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8. On the 17th of May welcome assistance was offered by Lieutenant Boys, R.E., who was told off to assist Mr. CROOK and shared the charge of the cleaning work with him until the end of the epidemic.
9. The search parties being still too weak twelve Non-Commissioned Officers and men of the Shropshire Light Infantry were detailed to assist, and commenced work on the 18th of May.
Seven were assigned to the Central District, three to the Western and two to the Eastern Districts.
This brought the number of Europeans engaged on the work up to nineteen, and with each man there worked a Chinese Constable.
The Central District was divided into three sections, one of which comprised Taipingshan.
It was the practice to inspect the latter locality every morning and to take the other sectious on every alternate afternoon.
With six parties at work (composed of two Europeans and two Chinese cach) it was found possible to inspect on an average 475 houses in 3 hours or from 950 to 1,000 houses in the day.
The Eastern District was divided into 3 sections containing an aggregate of 1,170 houses, many of which are partially occupied by Europeans. There were three parties (consisting of 1 European and 1 Chinese each) at work daily, and the worst streets were inspected every day while the remainder were visited once in every three days.
The Western District was divided into 4 sections and with 4 parties (of 1 European and 1 Chinese cach) at work daily up to the 7th of June and 5 parties after that date, was inspected in the same manner.
There are 1,865 Chinese houses in the 4 sections and of these two-thirds are one- storied buildings.
The men worked at first for eight hours a day, but this was soon found to be too trying and the hours were reduced to 6 (from 7.30 to 10.30 a.m. and from 3 to 6 p.m.).
The work was subsequently so arranged that each man got a day off in seven.
10. On the 19th of May 4 more men of the Royal Engineers were detailed for the work of cleansing and disinfecting. As heavy rain hud set in the flushing of drains was discontinued, and the twelve Non-Commissioned Officers and men of the Royal Engineers under employ were disposed of as follows:-
Six were placed in charge of a similar number of gangs of coolies cleaning and disinfecting; two were fumigating in the Western District with Inspector CLERTHEW, and two in the Central District with Inspector GRIMBLE, while one man assisted in supervising the burial of the dead at the Cemetery.
The remaining man-the corporal in charge-exercised a general supervi
sion over the cleaning gangs, and arranged the order of the day's work from the lists supplied the previous night.
11. On the same day Inspector QUISCEY was admitted to Hospital his health having given way under the strain of work, and P. C. MCEWEN took his place. At the same time Inspector GERMAIN was given charge of the search parties and retained it while the house-to-house visitation was continued.
A copy of the directions for personal disinfection issued to the members of the search parties is attached. The working clothes of the Police were, when practic able, kept in separate rooms at the various stations.
On this day two houses in Market Street were closed in consequence of 3 cases of plague having occurred in each of them.
12. On the 21st of May the Glassworks Hospital having been opened, Sergeant PHELPS and P. C. COLLETT were sent there from the Tung Wa Hospital to register the admissions of patients, regulate the admissions of visitors, and supervise the coffining of the dead and arrange for their punctual removal for burial.
At the same time 4 European Constables (GARRIGAN, MCDONALD, THOMSON and DICKSON) were detailed for duty at the Tung Wa Hospital, during the whole of the day and night, to register the plague patients brought in, and regulate the transmission of sick and dead to the Plague Hospitals.
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With each patient or corpse a foil duly filled in was sent, and these were returned to the Central Police Station the following day from the various Hospitals and checked with the counterfoils. In addition each patient or corpse, or hatch of the same, was escorted by an Indian Constable or District Watchman during transit from the Tung Wa to the destination, so that all possibility of a miscarriage of the sick or dead (which had been found to occur before the system had been organised) was rendered impossible.
13. In consequence of the impossibility of obtaining sufficient native labour to cope with the rapidly increasing work of cleaning and disinfecting houses in which plague had occurred, 300 men of the Shropshire Light Infantry with 8 Officers were, on the 22nd of May, detailed in two shifts of 150 men each to carry on the work with such coolies to assist them as could be procured.
These men were divided up into 15 gangs of 10 men each with 10 coolies attached to each gang. Eight gangs with two Officers were assigned to the Taipingshan District, 4 gangs with two Officers to the Western, and 3 gangs with one Officer to the Central District.
The Non-Commissioned Officers and men of the Royal Engineers hitherto engaged on the work of cleansing were utilised to supervise the work, in which they had the advantage of considerable experience. They had also gained a very fair knowledge of the names and positions of the streets in the plague infected localities.
The Tung Wa Hospital, No. 7 and No. 5 Police Stations were made the centres at which the parties met for work in the Taipingshan, Western, and Central Districts respectively, and the hours of work were from 7.30 am. to 10.30 am. and from 1.30
p.m. to 4.30 p.m.
Chinese Police were employed to warn the inhabitants of the impending cleansing of their houses, and in view of the possibility of the natives resenting the cleansing operations and complications arising, Mr. May exercised a general supervision of the work in Taipingshan, while Chief Inspector MATHESON and Inspector MACKIE rendered similar service for some weeks in the Central and Western Districts until the Chinese had become thoroughly accustomed to the operations.
No special arrangements were made for the Eastern District owing to the few cases of plague occurring there.
On the occurrence of a case in that District it was the practice to detail a party from one of the other Districts to cleanse and disinfect the house.
14. The work which had now become thoroughly organised may be briefly described as follows:-
In each District there met at 7.30 AM. every day five distinct parties
of workers, viz.:~-~
(a) the house-to-house searchers, (b) the collectors of bedding and clothing from the rooms or cubicles from which plague patients had been removed to Hospital, (e) the fumigating parties, (d) the cleansing parties, and (e) the parties in charge of the fires in which the infected clothing, bedding, and rubbish were burned.
On a patient being sent in by the search parties, or taken to Hospital by his
or her friends, the patient's address was registered by the European Constable ou duty, and if any doubt existed as to the correctness of the address, as frequently occurred in the case of patients other than those sent in by the search parties, a Chinese detective stationed at the Hospital for the purpose was sent to verify it.
From the registers the collectors of infected bedding and clothing would make a list of addresses in the various Districts to which they were attachel and proceed in company with Chinese interpreters (principally drawn from the Police) to remove the bedding and clothing of the patient. Some of the party would then be sent with it to the fire estab'ished in each District where it would be burnt under the eyes of the European in charge of the fire.
The disinfecting parties would similarly obtain lists of premises to be fumigated from the same register, and proceed to fumigate them.
In the meantime the cleansing parties would have proceeded to their work, the lists of infected houses furnished to them being compiled from the reigster of the day but one before.