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THE PRESIDENT.-If there was one man to do the Gaol, the Tung Wah Hospita! and the Public Mortuary would he have sufficient work without private practice?
Dr. Lowson. Most certainly; if he is going to do the Tung Wah properly. If the Government want to get proper statistics from the Tung Wah and to keep it in proper order it would take one man devoting several hours a day to do it thoroughly.
Dr. PRESTON.-The Gaol only takes two and a half hours a day?
Dr. Lowson.And the Tung Wah, done properly would take up two or three hours. If they are going to have the separate system in the Gaol it will take more time than it does under the present system. If the Government makes work, it must get men to do the work. It is a big order to increase a man's duties by two hours a day-you would not like it in the army.
Dr. PRESTON. We have to attend to the Asiatics now, which we had not to do before, but still we do it without raising a protest.
Dr. Lowson.-Yes, but you have favourable terms of pension, and we have not. If we were better paid even it would be all right, but when we have to struggle to get dollars it is a different story. Before I could claim a pension I would have to stay thirty-three years in this Colony.
Dr. PRESTON.-For a pension of any sort?
Dr. Lowson.-Yes; it is a farce. The Government medical service ought to be better paid, and the pension conditions ought to be revised. We want the same rules in regard to pension as you have in the Army-one does not want pension rules which all sane men regard as obsolete.
THE PRESIDENT.-You have no proper accommodation for observation cases?
Mr. THURBURN.-I thought plans had been agreed upon for observation work?
Dr. Lowson.-No; to make a balance that work was stopped. I think the present epidemic wards at the Civil Hospital are satisfactory so far as they go with regard to position. They are high above Chinatown and when there are only a few cases in it they can be isolated easily enough—if of the same disease. Otherwise they are com- pletely inadequate and sometime or other will cause disaster.
THE PRESIDENT.-When you are certain of the diseases you would remove the cases to the Hygeia?
Dr. Lowson.-When there are a number of cases; otherwise it would mean expense. You could keep two or three cases isolated as well in these wards on board the Hygeia, and if you had a few rooms you could put small-pox at one end of the building and say gangrene at the other.
THE PRESIDENT.-Is the Lock Hospital a separate building?
Dr. Lowsos.-It is part of the same building.
Dr. CANTLIE.-Have you anything to add to your scheme with regard to the nurses?
Dr. Lowson.--Nothing; except, of course, as I say here, if it was not practicable it would not have been suggested. It is also desirable in the interests of the Colony, but not in the interests of efficiency. If we could get two English nurses from home, who could speak Chinese, French, and German fluently, it would be better.
Mr. THURBURN. But two English girls who speak Chinese fluently do not exist?
Dr. Lowson. That is so; the point about the answer to this question is this: We can get two people here to assist at $5 a month, with rations and uniform, and in a little time they would know their work fairly well. We have a lot of Chinese patients, and our Chinese speaking Sister is going home; and if we had these Eurasian girls who
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