Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
COLONIAL REPORTS.-ANNUAL.
as a consequence popular feeling again found expression in anti-foreign placards, accusing the Government of every kind of atrocity and inciting the people to take vengeance on the foreigners in Canton. So serious was the state of affairs at this time, and so deeply was the responsibility of this Government involved that it became absolutely necessary to consider what form of concession could be granted to allay popular feeling consistently with the public safety.
The Chinese were clamouring for free and unrestricted removal of plague patients to their homes without any supervision. It was, of course, impossible to grant this unreasonable request of an unreasoning and excited people, but arrangements were eventually made, through Her Majesty's Consul at Canton, with the Chinese Benevolent Society in that city for the removal of such inmates of the hospitals as desired to leave the Colony and were pronounced medically fit to bear the fatigue of the journey. Specially-equipped junks were provided for their conveyance and suitable hospital accommodation for their reception in Canton, and the removals were carried out under the supervision of the medical staff.
It was anticipated that the above concession would tend to allay the popular indignation, but the Chinese now clamoured for a further unconditional concession, viz., that plague-stricken persons should be free to leave the Colony at their own will and pleasure without first being obliged to go to hospital and without any restriction or supervision whatever. This was a most preposterous demand, and all the more so seeing that it was made by a deputation of Chinese gentlemen who should have known better than to make it. It was, of course, refused, and the Chinese retaliated by leaving the Colony en masse. Compradores, contractors, shroffs, tradesmen, domestic servants and coolies all joined in the general exodus numbering altogether some 100,000 persons. The large sugar refineries stopped working, nearly all the Chinese shops were closed, business generally was at a standstill, and private families were put to the greatest inconvenience for want of servants. No more melancholy sight than that presented by the city of Victoria at this period can well be imagined. Shops and houses were shut up, and in the usually busy and well-thronged streets the only signs of life were here and there a solitary foot passenger, or the rumbling of a transport waggon proceeding to the hospitals to take up its ghastly freight for conveyance to the cemeteries, or the measured tread of a party of "cleansers" returning from their filthy work in the infected slums.
Some painful sights were witnessed on the various wharves from which the Canton and Macao steamers start. The police had strict orders to prevent plague-stricken persons from leaving the Colony except in accordance with the arrangements sanctioned, and it was their melancholy duty to stop many such persons on the point of embarkation. In some cases the wretched victims, urged by the strong desire to die in their native villages, had collected all their remaining strength for the final effort of