340
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
with that in Canton so far as it could be ascertained, and making a very liberal allowance for possible error, it was estimated that the number of victims in Hongkong was reduced by at least 7,500 from what it would have been had nothing been done to cope with the epidemic. In the same way we have no doubt that the preventive measures now being taken must be credited with materially limiting the number of persons who fall victims to the plague. Such drastic and oppressive measures, however, ought not to be necessary if the authorities and the community would do their duty at all times and prevent the town falling into such a condition of filthiness as to invite visitations of epidemical sickness.
any precautions taken in the meantime. It is simply an exemplification of the rule that epidemics of the same disease in the same locality occurring in close succession diminish in virulence with each repetition. The same thing is seen at Canton, where this year's epidemic is comparatively as much milder than the 1894 epidemic as it is in Hongkong. Commercially, however, the effects on the colony are almost equally disastrous. There has not been the same diminution in the labour supply, it is true, but quarantine has been established against Hongkong at all neighbouring ports, and the amount of the loss sustained by trade would go a long way towards covering the cost of recon- structing all the insanitary dwellings in the colony. And there is the risk of this loss being repeated year by year, or, if not every year, at frequent intervals, so long as disease is allowed free entry to the colony and finds here conditions favourable to its develop ment. As to the efficacy of medical inspec- tion opinions are divided, but all parties are agreed as to the necessity of improving the sanitary condition of the colony so that disease germs may no longer find a good breeding ground. Whether the cost should be borne by the landlords or by the Govern ment is a minor question. We do not think property owners are cutitled to very tender consideration in the matter, but it would pay the colony better to submit to another squeeze like the Taipingshan affair than to allow the continued use of human ba- bitations that constitute a danger not only to their occupants, but to the whole community and to the trade of the place. Dr. CLARK in his last annual report said :-"Some little progress has been made during the past year towards the structural improvement of the sanitary condition of the Chinese dwellings in the colony, although much "remains to be done to render the houses of "the Chinese reasonably habitable, and legislation is urgently needed to remedy some of the most glaring sanitary defects which are still permitted in the construc- "tion of house property in this colony, The opposition, however, which the Board met with during the past year in its en- "deavour to prevent the obstruction of pri-
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II.
A correspondent sends us a medical work containing an article on zymotic diseases, and in the accompanying letter expresses his disapproval of the way in which the house to house visitation is being carried on and mentions that his experience in China has shown him that it is not in the most insanitary places that the seats of plague are found. We do not quite under- stand whether our correspondent means to infer that the cleansing operations now being carried on in the affected districts of this city are not calculated to have any effect inference is erroneous. on the progress of the plague, but, if so, the It is true that,
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are
[April 30, 1898..
to have a bad effect on the Chinese popula- tion, and it is to be hoped that when the present crisis has passed the subject will be calmly considered with a view to the elaboration of a system by which the sanitation of the colony can be maintained permanently in a satisfactory condition and the necessity for the spasmodic enforcement of harsh and oppressive measures be avoided. Doctors are the best able to tell us what ought to be done, but in the actual carrying out of measures affecting the inhabitants in their domestic arrangements practical men of business acquainted with the place and the people are the best qualified to give useful advice and assistance. An unofficial majority on the Sanitary Board is necessary for the practical work of sanitation and would also be the best means that could be devised for cultivating that enlightened co- operation on the part of the public with the dictates and efforts of medical science which even doctors themselves except some, per- haps, in Government service who may be too deeply imbued with officialism-recognise as all important.
as shown in the medical work forwarded to specific poisons, are communicated by con- us, most of the zymotic diseases spring from tagion, and do not originate de novo. Per- sons may live in a state of indescribable filth and yet not suffer from contagious dis- ease until the specific poison is introduced amongst them by communication with per- point to which we would direct our corres- sons already affected; but-and this is the pondent's attention-when once the poison is introduced the havoc it works is likely to be infinitely greater under conditions of in- sanitation then when sanitary laws rigorously observed. In fact, as stated by Sir THOMAS WATSON, Bart., in an article sum- marised in the work sent us, "the enactment "and rigid enforcement of judicious sani- tary laws, with the co-operation of an en- lightened public opinion with the dictates and efforts of medical science, would banish these fatal diseases from our island." Plague is not included in the list of diseases specifically referred to, be cause the book was published in 1882, before the reappearance of the disease had occured to attract public attention, but the remark just quoted might from its appositeness almost have been written with special refer- ence to the plague and to the island of Hongkong. What we judicious sanitary laws and the co-opera- want here is tion of an enlightened public opinion. Un- fortunately the powerful property owning interest is against such enlightened co-opera- tion amongst both Europeans and Chinese; and amongst the latter in particular the Of equal importance with the structural system of house to house visitation and alterations required is the permanent euforce-compulsory cleausing is calculated ment of cleanliness, instead of its spasmodic alienate the sympathy of the mass of the to enforcement in times of epidemic only. The population from the measures taken for the latter is not without its value, but it causes general welfare. Our correspondent com- great irritation and sense of oppression plains, as previous correspondents have amongst the Chinese, whereas a permanent done, that the officers of the Sanitary Board system might, we think, be devised which penetrate all the rooms of a house without would work smoothly and engender nonsking leave or giving the occupants time to feeling of resentment. The measures taken in 1894, though they apparently did not curtail the duration of the epidemic, since it died away here only about the same time as in Canton, where no similar measures were taken, nevertheless limited its ravages. Comparing the mortality in Hongkong
vate streets and lanes would seem to in- "dicate that the bitter lessons of 1894 and "1896 have already almost passed into ob- livion, and that great difficulty will be ex- perienced by the Government in securing "such emendations of the laws of this colony as are unquestionably necessary if any real attempt to be made to render the colony immune from devastating epidemics of "such filth diseases as bubonic fever or
typhus."
With a
third epidemic of plague upon us the community should insist on the necessary sanitary measures "being at once carried out, whatever deter- mination may ultimately be arrived at as to the incidence of the cost as between the Government and the property owners.
赛事
prepare themselves, and persons asleep are rudely awakened and questioned irrespective of their age or sex, which, in the case of females, is deemed an outrage. It is also complained that the cleaning coolies pilfer. All this, necessary as the measures taken may be under the circumstances, is calculated
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BRITISH PRESTIGE.
I.
in the April Blackwood's the writer says
In an article on "The Chinese Imbroglio'
that We have receded before the mere
trumpets of the opposing hosts.
So long "and so systematically have we pursued "this course that the coolest of outside observers have come to reckon on our retreating attitude as surely as on the sequence of natural phenomena.. The "acts of Government, without distinction "of party, have countenanced this theory, "and the press ministers to the universal "belief, until the question begins to be "asked whether there is any point at which
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we will turn and resist the hustling tactics concerned the point of resistance has "of our rivals." So far as the Far East is
at last been reached and Great Britain has ouce more asserted herself. Installed at Wei-
oppose any further Russian aggression but haiwei she will be in a position not only to also to again exercise a preponderating influence in the councils of Peking. At the same time the facilities for trade have been enlarged by the opening of the waterways and additional treaty ports. Seeing the alteration that has taken place it would be of national advantage that the press should cease what the writer in Blackwood's terms the to minister to
universal belief in the retreating attitude of the British Government. For a long time that was in truth the attitude main- tained
China, and the local
sistently, vigorously, and, as the result foreign press inveighed against it per- has proved, to good purpose. The home Government and the nation were aroused to the danger of a continuance of this attitude, and the recent crisis was met with an energy and intelligence worthy of all praise. In the result Great Britain has substantial advantages. This being so the emerged from the scramble with the most press would do well to recognise accom plished facts. To persist in harping on the alleged loss of British prestige is not only foolish, but is calculated to do positive harm of a material kind, in fact to bring about the very loss of prestige that is inveighed - against. The vernacular press is a great power in Japan and is beginning to be a power in China also. The native writers naturally base their estimate of England on what they read in the English and foreign papers. The latter may be trusted to be- little us, especially the Russian press, and
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