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May 20, 1901:1
For this criminal negligence on someone's part the Medical Officer acknowledged his regret! The same officer any day on Caine Road can witness the intermittent passage of but partly. closed pla rue baskets filled with infected cloth- ing, which are dumped down ontside open windows and in much used thorough-fares, whenever the coolies desire to rest.
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Now that Europeans in the last few days have succumbed to plague, Dr. Bell may readily be assured that carting a dead-box through the leading streets is not exactly decent, and is an objectionable and a dangerous practice. They would not do it in the streets of London, and there is no reason why it should be done here, although the doctor may personally approve of it. It is, to put it mildly, disagreeable to residents and cruel to the patient. Steamers arriving from Singapore and Manila are rightly quarantined; but is there ady inspection over the thousands of natives who daily arrive from plague-stricken Canton, or does the number of passengers appal the Government by its immensity? If so, con trast this inaction with the thorough way in which the Shanghai Municipal Council has dealt with arrivals from plague.centres, which has resulted in the Model Settlement" being uncontaminated when the disease raged here, The plague question isa vast andagrave question; at present it is more or less trifid with, and the Government prefers to make new roads in a new and barren territory to expending money and energy on cleansing and purifying the vile slums in this overcrowded city.
The Director of Public Works has presented us with a good deal of information about roads in the New Territory, which in years to come will no doubt prove of public use and benefit. If the Acting-Director of Public Works will go out of his way to visit the Western portion of Des Vœux Road and the roads opened on the New Prays and leading to the Canton and Macao Steamer Wharf, he will find roads (!) which would disgrace a Chinese village. These roads are used by thousands of people daily and are absolutely dangerous in wet weather, and they have been in this condi- tion for more than two years. The road to Kowloon Docks is so bad that accidents occur daily, and except to pedestrians it is impassable after rain. The vehicular traffic in the business part of the Colony is very "small" and is confined to a few roads, and considering the unsatisfactory state they are generally in, it might be well to send a deputation from the Colonial Engineer's department to Macao to study the road system there. In the matter of roads, Hongkong is immensely behind Singapore, the ronds of which Colony are usually splendidly kept up.
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409
HONGKONG SANITARY BOARD
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT, house and build and her exactly like iton the same spot. It would mean an enormous GX- penditure if the whole of the slums of Hongkong A meeting of the Hongkong Sanitary Board were to be destroyed; other cities of the world was held on the 16th inst, the Hon. F. H. are doing it, and eurely Hongkong can attempt May being in the chair. There were also present something practical if gradual in this direction. Lieut. Colonel Hughes, Dr. Bell (Acting Vested interests are great, and the disadvantage Principal Civil Medical Officer), Mr. Brewin Hongkong labours under is that the unofficial (Registrar General) Mr. E. Osborne, Dr. Clark representatives on the Legislative Council (Medical Officer of Health), Mr. Fang W are concerned with those vested interests. Chuen, and Mr. G. A. Woodcock (Secretary). The Government gracefully left it to the Senior Unofficial Member to attempt to grapple with
DUMPING INFANTS OUTSIDE CONVENTS, one of its duties in dealing with overcrowding collency the Governor's minute, dated 7th inst., The Secretary read an extract from His Ex in Wanchai, and even condescended to put a on the subject of the dumping of moriband few impediments in the way, which fortunately infants outside the doors of convents. His were negotiated, and Wanchai is to have its Excellency wrote: "There might be reclamation scheme put into practice, The pulsory registration of infants received and Senior Member is to be congratulated upon death certificate, involving a further increase of doing what the Government should have done the medical staff.” and it is perhaps fair to acknowledge he will be amply compensated by the results.
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Mr Brewin minuted—"I believe that some- The other evil can only be dealt with briefly, attention of the Sanitary Department, and a time before 1891 this question attracted the The question of exorbitant rents is one which committee reported on it. C presses very heavily on most residents—parti- found, and attached to these papers P
Can the report be cularly Europeans with moderate incomes-the Portuguese and the Chinese In the majority search for the report which had been referred The SECRETARY stated that he had made of instances the extortions of the landlords are to in Mr. Brewin's minute but had been unable akin to robbery, for rents have been jumped up to find it. without any reason beyond that the owners wish to squeeze as much as possible. The Govern- reference to the question of dumping dead
Dr. CLAKK said he should like to say with - ment's position is that the taxes have increased bodies in the streets, or placing infants ont- in proportion, and the Government thereby side the doors of convents, that it seemed participates in flagrant squeezing. Prices of pro- to him, in the first place, they wanted the better visions are continually rising. through the action carrying out of their existing laws. Last year of monopolists, as the recent Commission proved. there were 1,378 deaths of infants under one It is difficult to recognise how the Government year old, and there were 678 births registered. could interfere in the matter, but it is equally That, of course, ignoring altogether the difficult to believe that the Government charged children who happened to survive for a longer with the prosperity and welfare of the Colony period than one year, showed that at least many can remain idle whilst the poorer residents are of the births which occurred within the colony bled month after month by rapacious landlords were not registered at all, and he thought they and rascally monopolists. Elsewhere in the shou'd take some steps to ensure a better East, under other governments, a very drastic and more perfect registration of infanta, be- treatment would be meted out, and it is con- cause it stood to reason that if they knew ceivable that some methods of alleviation could of the existence of those infants, they would be developed here.
These are some of the evils the Government than they were at the present moment. That be in a better position to protect their lives might tackle with energy and perseverance; was one point he wanted them to consider. but, as residents only too well know, they are Then there was the question of the registration not all. They are, however, sufficient to go on of infauts, and from that followed the supervi with. Seeing that some of them really come sion of the little ones after birth, instead of within the scope of municipal control, and that waiting till they reached the convents. In his the wretched Sanitary Board farca has been tried opinion they wanted to have what he himself and failed, is it not about time that Hongkong felt inclined to call should possess the privileges accorded to Singa-mach in the same way as they had female Female Visitors,” very pore and Penang, and the settlement of Shang Sauitary Inspectors, who would go round to hai? These places have their Municipal Councils. the homes of the poorer Chinese and exercise with most successful and gratifying results. some sort of supervision over them. Those If we possessed in Hongkong that right of con- visitors could see that the births were re- trol over municipal matters which prevails in gistered, and look out that the law was fully Shanghai, it is quite possible to believe that carried out in that respect. He thought that under the guidance of the leading residents as respectable young Portuguese women, or women Municipal Commissioners in the Colony and with of other nationalities, could do the work. It a liberal expenditure, many of these evils would would not be a very great expense to be soon abated. We should have good roads, Government, and the return would be very a system of drainage less obtrusive and dan considerable. gerous than the present, an efficient water supply, a thorough sanitary system of control, a gradual disappearance of slums, and many other improvements which a board of elected unofficial members, who know so well the needs of the place, would provide. The municipal control in Shanghai is one of the least costly, and considering its conditions, the most efficient in the world. Its district adjoins a Chinese city containing 5 0,000 Chinese, and its municipal affairs are conducted without friction and with complete satisfaction to the residents. With a thorough system of inspection Shanghai has kept the plague from its doors. Singapore and Penang are as well administered, municipally as Hongkong is the reverse. Therefore the ime has come for Hongkong to be allowed to undertake a task performed by ratepayers successfully elsewhere, which the local govern ment has absolutely failed to accomplish. Other wise a continuation of existing evi's will invite the appointment of a Special Commission to consider them.
He also thought there was another question which they must consider again, and that was, the registration of Chinese midwives. It would be in the re- collection of some of the members of that Board that in January, 1896, he submit- ted a report in which he recommended the registration of midwives. "The registration of native midwives was He then mid: urged by me in my report of January, 1896, for the death rate among the infant population of the colony is one of the most alarming features of our mortality statistics, and although it would appear that much greater dimonity will be experienced in reaching those midwives than is likely to occur in the case of the so-called doctors, yet I am convinced that street super- vision of this branch of medical practice is urgently needed, and that by a little judicious control the infant death rate of the colony can be materially diminished.” z nas
Another evil which Hongkong is suffering from is that of overcrowding, which the Go. vernment is attempting to mitigate by the introduction of the recent ordinance. This naturally falls hard upon the Chinese coolie, who must either pay an increased rent to reside in town or go outside and live at a considerable distance from the scene of his labours. At pre- sent no facility exists in the matter of cheap transport, though occasionally rumours are heard of a electric tramway that is to be started, which will enable the European and Chinese employee to live in the suburbs under healthy and reasonable conditions and enable him to travel cheaply to and from his business. But in introducing such an anti-overcrowding ordinance the Government, made no arrange ment to grapple with the inevitable result. One of the principal reasons why the plague and other infectious diseases cannot be eradicated from the centre of the Colony is owing to the densely-built streets and badly erected houses. Open spaces as lungs are unknown in the lower thickly-populated levels of Hong kong, and the houses in the slums, which are many, were apparently erected with but one object—to enable the landlord to get as much rent as possible. The houses are badly lighted ill-ventilated, and are occupied by race of people who above any should be treated with as much light and siras can possibly be given them. A Chemulpo telegram of the 5th inst. states Hygenio conditions cannot be said to exist, and that eight of the crew of H. M. 8. Barkeur opinion that the proposed system if Hongkong is ever to be free of plague and carried away a quantity of china goods from- a) is a matter which des other diseases arising from dirt and overcrowd- Japanese store there, when a dispute took place of the Government. ing these slams will have to be demolished, roads between them and the Japanese. Two British It was needless for him widened, and open spaces provided. It can serye | and four Japanese were injured in a fray which that at present the midwives no useful purpose to pull down an infected ensued.
were not registered. Certais
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SCRUTATOR.
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30th January, 1896, when the following re
That report was considered by the Board
tion was adopted :—
“That the report be forwarded to the Colonial Secretary for the information of ment, together with an ex