314
4
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
COLONIAL REPORTS-MISCELLANEOUS.
3. I hope to be able to reduce the number of Police in the New Territory immediately. Since the late abortive rebellion, in the Wai Chou district the northern portion of Sham Chun Valley has been in a disorderly condition, and several robberies have been effected in our territory by bands from over the border. At my request the Viceroy of Canton, who has shown the utmost readiness to assist in securing the peace of that district, has ordered that troops shall be stationed at various points along the frontier. I hope that this will have the effect of putting a stop to the trouble, and enable me to reduce our Police force to more modest dimensions.
4. Unhappily we find the whole of the New Territory malarious. Experiments are now being tried of different treatment at different stations and records are being carefully kept. At one station quinine is administered as a prophylactic after Dr. Koch's advice, i.e., 15 grains two days running and then an interval of seven days before repetition. At another, 5 grain doses are given daily; at a third arsenic is given instead, &c., &c. Wire gauze windows are being added to stations, but as the men are out almost every night on patrol duty I fear that this will not suffice as a preventive measure.
5. The question of an experimental garden must remain over until Mr. Ford's return, but I question if the low-lying land can be made to produce more paying crops than at present. The fresh sugar canes imported last year are doing well, but so far the working of the improved steel mills does not meet with the approval of the farmers, the principal complaint being that they break up the cane so finely as to make it useless for fuel. They do not yet realize the waste of using half crushed cane for fuel, and probably do not quite understand the working of the mills. This will come later on.
6. I have seen one herd of cattle grazing near Saikung, and it appears to me that with the growing of succulent grasses, the hills in the New Territory are capable of supporting a sufficient number of cattle to render Hongkong independent of the present sources of supply on the West and North Rivers. This is a question that will be taken up on the return of the Veterinary Surgeon and the Superintendent of the Botanic and Afforestation Departments.
7. It is remarkable that the New Territory north of the Kowloon Hills has been quite free from plague although the town of Unlong is apparently everything that a sanitarian would object to, while in the fishing village of Cheung Chau, an island six miles from Hongkong, a single street, kept particularly clean under the supervision of the European Police Sergeant stationed there, and open to every sea breeze, there have been 40 cases this year in a population of about 1,800.
8. A licence has just been issued to a person in Unlong for a powder manufactory, for the making of fireworks—a very