accommodation, but this year their health has been very much better in comparison. There was a considerable increase of malarious fever at Kowloon last year, but even this could hardly account for so much extra sickness among the Troops, as the Police at Kowloon have not suffered more than in past years.
GOVERNMENT CIVIL. HOSPITAL.
I regret that nothing further has been heard of the design for the new Civil Hospital. In some respects we may congratulate ourselves that the old buildings were ruined in the Typhoon of 1874. Still the present structure, though a great improvement upon the former one, is unfitted for a Hospital. Towards the end of the year 1876, the European Wardmasters were done away with, with one exception, and Chinese Wardmasters substituted; the alteration has worked well, nor has there that I nın aware of been any serious complaint against any of these men, as there used to be under the former arrangement. We have now got a Chinese Clerk, and for the future I will have no difficulty in keeping the records of the Hospital in order. As far as the years previous to 1873 are concerned the records, the few there are of them, are in great confusion, and what remain are valueless; there are letters without answers, and answers to letters of which no trace is left, copied in all sorts of hands, some of them by ladies, who seem to have done their best to assist their relatives who were in Government service, but to whose services the Government was certainly not entitled. annual report took me nine hours to write, and as I wrote steadily from 9 г.. one night to 6 A.M. the next morning, it could hardly be expected that I should make another fair copy for record in my own office. Surely with only two Surgeons on the Staff to look after about 600 Police, 500 prisoners, the Colonial Staff drawing less than £400 a year, 4 Hospitals, and a Lunatic Asylum, and 300 prostitutes, their time and skill might have been put to better use than clerical office work. The new clerk does not find he has too much time on his hands.
My last
The Tables showing the cases admitted into Hospital do not in any way account for extra unhealthiness in the Colony. There is a very slight increase in the number of fever cases, also in the number of pulmonary complaints, but there is also a slight decrease in the number of bowel complaints. Venereal cases are about the same, though there are less than half the number of cases of constitutional syphilis as compared with last year. The terrible accident on board the steamer Yesso created great confusion in the Hospital for a short time. All the cases but two were within four hours transferred to the large Ward in the Guol, under my superintendence. During the time the poor creatures were in the IIospital great assistarice was rendered by the Naval Surgeons who were in Harbour at the time, and also the private practitioners. After their removal to the Gaol Ward, the services of Surgeon MowLL of H. M. S. Vigilant were kindly placed at the disposal of the Government by His Excellency Vice-Admiral IIILLYAR, and he took charge of the wounded, sixty in number, with such assistance as I could give him. Nearly all the cases were fatal; of the 64 brought to the Hospital, only five are known to have survived. Most of them died during the first forty-eight hours; some were taken away by their friends. I tried to persuade the latter to leave the patients where they were, but the question asked was "If we leave them, will they get well?" and as there appeared very little chance of such an event, I had to reply accordingly. Both friends and relatives desired however to hear their last words and to give the patients their blessing, and if we could not guarantee to save them, they expressed themselves desirous to take them home. Surgeon MowLL remained in charge about a fortnight. I am happy to say his valuable services were recognised both by the owners of the vessel, Messrs. DOUGLAS LAPRAIK & Co., and by the Chinese Community here; I hope they may also be acknowledged by the Home Government, to whom his services were reported by His Excellency the Governor. It cannot be expected that Hospital accommodation should have sufficed for such exceptional events as this accident to the Yesso. I have seen a London Hospital as badly crowded for a longer time after a railway accident with as horrible scenes and formidable operations going on in different wards.
Cases are continually being sent down for treatment here by the Canton Imperial Maritime Customs, I do not understand why, as they have their own Surgeons; but a few weeks back a case of Small Pox was sent down from Canton in a Revenue Cruiser, to admit which the Small Pox Hospital had to be specially opened, as we had no cases here at the time. On this most extraordinary proceeding, I made a special report.
We have now, I am glad to say, a temporary Lunatic Asylum. I called special attention in my report of 1874 to the way in which lunatics were confined in the Hospital and Gaol, who not only kept the whole Hospital or Gaol in an uproar, but whose terrible cries became a public nuisance to the residents in the neighbourhood. This has, I am glad to say, been remedied this year.