of vegetation. Their impoverished soil demands this by them and they scavenge their cities for this human product less on sanitary grounds than for agricultural purposes.
House sewage and all other forms of refuse and garbage are left to putrefy in the streets and back-yards, eventually to be washed away by the rains or to be converted into dust by a tropical sun.
Turning from the vile city to the Colony of Hong Kong, we find a different state of things. English ideas as against Chinese ideas have here prevailed until recently. English Governors have for thirty-seven years been endeavouring to induce the 100,000 Chinese who live under the protection of the British flag to set aside their filthy habits and conform to the hygienic rules of Western life. These Governors have only partially succeeded, but the result notwithstanding is a marked difference between the English City of Victoria and the Chinese towns on the mainland.
In Hong Kong, the filth and garbage of each house are not allowed to be thrown out into the streets for the pigs to wallow in, and left there to accumulate until the thoroughfares become impassable. There is an elaborate scavenging contract under the terms of which, the Public Works Department is able to remove from the town every night the whole of the refuse of the previous day.
As in India, the night-soil of every house is removed before daylight by carriers. Dustbins are dotted about the town and are scavenged daily. The purity of the water supply is jealously guarded. There is a Sanitary Police and a Government Inspector of Nuisances under most able officers willing to perform their duties, if their hands were not restrained.
Until the departure of Sir Arthur Kennedy in 1877, there appears to have been a steady and constant improvement in the condition of the town, and in all other sanitary branches, and the Colony was gradually losing that very unenviable reputation it acquired in 1866 when the excessive mortality of the garrison in Hong Kong attracted the attention of Parliament and led to an enquiry of the House of Commons into the subject.
But since the advent of the present Governor, there has been a complete reversal of the wise policy of his predecessors in sanitary matters. To the no small consternation of the English community, Sir John Hennessy has adopted Chinese views in this as in other questions of public interest, although it was considered that he would espouse English ideas, at least in health matters.
This, however, has not been the case, for His Excellency has derived his inspirations from ignorant Chinese traders and trading guilds composed of unscientific natives utterly incompetent to advise on the points submitted to them; and what is equally to be regretted, he has paralyzed the hands of English functionaries of the Government Sanitary staff. The Surgeon-General having protested against the further spread of fever dens in the shape of...