504
the actual managers of the public houses should be salaried persons having no share in the profit on the sale of intoxicating liquors. At Home a proposal to reduce the number of publican's licences in any city by one-half would evoke a storm of protest engineered by the owners of these valuable properties, especially when the proposal makes no reference to compensation either to the owners or the licencees in any shape or form, but in Hongkong, where these properties are not so valuable
and other circumstances are somewhat
different, the silence which has followed the publication of the sweeping re- commendation we have briefly outlined may be accepted, we think, as indicative of a general approval of the idea. Apparently the recommendation would involve the closing of the public bars of the leading hotels of the Colony. According to the de- finitions of the Licensing Ordinance a public house means any house or place of entertainment where intoxicating liquors are
14
sold by retail and may be consumed on the premises, but does not include any place of entertainment kept under an adjunct licence or Chinese restaurant licence; and an adjunct licence is designed to meet the requirements of hotel-keepers, restaurateurs er confectioners for the retail sale of intoxicating liquors as an adjunct to their respective businesses, but does not authorise the keeping of a public bar. So the public bars of the leading hotels would disappear with the purely drinking saloons which cluster in Queen's Road Central if this
scheme
.
is carried out. But is the conversion of the public house from a drinking bar to a house of refreshment for the supply of wholesome food and non- alcoholic liquors as well as of beer and spirits," to the extent the Committee ⚫vidently have in mind, a practical idea? Would it be possible to persuade the investing public to put money into such an enterprise Presumably the present public houses do little more than pay their way. We are not aware that fortunes are made in
the business, and we see that of the present
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
THE SEA CARRIAGE OF PLAGUE.
[December 11, 1909..
as exceedingly strange that Colombo, Pen- ang, Singapore and many other ports in the East, to say nothing of the ports to the West which are in frequent steamship communication with Bombay, should have all these years. But though Bombay, down to a comparatively recent date, may have done nothing to prevent communication by rats between ship and shore, the health authorities there have for a decade or more been at great pains to thoroughly disinfect the clothing of certain people going by seal Dr. BLACKMORE considers the method of personal examination in Bombay to be so efficient that surprisingly few cases of plague have ever been allowed to leave the port... He also considers that the danger of the carriage of plague over-sea, by means of
whether it is necessary to take any steps to fleas, is so remote that it is questionable prevent it. As an Indian contemporary remarks, the official subscription to his opinion would mean the cessation of the enormous disinfection arrangements that ing of many persons going out of India is now take place in Bombay, where the cloth-
destroy germs as submitted to severe treatment in order to BLACKMORE admits that no cause of infec-
well
as fleas.
Dr.
(Daily Press December 10th.) Notwithstanding all the study and re-enjoyed absolute immunity from the scourge search devoted in the last ten or fifteen years to the etiology of plague, we are still without a satisfactory explanation of the origin of the epidemics which from time to time occur in places wide apart. Plague at the present time appears to be epidemic at Kobe in Japan, and at Hankow in the Yangtsze, while every other port in the Far East, including Hongkong, seem to be absolutely free of the dread disease. How did the epidemics in these places originate? How was it introduced into Hongkong fifteen years ago? Nobody can with certainty tell us; but here, as everywhere else, the experts give us what little consolation is to be found in the suggestion that it must have been introduced from some other place." At a Medical Congress held at Bombay recently a paper was read suggesting pre- ventive measures that should be adopted in docks and on board ship to prevent the carriage of plague by sea. The author of this paper was Dr. BLACKMORE, formerly assistant to the Port Health Officer of Bombay. He insisted that the rat is un- doubtedly the essential factor in the carriage of plague by sea, and urged that if the transmission of plague is to be prevented some means must be devised of either pre- venting rats from gaining access to ships in infected ports, or the rats must be destroyed on board the ship after it has left such ports, for, in Dr. BLACKMORE's opinion the des- truction of rats is the one measure of su- preme importance, and the docks of infected countries are the places in which it should be most systematically carried out." There is one observation in the Doctor's paper which will give rise to some interesting reflections. It is this Bombay is at the present time, and has been for some years, the great plague-distributing centre of the world, and it is here that the greatest activity should be displayed in destroying the known carrier of plague. I regret to say that up to the present no attempt of any kind in this direction to limit the spread of plague has been made." It should at once be said that this statement stands in need of correction, so far, at least, as the last sentence of it is concerned. Dr BLACKMORE'S
C
"
46
knowledge on this point apparently did not extend to what has been done at Bombay since he left the service three years ago. Ac- cording to the Health Officer of Bombay, who took part in the discussion which followed
41
ever been traced to another country, but he tion from India traceable to clothing has denies that disinfection is responsible for this, holding that this is proved by the well- known fact that the clothing of saloon pas- sengers, whether European or native, and of all officers or engineers, whether European or native, are exempted from disinfection, although the native officer and the native sailor, when they land in Bombay, very town and under very similar conditions: frequently live in the same parts of the the one In essential measure and the one so strangely
Dr. BLACKMORE's view,
is the destruction neglected in India . of rats in the docks of infected countries on board vessels sailing from those coun- tries, and in the docks of uninfected countries in which such vessels are to be ultimately berthed." The attempt to prevent rats from passing on to ships lying alongside wharves or dock walls must, he thinks, be confessed to have failed, and it is difficult, he says, to conceive of any really effectual mea- sure which would at the same time allow the ordinary loading and unloading work to be carried on unhampered. Even if rats could be prevented from passing on board them- selves a certain number would be carried on board in cargo and baggage. If, however, · there were no rats in the docks, none could
licencees two have carried on business in the Colony for fifteen years, one for seventeen years and yet another for twenty-one years. From the point of view of the possible investor, it is to be regretted that the original idea of starting with one house on the Gothenburg system was deemed to be impracticable in competition with ordinary public houses. Apparently in the Gothenburg house it would not be necessary for the patron to have food with every glass of liquor, as in the house having an adjunct the reading of the paper, all ships in Bombay gain access to the ships excepting the few licence, and it would rest with the
are now kept three feet off the dock wal. manager of the establishment to pro- by means of specially-constructed fenders mote the higher temperance, by placing their ropes and hawsers are protected by greater restrictions on the supply of liquor metal dises of an approved type, and the to free infected ports of rats, at least to his customer than is the case now, and that would be a factor operating against the gangways when down are freshly tarred. prospects of an eight per cent. dividend all ships of rats, cockroaches, &c, by The Sanitary Authority offers to free for the company which controls the
means of sulphur dioxide gas generated houses. We have no desire to throw in a Clayton apparatus which is capable of saturating 250,000 cubic feet of space
22
cold water on the scheme. The aim
in view has our cordial sympathy and support, and we trust the Committee are in a position to satisfy the public that it is a sound proposition.
An appropriation of P250,000 has been made for the dredging of the mouth of the Iloilo river The contract has been let to the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Company. The river at that point will be dredged to a depth of nine feet and the work is to be completed within nine months. The dredging will enable large steamers to pass in and lie along the east side. This is the first appropriation toward accomplishing that for which an appropriation of P1,250,002 has been
asked.
per
hour with a germicidal or ver- min-destroying gas. All plague-infected ships have to be Claytonised before they can obtain a Bill of Health, and all pilgrim ships have to be free from rats by the same process before pilgrims are taken on board. In the Port of Bombay the Claytonising of ships is done free of charge with the excep- tion that the sulphur required for the process has to be provided by the ship. All this has been done only in the last three years, but, according to Dr. BLACK- MORE's dictum, Bombay has been for some years the great plague-distributing centre of the world, and if that is so it strikes
us
that might be in articles of carg›. There can, then, he concludes, be no doubt whatever not taken
that even
every
if
measures
are
effort should be made to rid
the attempt should meet with such a mea- the docks of them, and with properly organised, persistent and systematic efforts,
of plague very improbable. sure of success as to render the exportation The only comment we have to make on this is that, if we accept the theory that plague is carried from one port to another by means of rats on board ships, is it not very extraordinary that we have heard so little of plague among the crews of ships trading with Bombay, and is it not also that the plague germ has not been strange left in every port at which a Bombay
steamer calls ?
Prince Ching has been requested to consult with the British Minister to have the term for
putting an end to the opium trade reduced on account of the fact that poppy cultivation in China has been thoroughly prohibited.