1841-1886
STATE OF HER MAJESTY'S COLONIAL POSSESSIONS. 125
TABLE NO. 10.-Showing the Average Rate of Sickness and Mortality for the period of the last Five Years amongst persons employed by Government, including Prisoners.
Average Number of Persons employed per Annum. Average Number of Cases of Sickness per Annum. Average Number of Deaths per Annum. Average Proportion of Number of Cases of Sickness to Strength per Annum, Average Proportion of Deaths to Strength per Annum.. 1052.2 435 27.2 Per Cent. 41.33 Per Cent. 2.72TABLE No. 11-Showing the fixed European Population in Hong Kong during the Year 1849, and the Proportion of Deaths..
Number of Europeans, including Women and Children. Number of Deaths, including Women and Children. Proportion of Deaths, Per Cent. 987 64 6.49N.B.--Military and Naval Forces not included in this Table.
TABLE No. 12,-Showing the entire Population of Hong Kong, and Proportion of Deaths in 1847, 1848, and 1849 respectively...
Year. Entire Population. Number of Deaths. Proportion of Deaths. Per Cent.. 1847 23,872 282 1:18 or 1.18 1848 21,514 384 1:78 or 1.78 1849 29,507 192 0.65The Census, from which the statistics as exhibited in the preceding table (No. 12) have been deduced, was taken under the supervision of Mr. May, the Superintendent of Police. No method could have been adopted more calculated to ensure accuracy than the one resorted to by him, and there is no doubt that it has produced a result which is the nearest attainable approximation to truth:
Mr. May himself allows for inaccuracies arising out of the unsuitable period at which his inquiries were made, many persons being then absent from the colony to celebrate the New Year.
The population of this city is every day affected by immigration, and although the adventurous and unknown strangers who visit the colony for a short time will swell the numbers of the living, they contribute nothing to the records of the dead; nor is it possible to obtain any account of their destinies.
The Chinese hold very solemn superstitions relating to death. Their bodily relics are the property of their surviving friends, with whom it is a religious obligation to preserve and deposit them within the precincts of their feudal birthplace; consequently, with every man who is not indigenous to this island, the first care in the event of sickness is to depart to his own country, that his ashes may in case of death be deposited there. Many instances of this kind must annually occur amongst persons who are unknown to their survivors here. Notwithstanding this source of error in the returns of general mortality, which will constitute a certain and invariable average, the proportion of dead to the living will in comparison with other years, if the calculation of population be corrected (for there is reason to believe that it has not been less for the preceding two years than it is estimated for the last), bear the same relative percentage as it does in the various sections of the population, and thus, uniformly with the rest, show a gratifying diminution in the number of deaths for the last year.
It may be said of some of the foregoing tables and calculations, that they are not strictly correct, and this remark applies especially, and perhaps alone, to the calculations embracing the entire population. Precisely the same causes of inaccuracy have existed in the two previous years, and there can be no doubt that they will always possess an average and uniform proportion to the truth. This fact, indeed, is made apparent by a comparison with the sectional statistics, which are known to be accurate.
What inference then is to be drawn from the whole? We learn that, in reference to every class of persons, the last year has been remarkable for its exemption from endemic diseases, and for a low scale of mortality. It is a most gratifying discovery to make; yet it may be the cause of lulling us into a sense of faithless security, and of concealing from us the dangers which surround us. They are dormant, but not destroyed. The sources of malaria and pestilence are hardly fewer now than they were two years ago. There exist now, as heretofore, sinks of decomposition and laboratories of poisonous gases, but the atmospherical agencies for bringing them into dangerous affinities have been wanting. It is well to consider this fact, and to believe it, viz., that the atmospherical influences are beyond our control, but we can abate the evil of animal and vegetable decomposition. Is it wise to wait for the warning voice of a desolating epidemic, when we know in our security what it can only teach us in the helpless and despairing times of our peril?
135