CO129-317 - Governor Sir Blake - 1903 [4-6] — Page 126

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No.223

Hongkong.

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123

[AG 03 MAY 03,

Government House,

Hongkong, 24th. April, 1903.

I have the honour to request your authority

to reserve the portion of Taipingshan remaining unbuilt upon,

as an open space, to be converted into a Public Garden adjoin-

ing the most densely crowded portion of the City.

2.

I regret to say that so far I cannot say

that results have shown the efficacy of the unremitting efforts

of the past four years to combat the annually recurring

epidemic of plague. Those efforts were redoubled last year

and I have no reason to doubt the thoroughness with which the

large Sanitary Staff have preformed their duties, yet the

number of cases reported to this date is 329 as against 19

last year.

3.

In all these matters we are evidently

groping in the dark to a large extent and Medical Science

does not appear to have determined accurately the causes of

its origin or the means of its cure; the cases sent to the

Plague Hospital show an appalling mortality that I cannot

help feeling is due in many cases to the conviction among the

Chinese that to go to the Plague Hospital is to be carried to

the grave, with the result that patients sent there enter its

doors already moribund with despair.

JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.,

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

&C. *

800.

&C...

4.