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The Chairman,
Q.-Is there, in your opinion, any practical use in keeping men who are quite well in a ship that has small-pox on board, or is it of any use to keep them under observation or isolate them?
A. It is contrary to all modern English ideas on sanitation to go into quarantine at all.
Q.-But having regard to local circumstances is it probable that these men on the Orontes got the small-pox through remaining in the ship. Supposing these had landed at Singapore or Colombo what is the probability of the disease having occurred at all ?
men
A.-It is probably from the ship after infection by the first case and not from the passengers that they got the disease.
Q.-Therefore you think that the men should be landed or be put on to a clean ship instead of being cooped up on the same vessel ?
A.--Quite so. I should say that there is danger at present on the Orontes to those remaining.
The Colonial Surgeon.
Q.—I should like to ask one question as to cholera. In your experience here have you ever traced one case from another?
A.-No, I have not.
Honourable Mr. J. J. KESWICK.
Q.-Supposing these passengers, these troops, that have come, had been Chinese passengers all for Hongkong and supposing that there had been three cases of small-pox between here and Singapore, would it or would it not be dangerous to turn them loose in Hongkong without having them under observation?
A. I should make a very careful inspection of the passengers, and the suspected cases I should keep under observation.
Q.-Would you release all those who as far as you could judge were healthy ?
A. Yes.
Q.-I asked the question because of its applicability to the present case. If these troops were Chinese passengers and allowed to land, as you suggest, and go free, is it not likely that they would come into the Colony and carry the disease with them and spread an epidemic either of small-pox or cholera wholesale?
A. Not wholesale. I think not. There would, of course, be a certain element of risk which I do not think you could eliminate by keeping them in quarantine. I may say that I have not studied the question at all with reference to Chinese population. It is a subject I really know nothing about. I imagine, however, it would not be very different with Chinese from what it would be with Europeans. I imagine the sanitation of a place like Hongkong should be as good as anywhere. There is a Sanitary Board and sanitation ought to be as satisfactory here as at any of the big seaport towns at home,
Q.-That being so there is no ground for putting a cordon all round the troops at Kowloon ?
A.-It is as useless a piece of business as could be done.
Q.-A mere concession to prejudice ?
A. Yes.
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