Sessional_Paper_1908 — Page 288

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11.-Chinese Public Dispensaries.

(See Tables IX a to IX d.)

The Central

The work of the dispensaries has been steadily carried on during the year. District Dispensary in Kau Ue Fong was opened on the 1st February and has proved as useful as the two dispensaries first opened at West Point and East Point.

A series of three lectures delivere at the theatres by Mr. FUNG WA-CHÜN, Mr. LAU CHU-PAK and Mr. Ho KAM-TONG did much to make the objects of the dispensaries known to the public, and resulted in a large increase in the work. During the four weeks ending the 23rd March, 640 cases were treated at the three dispensaries in Victoria, during the four weeks ending the 28th December, 859. In the four weeks ending the 2nd November as many as 1,323 cases were treated.

On the 1st August Mr. YEUNG WAN-PO was engaged to deliver street lectures on the benefits of the dispensaries and on sanitation: these have proved very successful and have been very well attended. Simple (though somewhat more elaborate) lectures on sanitation have been prepared and are being translated into Chinese for the use of the lecturer.

The Committee look to local street committees to secure the necessary financial support and to make known the benefits of the dispensaries. These have been formed and com- menced work after China New Year.

The West Point Committee has been of great assistance in inducing people to take their dead or sick infants to the dispensary. In 1907 the West Point Dispensary received 174 infants as against only 13 in 1906. It is satisfactory in this connection to note that the number of infants under 5 years of age treated at the dispensaries is more than three times what it was in 1906. A comparison of the statistics given in Table IX a this year and in my report for 1906 will shew the progress that has been made in all branches of the work.

The expenditure on the three dispensaries in Victoria is just under $16,000 nd exceeds the regular subscriptions by nearly $1,700. Fortunately the promoters of the Chinese Procession were able to make a grant out of their surplus funds of $4,800. The Yaumati Dispensary closed the year $170 in debt. The expenditure was $5,000 and the receipts from subscriptions was not quite $3,300. At Hunghom the recurrent expenditure. exceeded subscriptions by $440, at Kowloon City by $670. It is recognised that the community at Kowloon City cannot maintain a dispensary by their own unaided efforts, and that Kowloon City and the neighbourhood cannot be called on to subscribe more than $2,400 a year. This year the subscriptions have fallen short of this sum by $480. The financial position of the dispensaries is therefore by no means assured. Table IX e gives an account of all the money that has passed through the Registrar General's hands. Table IX d gives separate statements of the full accounts of each dispensary.

Steps are now being taken to secure further support from the Chinese and arouse a more general interest in the movement. One of the objects of the dispensaries is to bring the mass of the population into closer touch with the Government in all sanitary matters, and through the agency of the dispensary at Kowloon City the charge on householders for white-washing their premises has been reduced by about one-half.

Subjoined are statistics drawn up in such a form as to shew whether any connection exists between the abandoning of bodies and the prevalence of infectious

seuse.

VICTORIA.

DUMPED BODIES.

Plague Cases.

Small-pox Cases.

Infants.

Others.

Total.

1905.....

400

176

614

160

1906..

530

266

756

611

133

1907.

478

171

649

84

231