56
therefore be of permanent benefit for storing water.
(5) Being close to the small dam in con- nection with the temporary pumping-plant already, established, the work-people can be conveniently housed below the latter so as to avoid the risk of pollution of the supply from this.source.
¡
The stall dam above referred to is one, recently constructed, with a capacity of one and a half millions and equip- ped: with an engine capable of pumping half-a-million gallons per day to the Tytam gauge-basin. It is satisfactory to note that Mr. CHATHAM's proposal for the construc- tion of this bigger auxiliary dam met with Sir HENEY BLAKE's strong support, aud that on: His Excellency's representations it has received the sauction of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[January 25, 1904.
| (1) Trismus, the commonest cause of deaths | gave evidence, and pronounced against their under two weeks of age in the Convents, too extended employment.. It is not very The Chinese call this so hau, or lock-jaw, many years, since a batch of thirty-six and consider it a hopeless disease. Dr. Chinese constables were dismissed the Force HUNTER, however, could not isulate the for accepting bribes from gambling-house- tetanus bacillus in his post-mortem examina- Leapers, and in spite of all protests the local tions. (2) Marasmus, which Dr. HUNTER Government replaced these offenders by found to be responsible for over 33 per cent. others drawn from the same class. It is in some 600 post-mortems on children under matter of notoriety that all the native two years old. Mal-nutrition and want of lukongs, with perhaps a few notable excep- cleanliness, as well as hereditary con- tious, are accessible to bribes, that they are ditionis, are to blame. (3) Chest-affections. conspicuous by their absence when rows are (4) Diarrhoea, etc. (5) Convulsions at afoot, and that they cannot be counted upon, teething time and from worms. The to assist to awe a Chinese mob. They Chinese use the term kap king to describe are a positive source of weakness to the this class of convulsive disease. The report Police Force, and, in the event of a Chinese points out that it is an important fact that riot or anti-foreign demonstration, might a number, possibly a third to half of the prove a serious danger. Chinese detectives children dying within one month, have not. are necessary though by no means reliable, had their births registered, Chinese children but no other Chinese, except perhaps in not being entered in the " family tree isolated cases, should be enlisted in the until they are one month old. The high Police. The British constable is an expen- death-rate is more apparent. than real, says sive article, and his Indian brother is not the Committee. The MO.H. in his 1902 without faults, but s long as sufficient report gives the infantile death-rate at 796 material for the Force can be obtained from per 1,000, after allowing for all deaths under these sources, no Chinese should be en- one mouth 'as anregistered; but owing to rolled in it. Their employment in the New the very large number of births unregistered, Territory is especially to be deprecated, as his figures must be considered very much there they can neither be depended upon over the mark. And further, if our figures to maintain order, or to inspire confidence. are compared with the infantile death-rate among the population in the purity and in Calcutta-748.6 per 1,000—they are rela- impartiality of the administration of British tively not so had as apparent at first sight, justice. As to preventive measures, the Committee say that the first and greatest involves the better education of the Chinese, especially the lower classes, in sanitary matters. The
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The cost of the dam is to be paid for out of the suns voted for the Tytamtuk Scheme, of which it practically forms a part We 'cannot hope to reap any advantage from the new reservoir during the present dry season, but it is a consoling fact that the Water Authority leads us to expect it will be avail- able for the purposes of public supply in the 1904-5 dry season, by which time the pumping-engines will have come out from home. Mr. CHATHAM deserves the thanks of the community for the way in which he has carried through this scheme, if, as
will are led to believe, it do much, to relieve the distress that has been borne by all classes in Hongkong of recent years and has been getting to be more burdensome as time went on and the water-maternity hospital is a step in the right supply became le s and less proportionately as the population became more numerous.
we.
direction, but a free maternity charity, whereby poor people could be attended in their own houses, is wanted. A bonus of $2 to mother, midwife, or other person
CHINESE INFANTILE MORTALITY | present registering a birth within
IN HONGKONG.
one
month is recommended. The Convents should be required to register every admis- sion at the Registrar-General's Office. And the foster mothers with whom children from the Convents are housed should also be registered, ei her at the Convent or at the R.G.O., as well as medically examined before being accepted as foster mothers But the great remedial measure is, as the Committee begin their recommendations by saying, the better education of the Chinese. to convince th m of the necessity of proper sanitary proce ure, both personal and in their households.
►
CHINESE IN THE HONGKONG POLICE FORCE.
(Daily Press, 22nd January.)
(Daily Press, 20th January.) A report laid on the Legislative Council table on the 19th inst. which furnishes very me- lancholy reading-matter is that of the com- mittee appointed to enquire into the causes of Chinese infantile mortality in the Colony. That committee was composed of Doctors J. M. ATKINSON, Ho Kai, G. P. JORDAN, W. W. PEARSE, G. M. HARSTON, and W. HUNTER. Many meeting were held and the French and Italian Couvents were inspected, as being, the places where most of the infantile deaths under one month occurred. As was the case in 1886, when on the raising of the question in the Council by Mr. A. P. MACEWEN, Mr. HUGH MACCULLUM ex- amined the causes of infantile mortality here, the cominittee agrees that it is not to We note, with great regret, that intrinsic defects in the two, Convents that suggestion made by the Acting Captain Super the large death-rate 18 due, but intendent o Police for an addition to the to the number of moribund children | Colonial Police Force of fifty Chinese con- dumped at the Convent doors. The stables has me with the support aud concur- figures on which the committee had to
rence of the Government. In this column, for work included the Acting M.O.H.'s return the past thirty-five years, we have consisteut- from July, 1902, to June, 1903, which show-ly, and designdly, opposed the augmenta ed a total of 1,073 infautile deaths under tion of the Chinese contingent of the Police. one year in the Colony, 495 or over 46 per When the Commission to enquire into the cent. being due to tetanus, trismus, aud con- constitution and working of the Police Force vulsions; 370 of those latter were at the was held upwards of thirty years ago, all French Convent, which draws from a lower the evidence of experts and those who were class of Chinese population than the Italinu most competent to speak went to show that Convent. Altogether the French Convent the Chinese Police were incompetent, unre- admitted 1,892 infants, of whom 1,271 died, 277 from tetanus, and trismus; the Italian | Couvent admitted 341 infants, of whom 168 died, 25 from tetanus and trismus. It was found that the, number of admissions and deaths begun to rise iu April, and reached its maximum in August, then declining to its minimum between January and March. The causes of the mortality are stated by the report of the Committee to be
|
liable, and corrupt. The Hon. CHARLES MAY, some time Acting Colonial Secretary, who had been successively Superintendent of Police and Police Magistrate, and who had had long experience of the lukonge, stated in bis evidence before the Commission that if they had one half of the Police Chinese they would have oue Lalf useless. The late Dr. STEWART, Colonial Secretary in succession to Sir WILLIAM MARSH, also
|
THE P. & O. S. N. CO.
(Daily Press, 19th January.) At the sixty-third annual meeting of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company on the 11th ultimo, Sir THOMAS SUTHERLAND had a pleasant task to per- form, for, as he stated, though the year 1902 had been the most fortunate year in the history of the company, 1903 fell but little behind. In 1908 the revenue decreased by £111 000 and the expenditure decreased by £97,000. With regard to the year 1902 Sir THOMAS SUTHERLAND said that they could not of course anticipate such years except at the rarest intervals; but they might fairly hope, except in event of extra- ordinarily adverse circumstances, for the normal annual dividend which they had now paid for so many years. The point of greatest interest to the Far East in the P. & O. chairman's statement was of course about the reduction of fares to and from this part of the world, à fact which we hare already announced and which has been anticipated for some time since the decision to lower the fares between England and India. The chief consideration which the P. & O. Co. has had to make has been the opposition of Russia's Trans-Siberian line, which could not but give a vast impetus to all rival routes. Sir THOMAS, speaking on this sub- ject, said : We cannot compete with the railway in point of rapidity of transit, but we can compete with the railway in point "of fares, and accordingly we have decided to r duce our passinger-far-sto China considerably.
It is just possible. "that eventually the existence of that. railway may prove to be a benefit to the Passengers may have. great advantage of travelling out by the "Siberian Railway, and the still greater advantage of coming home by the P. & O. Company.' This was a happy way of putting it, and the speaker emphasised his r marks by recalling how the development of the Pacific Railway had taken away from the P. & O. Co. a great number of passen- gers to China and Japan, but had brought. into existence a large amount of world iravel, from which the Company derived its share of benefit.. In the early days of the
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