Sessional_Paper_1901 — Page 792

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The besodden condition of the subsoil can now be remedied only by pumping the water out of it by artificial means; it would have been infinitely better to have raised the sites high enough to provide natural drainage by gravitation.

I believe there is no necessity whatever for me to labour the open-gutter part of the question.

During the whole time I was in Melbourne I hear many expressions of disapproval of this system, and not a word in its justification, and I take it for granted that public opinion is quite ripe in favour of a radical change.

In some of the more densely populated districts, such as Melbourne City, Collingwood, Fitaroy, Prahran, and Richmond, underground sewers have been constructed to collect the contents of the open channels and convey them to the river.

The principal of these are in Swanston, Elizabeth and King Streets, in Melbourne City, discharging into the Yarra; in Arden Street, North Melbourne, discharging into Moonee Ponds Creek; the Reilly Street, partly open, drain through Fitzroy and Collingwood into the Yarra; and the Palmer Street main in Richmond also into the Yarra.

In Collingwood there are about five miles of underground sewers; and in Richmond considerable works were in course of construction at the time of my visit, and I went over them with Mr. ALFRED CLAYTON, the City Surveyor.

I examined the outfalls of all these sewers, and found that the liquid being discharged was to all appearance quite as offensive and polluted a coinpound as the sewage of a fully water closeted town.

(Enclosure 3.)

Extract from the Times of India" of the 21st September, 1901.

HONGKONG AND THE PLAGUE.

It is now seven years since the island of Hongkong underwent its first visita- tion of plague. It does not augur well for the future immunity of the colony that after enduring several severe outbreaks, it has just passed through another epidemic more virulent than any of the earlier ones. The disease began to assume aa epidemic form towards the end of April, reached its height in June, and rapidly declined in July. The worst statistics were recorded during the first week in June, when the number of cases reached 212, with 206 deaths. These figures will appear exceptionally light to stricken Bombay. Even allowing for the far smaller population--the new census report puts the total number of the inhabitants of the colony at 283,000—it is obvious that, by comparison, Hongkong has escaped al- most mildly. Since 1894, the island has only had nine thousand reported cases of bubonic plague, with a mortality averaging from 89 to 96 per cent. The citizens of Hongkong appear to regard these returns as constituting sufficient reason for making agonizing appeals to the Secretary of State for the Colonies concerning the local Administration. If Hongkong had been compelled to endure the far worse experience of Bombay and other Indian cities, its public men would probably have learned to accept its misfortunes more calmly. The rate of mortality in Hongkong was appreciably higher than in Bombay, but the incidence of the discase was far less. During the single year ending in May, 1900, the city of Bombay.