1
218
"from the disease.'
(Sa) Alex. Rennie, M.B., C.M.”
There is no reason to suppose that the plague had reached Hong Kong in April for the deaths reported by the Native (Tung-wa) Hospital in April 1894 were less than in April 1893. On 10th May there was a meeting of the Sanitary Board when a member ex- pressed the opinion that "a good fall of rain would make us all right". On the same day the Colonial Surgeon reported that he had seen that day 20 cases of the plague in the Hong Kong Native Hospital. From this date the disease appears to have made rapid headway in Hong Kong. The total deaths for the 24 hours to noon on 19th May were 34, on 2nd June 76, and
on 7th June 107. There can be no doubt that in the
Chinese Quarter of the town, Tai-ping-shan and the neighbourhood the contagion found a suitable nidus
in the accumulated filth of years.
After the 7th June the number of deaths in
Hong Kong began to decline. Up to 29th June there
died in Hong Kong in all 2,196.
But this number is a very small proportion
of those who took the contagion in Hong Kong. The
Chinese have left Hong Kong for their native villages
on the mainland in vast numbers by every sort of water
conveyance driven chiefly by the dread of leaving their bones on foreign soil, and disgust at the house
to