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defective sanitation elsewhere, Mr. Chadwick remarks on the deficient evidence on which such statements are based, and continues: (paragraph (115), "Even assuming the absence of certain forms of disease, and a comparative immunity from epidemics, there is no ground for the assertion that the violation of the laws of health is not punished, in China as elsewhere, with the general lowering of vital condition, and not only by intermittent scourges of epidemic disease.
9040 01a 449 previous despatch (W.41 of the 24th April ultimo), I have already drawn Your Lordship's attention to the words of Mr. Chadwick which follow those just quoted: "It is stated that hitherto Hong Kong has escaped the epidemics which have affected other places in the neighbourhood. The settlement is but forty years old, and the subsoil beneath the city may not yet be sufficiently saturated with filth to make it a hotbed for disease and a breeding ground of filth poison. It is somewhat premature to assume that
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