Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 895

[xx]

(Minute by The Governor.)

Let Mr. WILSON read and attend to last part of Dr. MURRAY'S Memo.

11th June, 1866.

R. G. McD.

(Minute by the Surveyor General.)

I may remark that the hermetically sealed coffins are made of wood, the joints being filled with putty. The night-soil depôt cannot be done away with till all houses are furnished with water-closets. There is no better site for such a depôt in Victoria.

W. WILSON,

13th June, 1866.

Surveyor General.

(See page XXIII.)

No. 726.

MY LORD,

(Despatch from the Governor to the Secretary of State.)

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 21st June, 1869.

In my despatch No. 714, para. 10, of the 8th instant, I alluded to the humanity and expediency of assisting to establish an hospital for Chinese with a contribution from the Gambling Licence Fund, and stated that recent circumstances would render it necessary for me to address a separate communication to your Lordship on the subject.

2. Unquestionably there exists amongst the lower class of Chinese, not only here but throughout the greatest part of their vast empire, an odious prejudice amounting to a superstitious horror of allowing a person whether relative or casual acquaintance to die in a house inhabited by other parties, as they consider that such a house would thereby be rendered unlucky and polluted.

3. This national prejudice is said to be often selfishly availed of merely to save the trouble and expense of further attendance on the sick, but whether that be the case or not it is certain that amongst the poorer classes when a person is thought to be at the point of death or hopelessly ill, he is often carried out to the nearest field or hillside and there left to die.

4. There is no doubt something indescribably revolting in the idea that at the moment when human suffering and weakness most require sympathy and aid they should be thrust forth beyond the reach and hope of either; and that this should be often done with a savage and selfish indifference to everything but the relief obtained thereby from the ordinary obligations of humanity. Nevertheless, whatever may be the opinion and feeling of Europe in such a matter, it is a fact that the practice referred to does prevail largely in the East, and is tolerated, if not commended, by the feeling of a large numerical majority of the people.

5. It seems to me poor statesmanship at any time to hope for the avoidance or suppression of a difficulty by ignoring its existence. I apprehend therefore that this Government must accept as, a fact the existence of this practice of getting rid of moribund patients here as at Canton and other cities which have a Chinese population. It is true that parties leaving dying people to perish are sometimes caught and punished by the local Police here, but this does not occur once for 20 cases where there is reason to suspect that the bodies of those found dead had been exposed before life was entirely extinct.