Brenan to Lack. An interim report. Interview with the Viceroy and to demand contradiction of the libellous and malicious placards.
The Viceroy,
I am bound to say, his apparent proclamation readiness blued a ... 114546 which, as you will see from my dispatch 20. 128 of the 29th, I did not consider sufficiently explicit, as it was his far too general terms.
I therefore requested the Registrar to see the Viceroy again, and to point out to him that in my opinion his Proclamation has not been clearly adequate to the occasion. The Viceroy therefore brought out a Proclamation which appeared here in due time, but which coming too late had little effect in the already exasperated ruffians in his Province. The Registrar-General then, at my desire, got out a Proclamation which has been duly circulated throughout Hongkong, cautioning the populace from giving credence to the false reports current as to the treatment of patients and others in our Hospitals, and stating in the simplest language that the treatment has, what objects the Government had in view, and how carefully and kindly the diseased are treated.
With due regard to Chinese customs (as far as the disease would admit) the corpses of their dead friends and relatives were given back to them. I have forwarded all the correspondence which has passed between the Colonial Secretary and myself on these subjects, as well as subsequent correspondence affecting the brutal attack by the rowdies at Canton on two American lady-missionary doctors, to Sir Rutherford's Minister at Peking, requesting him to lay the correspondence before the Tsung-Li Yamen.
16. It is to be hoped, though I fear such hope is not likely to be realised, that some stringent measures will be taken to prevent such outrageous proceedings in the future.
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