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done the water had been cut off, and so hundreds of women and children were to be seen daily collecting water from foul wells, side channels, or the mountain streams. Hundreds of wells existed more than two thirds of which have on analysis been condemned, the water being unfit for drinking. Thus the poorer quarters of the town were condemned, the houses overcrowded with human beings and animals for their faulty construction, drainage, their filthy condition the want of water for cleansing purposes; though indeed the cleansing of the houses was impossible from their construction an attempt to wash the upper floors would have nearly drowned the people below, and the basement floor being composed of mud could not be washed. In this condition a very large proportion of these houses remain to this day.

Up to 1879 things were, if slowly, gradually being improved but in that year a grave difference of opinion occurred between the Surveyor General and the Colonial Surgeon on the one side and the Government on the other on the subject of sanitation, a portion of the Chinese and European property owners combining and objecting to proposed new arrangements and the Government upholding them. This put a stop to the contemplated improvements approved of by the better educated of the Chinese and the more liberal of European landowners, and it culminated, in 1881, by the Surveyor General and Colonial Surgeon appealing to the Secretary of State. Mr. CHADWICK was sent out in 1882 with a Royal Commission to enquire and report on the sanitary state of the Colony. A Blue Book containing his report and recommendations was issued in 1882. In this report full confirmation was given of everything the Colonial Surgeon had reported for the past ten years and one of the recommendations was that a Sanitary Board should be formed relieving the Colonial Surgeon of the horrible responsibility, except as one of the members of the Board, that he had been labouring under for ten years, during which from the very first month of his arrival he had done his utmost for the good of the Colony. In all that time and in spite of the trouble he had in many cases been compelled to give them he met nothing but courtesy and kindness from the Chinese who often appealed to him for protection and assistance which they have always received when it was in his power to give.

Besides the continuous reports on the Sanitation of the Colony generally, the Colonial Surgeon has had to make many on Government Institutions. Reports on the Central School and other Chinese Government Schools, their badly situated, overcrowded and insanitary state has resulted in the new buildings on better and more airy sites. Reports on the Police Stations and the accommodation for the married men and their families have procured many and great improvements but in this case much remains to be done. Reports on the Markets, the accommodation for cattle and their slaughtering, the necessity for an experienced Veterinary Surgeon and better arrangements for the food supply, have also had good results.

Many of these improvements have cost the Colony an unnecessarily large outlay for these wants were pointed out when land was cheap and money also, when dollars were dollars. Many oppor- tunities have been lost notably after the great fire of 1872, when to his disgust the Colonial Surgeon saw the same old insanitary Chinese houses rebuilt more crowded than ever. At the moment

of writing the terrible visitation of the Plague has given the Colony a very severe lesson and a great opportunity and there are hopes that the Colony may become in the near future a model English settlement.

The Colonial Surgeon is thankful to acknowledge the many kindnesses and great assistance he has received in the course of his labours from all in the Government Service, from the Subordinates in his own Department and from every one in the Colony, European or Chinese to whom it has been neces- sary to apply for information or assistance. He desires to acknowledge the hearty and kindly recog- nition of his services in his capacity of Medical Attendant by the Subordinates of the Civil Service and their families.

In this review of the Sanitation of the Colony for the past twenty years he has but slightly touched upon the information given in the Colonial Surgeon's Annual Report for 1874 and the much fuller information given in Mr. CHADWICK'S Blue Book of 1882.

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PH. B. C. AYRES, C.M.G., Colonial Surgeon.