Sessional_Paper_1901 — Page 794

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scheme for an elaborate enquiry into Hongkong sanitation is, indeed, one in which all parties may join; but the criticism on the plague administration is another matter. Doubtless the Government made many mistakes; blunders have been perpetrated by all executive authorities called upon to face an outbreak of plague. But careful examination of the reports conveys the impression that the measures taken were reasonably adequate; and the Government are at least entitled to be judged by results, which, to those who know what plague has meant to India, will appear remarkably successful. Before the Hongkong public devoted themselves to their favourite pastime of attacking the local administrators, they might have looked farther afield. At present they seem unconscious of the littleness of their fancied woes. It may be added that Sir HENRY BLAKE, unlike the community over which he rules, appears to have studied carefully the lessons of the Bombay epidemics. In an interesting despatch to the Secretary of State, he mentions that he recommended the tentative adoption of the Bombay system of permitting patients to remain in their houses to be nursed by their friends under proper res- trictions. The Sanitary Board, from some inscrutable reason, declined to accept his suggestion. Sir HENRY BLAKE adds his personal belief that removal two or three miles to a hospital lessened the chances of a patient's recovery. In this respect, of course, his view is entirely borne out by the experience gained in Bom- bay. Another lesson derived from Bombay by the Governor was utilised without demur. Instead of disinfecting only the floor on which a case occurred, the whole house was ordered to be disinfected, as is done here. It seems surprising that such an obvious precaution was not locally originated. But they are sometimes curiously conservative in Hongkong. We gather from the local papers that there are still prominent personages in that eccentric island who decline to believe in the malignancy of the anopheles mosquito.