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80. The fatal Dysentery cases were 187.
The destruction of life since our occupation of Hong Kong has been momentous. The deaths among the troops in the Year Retrenchment amounted to 1 in 3½; at Chutan to 1 in 27½ and at Noolungsoo to 1 in 19.72. H.M. 98th Regiment lost at Hong Kong in 18 months 257 men by death.
But in this and other ways it is not the deaths which indicate disease, newly arrived in a pernicious climate it is the number of men invalided and constantly unfit for duty. One half of the men of a company are frequently unable to attend the Parade: out of 100 men sometimes not more than 20 are fit for duty.
The Royal Artillery, the finest Corps in the world, lost in two years 51 by death (of whom 35 died at Hong Kong) and 45 by invaliding. That Hong Kong was the cause of their death will be seen from the fact that Colonel Knowles' detachment of the Royal Artillery was through the whole of the war at Canton and on the Keang river; it never landed at Hong Kong; one man was killed, and another died of dropsy, but the whole of the remainder of the Detachment returned to England except the Commanding Officer, Colonel Knowles, who landed at Hong Kong, and died of fever.
The Officers of the Royal Artillery, who came out with the original detachment, died in the same proportion as the men; not one escaped disease or death.
Last year there were severe losses in the ships of War. H.M.S. "Agincourt" lost 183...