CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908 — Page 366

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Company Limited, to the Eng. Hok Fong Company, or to

the Japanese owners, have been treated in exactly the

same way.

There is another matter upon which much stress has

been laid in complaints from the Chinese, which is as

follows:-

Amongst the 550 immigrants brought by the Steamship

"Landrat Schieff" the Delegates found 287 persons who

were unmistakeably affected with trachoma, and 136 sus-

picious cases, and with the object of affording to the

latter a salutary change in their surroundings (for

the vessels which arrive with immigrants are in a de-

plorable sanitary state that favours the spread of in-

fection from trachoma) they were lodged in the barracks

and the Delegates, for their part, were particularly

careful to reject as few of the immigrants as possible

in view of the losses resulting to the Company from

their rejection. These 136 immigrants, in whom the

characteristic symptoms of trachoma were not so clear-

ly marked as in the other cases, were accordingly dis-

embarked

disembarked, in the hope that if the disease from which

they were seen to be suffering should prove to be mere-

ly follicular conjunctivitis, or some other analogous

affection, which was not actually trachoma, the change

of quarters might produce a beneficial effect. They

were therefore placed under observation, but as it was

eventually proved that they were actually suffering

from trachoma, it became necessary to return them to

the vessel, as is constantly done with immigrants, for

the very object of thus placing them under observation

is for the purpose of ascertaining which of them are in

a healthy state and which are not, and as the existence

of trachoma was confirmed in every case the 136 per-

sons were returned on board.

>

The employment of armed forces to superintend the

transfer of the immigrants from the barracks to the tug

which was to take them out to the ship was rendered

necessary because we had learnt from experience that if

some of those actually on board the vessel had managed

to escape, it would be still easier for those housed in

the barracks and who had a long distance to traverse

before reaching the tug, to do so likewise, and if they

broke

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