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SIR JOHN POPE HENNESSEY
ON THE
CONTAGIOUS DISEASES
ORDINANCE IN
HONG KONG.
ON THE 28th of July, 1882, His Excellency, Sir J. Pope Hennessey, received in London a large deputation of gentlemen interested in the Abolition of Licensed Vice and houses of ill-fame as exists in Hong Kong under the Acts known as the Contagious Diseases Ordinances of After a memorial bad been presented, thanking him 1857 and 1867. for his services in exposing the system---
HIS EXCELLENCY, in reply, said:The address which you have been good enough to present to me gives me of course very great satisfaction: bat I venture to think that it ought also to give satisfaction to Her You represent a powerful portion of the public Majesty's Government. opinion of this country; and you have come to give your support to az official who has brought to the knowledge of the Government certain facts which had been concealed from the Government and from I have not been able to do much, but I the people of England. have been able to state the truth.
A Colonial Governor in dealing with a subject of this kind is under certain difficulties, but they are removed to a great extent when he receives the confidence and support of gentlemen like yourselves. I will illustrate the position in which a Colonial Governor stands, by reference to one or two points in the published Parliamentary history of the question. We have now got as a public document, the correspondence between the Secretary of State and myself, as to the working of these Acts in Hong Kong. And I find at page 38 of those despatches which have been laid before the House of Commons, and which I know that some of the members have studied, a despatch which I addressed in Lord Kimberly on the 5th June, 1880. I reported to Lord Kimberley that in dealing with a despatch of Sir Michael Hicks Beach I had come across a despatch of my predecessor, Governor Sir Arthur Kennedy, of the 4th of January, 1875, on the working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinanco in Hong Kong, in which he observes that as similar laws are alleged by some persons in England to be practical failures, he forwards, for the Earl of Carnarvon's information, certain military returns and a statemen: of the Colonial Surgeon to the effect that there was "no case of syphilis contracted in Hong Kong in either the army or navy in the year 1871.” In the same despatch Sir Arthur Kennedy states that "there has not hes any complaint against the working of the Contagious Diseases Ordinance."
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I went on to say that as this appears to have been the only despatch written by my predecessor on the working of the Contagious Discuses Ordinance it might therefore be supposed that not merely was the year 1874 free from this disease, but that there was nothing in the returns of subsequent years to indicate that the Ordinance was in any way a prae- tical failure.
Having, however, shown a copy of the despatch to the Colonial Sur- geon, he informed me that "some terrible mistakes have been made." He said he could not explain how he could have misled the Governor into thinking that no case of syphilis bad been contracted in Hong Kong in either the army or navy in 1874.
On referring to the returns on this subject that had been furnished by the naval and military authorities for the year 1874, the Colonial Surgeon admitted that the number of cases of syphilis contracted by the troops in Hong Kong in 1874 was uine, and the number of cases of syphilis con- tracted by the sailors of the Royal Navy in 1874 was 47.
The official returns show that the number of venereal cases admitted into the Royal Naval Hospital in 1874 was 85; in 1875, 177; and in 1876, 147. From a note furnished by the naval surgeons and appended to the returns, it appears that in 1874, 35 of these cases had been cou- tracted in Hong Kong; in 1875, 95 had been contracted in Hong Kong, and in 1876, 85 cases had been contracted in the Colony.
The returns furnished by the military authorities, and printed on the same page, show that the admissions to the Military Hospital in Hong Kong for venereal diseases for those three years were as follows :—
Year.
1874
1876
1876
Venereal Case.
65
71
94
Syphilis.
12
32 20
To these military returns a note is appended stating that there was a change of regiments in the year 1876.
The returns show that in the year 1877 the number of soldiers admitted into hospital with venereal diseases was 130, and the number of sailors of the Royal Navy 230, but of the naval cases 82 are stated to have been contracted out of Hong Kong.
The Colonial Surgeon informed me that a misconception also appears in the statement that no complaint from any quarter was made against He said he himself the working of the Coutagious Diseases Ordinance. nade serious complaints to the Government on the subject in 1878 and 1874, and it also seems that complaints came from other quarters during that time, as well as before and since that time,
In justice to Sir Arthur Kennedy, I pointed out that in thus venturing to correct the report made to Lord Carnarvon on the 4th of January, 1875, those mistakes were made in relation to a subject not at all likely to attract much attention from the Head of the Executive, except when some grave public scandal occurs, such as was brought to my notice in October, 1877, by a Coroner's inquest.
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