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bulletin on this subject to be sent by the Medical Officers of the Customs or by the Commissioners of Customs of the different districts. These would at least assist in giving the Government timely information of infected villages and towns. It is important for this Government to know, at all times, the exact location and state of plague in Southern China for, without this intelligence, no precautions of a precise nature can be taken against the importation of the disease from the infected district, and general precautions are likely, as a rule, to be ineffective. There is no necessity of declaring any place infected, but whenever plague exists in any village or town, suitable arrangements should be made for boarding the vessels coming from the district to ascertain if there is any sickness on board. There are at least four months in the year, from the middle of January to the middle of April, which are dangerous, and for these four months, or even longer, special precautions might readily be adopted, particularly if it is known what villages in Southern China are infected.

10. Medical inspection of the steamers loses much of its value, because the voyage by steamer is so short in its duration. In the case of junks which take longer to sail from port to port, medical inspection is likely to prove more efficacious. Still the examination of passengers can only be a slight screen while the further medical surveillance for 10 days, which forms part of the system of medical inspection, is, by reason of the peculiar circumstances of the Colony, quite impracticable. It is the cus- tom in Europe for the purposes of surveillance to take the name and address of all passengers landing and keep them under medical surveillance by visiting their homes or making them report themselves daily at a central office or offices for 10 days. In the Colony of Hongkong surveillance would be useless because of the very large numbers entering, because of the Chinaman having more than one name, of the the probability of the wrong address being given and the impossibility of main- taining an effective watch over the accumulating numbers. The main advantage of the system adopted in Europe is accordingly lost, and it is under these circum- stances a question open to argument, although it is certain that plague cases are imported into the Colony, whether medical inspection as understood in Europe is of sufficient value to justify its adoption, and if adopted whether it would not be soon found to be impracticable. A modified system of inspection should, I think, however be introduced during the first months of the year. Ships and junks coming from the Chinese coast, more particularly those coming from districts in which plague is known to exist even in the slightest degree, should be boarded by boarding officers previous to their admission to the harbour to ascertain if there is sickness of any kind on board, and if there is the slightest suspicion of sickness whether sup- posed to be infectious or not and there is no medical man on board, the ship or junk should be visited by one of the Medical Officers assigned to the port for that purpose. Such Medical Officers and in fact all the Port Health Officers should be part of the Sanitary Department and should report direct to the Medical Officer of Health. Hongkong has no Custom House officers who could have performed this duty. I am, however, informed by the Harbour Master that three or four Boarding Officers would be sufficient for the purpose. Personally, I am further of opinion that the Canton steamers-Native and European-should, during the first six months of the year, carry at their companies' own expense a medical man who might be a Chinese graduate, educated at the Hongkong College of Medicine for Chinese, to examine the Chinese passengers en route and report to the Boarding Officers.

12. These arrangements are quite different from placing passengers and ships from infected districts under observation at a quarantine station, and they do not attempt medical surveillance once a passenger has landed. They are simply a rough screen against actual or suspected cases. The system is neither surveillance nor quarantine, and it would not be followed by either of these. The sick or sus- picious only would be dealt with and taken to hospital or to the quarantine station for