system in its place, but in a crowded town, even if its use were possible, which it is not, it is of as much use as a bag of gold would be on a desert island. It is equally incompatible with efficiency in a three-storied building composed of cells.
One Chinese prisoner only was flogged this year, and that was for an assault on the Superintendent with a crank handle with an iron chain wound round it.
There were only two deaths this year. One a European suffering from consumption died suddenly in his cell from hemorrhage from the lungs; the other case was a Chinaman who came into Gaol in a half-starved condition.
The complaints admitted to Hospital have been chiefly Bowel complaints, General Debility, Fevers, Abscess, and Syphilis. The admissions to Hospital do not represent those that were under treatment; there are many old and debilitated prisoners who have been nothing more than beggars, whom it is impossible to get any work out of or to punish in any other way than by confinement and who are far better off in Gaol than they probably have been in all their lives before. I am afraid it is mostly so with the majority of the Chinese prisoners.
Table XII, B. gives a list of opium smokers consuming one mace and upwards daily, admitted to Gaol during the past year. In no case has any opium been allowed, and no treatment given unless they were suffering from some other complaint necessitating it; even then no opium was used in the treatment. The largest consumer was one who smoked 8 mace per diem. He weighed 86 lbs. on admission and 89 lbs. at the end of a month, (the weights were always taken without clothes,) and this man received no other treatment than the regular diet. I have come to the conclusion that opium smoking is a luxury of a very harmless description, and that the only trouble arising from its indulgence is a waste of money that should be applied to necessaries. Eight mace is equivalent to an ounce and twenty-nine grains, a quantity of opium sufficient to poison a hundred men, smoked by one man in a day, and this he has been doing for twenty years; that is to say, he has consumed in smoke in that time about £1,000, and for this indulgence, he has to deny himself and his family many absolute necessaries. The list contains 35 opium smokers, and the amount smoked between them daily was 84 mace or $7 worth of opium. The result of my observations this year is only to confirm all I said on the subject of opium smoking in my report for 1880.
There has been much sickness amongst the Gaol Officials, and this will continue, I fear, as long as they have such unwholesome quarters, but it is not only in the Gaol that this is the case, as I have observed before; they are compelled to live with their families in the same unwholesome style of building as a Chinaman, the gambling in Chinese house property having caused all the small houses formerly occupied by Europeans to be swept away, and as a consequence, no one, getting sixty dollars a month or under, even if a single man, can now afford to live anywhere in Hongkong other than in a house built for Chinese, and this I consider is one of the great grievances resulting from the speculations in the past two years in land. Many of these houses remain unlet or only partially let, and numbers of them are occupied by Europeans who can get no other quarters. It is now becoming a difficulty for those Europeans who are well-to-do to get houses except at the most exorbitant rents.
TEMPORARY LUNATIC ASYLUM.
This is still in the wretched dilapidated buildings that it has been for the last three years, and the lunatics have to be removed, in the event of any gale threatening, to the Police cells for safety as I described in my report for 1880.
This year there were ten admissions besides one remaining of those confined in 1880. Two of these were not properly to be classed as lunatics but were suffering from brain disease and were so noisy and violent that, there being no proper place for them in the Civil Hospital without causing disturbance and distress to other patients, they had to be removed here for treatment, and one other case was a violent patient suffering from Mania à Potu; all these were dismissed cured. One of the patients was a medical man who was afterwards sent to his own home by his friends.
But one remains now in the Asylum, a Malay, suffering from dementia.
Some were sent by their Consuls or the Government to their own country, or removed by friends. There were no deaths.
TUNG WA HOSPITAL.
The total number of patients admitted to this Chinese Hospital during this year was 1,292; of these, 569 died. The number of out-patients treated was 79,845. The large mortality is owing chiefly to the great dislike the Chinese have to detention in Hospital except they are almost in the last extremity; 152 dead bodies were brought into the Hospital besides those above mentioned.
The number of cases admitted, suffering from Small Pox, was 11, of these 5 died, they were mostly infants.
The number of vaccinations performed in the City of Victoria and Villages of Hongkong 1,722. The vaccinations are efficiently and carefully done.
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system in its place, but in a crowded town, even if its use were possible, which it is not, it is of as much use as a bag of gold would be on a desert island. It is equally incompatible with efficiency in a three storied building composed of cells.
One Chinese prisoner only was flogged this year, and that was for av assault on the Superintendent with a crank handle with an iron chain wound round it.
There were only two deaths this year. One a European suffering from consumption died suddenly in his cell from hemorrhage from the lungs; the other case was a Chinaman who came into Gaol in a half starved condition.
The complaints admitted to Hospital have been chiefly Bowel complaints, General Debility, Fevers, Abscess and Syphilis. The admissions to Hospital do not represent those that were under treatment; there are many old and debilitated prisoners who have been nothing more than beggars, whom it is impossible to get any work out of or to punish in any other way than by confinement and who are far better off in Gaol than they probably have been in all their lives before. I am afraid it is mostly so with the majority of the Chinese prisoners.
Table XII, B. gives a list of opium smokers consuming one mace and upwards daily, admitted to Gaol during the past year. In no case has any opium been allowed, and no treatment given unless they were suffering from some other complaint necessitating it; even then no opium was used in the treatment. The largest consumer was one who smoked 8 mace per diem. He weighed 86 lbs. on admission and 89 lbs. at the end of a month, (the weights were always taken without clothes,) and this man received no other treatment than the regular diet. I have come to the conclusion that opium smoking is a luxury of a very harmless description, and that the only trouble arising from its indulgence is a waste of money that should be applied to necessaries. Eight mace is equivalent to an ounce and twenty nine grains, a quantity of opium sufficient to poison a hundred men, smoked by one man in a day, and this he has been doing for twenty years; that is to say he has consumed in smoke in that time about £1,000, and for this indulgence he has to deny himself and his family many absolute necessaries. The list contains 35 opium smokers, and the amount smoked between them daily was 84 mace or $7 worth of opium. The result of my observations this year is only to confirm all I said on the subject of opium smoking in my report for 1880.
There has been much sickness amongst the Gaol Officials and this will continue, I fear, as long as they have such unwholesome quarters, but it is not only in the Gaol that this is the case, as I have observed before; they are compelled to live with their families in the same unwholesome style of building as a Chinaman, the gambling in Chinese house property having caused all the small houses formerly occupied by Europeans to be swept away, and as a consequence no one, getting sixty dollars a month or under, even if a single man, can now afford to live anywhere in Hongkong other than in a house built for Chinese, and this I consider is one of the great grievances resulting from the speculations in the past two years in land. Many of these houses remain unlet or only partially let, and numbers of them are occupied by Europeans who can get no other quarters. It is now becoming a difficulty for those Europeans who are well to do, to get houses except at the most exorbitant rents.
TEMPORARY LUNATIC ASYLUM.
This is still in the wretched dilapidated buildings that it has been for the last three years, and the lunatics have to be removed, in the event of any gale threatening, to the Police cells for safety as I described in my report for 1880.
This year there were ten admissions besides one remaining of those confined in 1880. Two of these were not properly to be classed as lunatics but. were suffering from brain disease and were so noisy and violent that, there being no proper place for them in the Civil Hospital without causing disturbance and distress to other patients, they had to be removed here for treatment, and one other case was a violent patient suffering from Mania á Potu; all these were dismissed cured. One of the patients was a medical man who was afterwards sent to his own home by his friends.
But one remains now in the Asylum, a Malay, suffering from dementia.
Some were sent by their Consuls or the Government to their own country, or removed by friends. There were no deaths.
TUNG WA HOSPITAL.
The total number of patients admitted to this Chinese Hospital during this year was 1,292; of these 569 died. The number of qut patients treated was 79,845. The large mortality is owing chiefly to the great dislike, the Chinese have, to detention in Hospital except they are almost in the last extremity; 152 dead bodies were brought into the Hospital besides those above mentioned.
The number of cases admitted, suffering from Small Pox, was 11, of these 5 died, they were mostly infants.
The number of vaccinations performed in the City of Victoria and Villages of Hongkong 1,722. The vaccinations are efficiently and carefully done.
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