
jackets. As to food, it is true the diet of the people is largely vegetable, but as a rule it is sufficient in quantity, und we should not think a vegetable diet was in itself more favouable to plague than a ment diet. In former times the plague wrought as much havoc amongst the flesh-eating and beer-drinking people of London and various other English towns as it has latterly done amongst the Chinese of Hongkong.
(Daily Press, 2nd November.) At the meeting of the Legislative Council on Tuesday His Excellency the Governor said he had very great difficulty on the question of overcrowding, and that statistics did not bear out the general assumption that the insanitary state of the town was due to surface overcrowding, or that the mortality from plague followed the rate of overcrowd- ing in the town. The return of cases of plague recently presented to the Council would seem prima facie to warrant His Excellency's scepticism as to the connection between overcrowding and plague. The return covers the period from the 1st January to the 8th September of the present year and gives particulars relating to 836 cases occurring in 681 houses in the city of Victoria. From this return learn that in No. 10 district, where there is a population of only 29.26 to the acre, the mortality from plague during the period mentioned amounted to over seven per thousand, whereas in No. 5 district, which is the most densely populated, hav- ing 968.26 persons to the acre, the mortality was six per thousand. The highest mort- ality, 10.6 per thousand, occurred in No. 9 district, which has 620 persons to the acre, as against the 968,26 persons of No. 5 district with a mortality of six per thousand. But it may be argued, and we think with some, reason, that the city must be taken as a whole, and that for the purpose of the present enquiry com- parisons between different districts will prove misleading, for with the population moving freely throughout the whole city the exposure to infection is not confined to those residing in the most overcrowded dis- tricts. A case occurring in No 1 district, for instance, may have been contracted in No. 5 district, and so on. Also we find that although there is a considerable difference in the number of persons per acre in the different districts, which is what is under stood by surface crowding, the house crowd- ing, that is, the number of persons occupy- ing a floor, is as grat in the sparesely po- pulated districts as in the more densely po- pulated ones. Thus in No. 1 district, with its 15,70 persons per acre, there are 8.68 persons per floor, while in No. 5district, with its 968.26 persons per acre, there are 7.78 persons per floor. The statistics therefore do not negative the assumption that the persistency of plague epidemics in the colony is due to overcrowding, using the term as embracing both surface crowding and house crowding. Adding to overcrowding the insanitary con ditions prevailing with respect to the dis posal of night-soil, the virulence and long continuance of the epidemics seems theoreti- cally sufficiently accounted for. The theory, however, cannot be demonstrated by actual proof. It is still a case of groping in the dark.
The Hon. Dr. Ho K▲I advanced another and an entirely new theory, namely, that the heavy mortality from plague is due to the fact that a large proportion of the po- pulation are underfed, eating meat only once or twice a week, and that their consti- tutions are consequently unable to resist the inroads of the disease. He also spoke of them as being insufficiently clothed. That theory, we think, nay at once be set aside. The proportion of the population who suffer from actual privation, either in the matter of food or clothing, is, we should think, ac- tually smaller in Hongkong than in many other large cities. In the winter every!
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While disagreeing with Dr. Ho Kar on the privation theory we are glad to note his remarks as to the real remedy for overcrowd- ing being the opening up of the suburbs and rendering them rendily accessible by tram- way and ferry. Here again, however, he a a little reckless in his statements. "Sometimes," he said, "they had to wait "half-an-hour or an hour for the Chinese ferry boat before they could cross, and is regarded the English Company, their charge was too excessive for the labour- ing Chinese to make use of their ferry." Now the fare by the Chinese launches run- ning to Yaumati, for which Dr. Ho KAI snys people have sometimes to wait an hour, is two cents, whereas the Star Ferry Company charges one cent (or less than a farthing) for the trip to Tsimshatsui, and the service is a ten minutes one from 5.40 a.m. to 8 p.m. and a half-hourly one from 8 p.m. to midnight. If in all other directions an equally good service were provided there would be little to complain of. The impor tance of opening up communication with the suburbs has often been referred to in the press, and we trust that Dr. He Kar's mention of it in the Legislative Council may induce the Government to`give some attention to the question.
THE LADYSMITH DISASTER.
(Daily Press, 3rd November.) In the capitulation of the Irish Fusiliers, Gloucesters, and the 10th Mountain Battery to the Boers we have a repetition almost of the humiliation of Majuba Hill. Like the Press at home, we must suspend judgment on the disaster pending details, but in the meantime astonishment cannot fail to be felt that a small force on foot should have been detached to operate against a mounted enemy. The Boers are mostly mounted, and it is this, as well as their actual number, that places them at an advantage as com- pared with the British force in North Natal. Being mounted, the enemy's force is much more mobile than the British, the rapidity. of the latter's movements necessarily being that of the slowest unit. The Boers are thus favourably circumstanced for cutting off any detached body of foot soldiers such as the unfortunate Irish Fusiliers and Glou- cesters. The capture of the 18th Hussars, reported last week, was also no doubt the result of a surprise which the Boers were able to successfully execute owing to their readiness of movement and knowledge of the country, which is extremely hilly and lends itself readily to concealment of the enemy. The theory entertained in mili- tary circles seems to be that the Hussars had unsaddled for a halt in what was sup- posed to be a safe position and that they were surprised and captured before they had time to re-form. Support is lent to this theory by the fact that thirty men under a sergeant fought their way through. These were presumably the guard, who had remained mounted. Had the whole force been mounted probably the surprise would not have been attempted, or if attempted would have had a different result. This incident and the more recent capture of