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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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and it will doubtless be asked by many
[December 15, 1900.
THE PLAGUE IN 1900.
(Daily Press, 14th December.) demic of Plague in Hongkong during the Dr. FRANCIS CLARK's report on the epi-
inch of railway line from Peking northward | thod. In March, 1896, there was a serious estimates seem almost to put the acqui- and eastward. The incident was not a outbreak of cattle-plague at Pokfulam and sition of a crematorium beyond our reach. particularly dignified one, but in the pre- a trial was given to this system of disposing The present methods are plainly only of a vailing state of depression at that British of the diseased carcases. On the 17th of makeshift character. Unless a vastly im- inaction which Lord CRANBORNE denies to that month we wrote:-"Several carcases proved system of marine disposal of carcases be neglect, it served to salve wounded "have been seen floating in the sea by and other rubbish can be attained, land- national feelings and was consequently "steamers coming to Hongkong, and the burial being dangerous and soon impossible, magnified in some quarters into a great "authorities are rather puzzled to know the arguments in favour of the cheapest achievement. The plea put forward by the "how on earth they got there. Heavy bags efficient destructor obtainable look over- Admiral in response to a request for "of stones were fastened round each car-whelming, and it is to be hoped that Mr.
British gunboat at Newchwang, or
case before they were dumped, but it seems
OSBORNE's remark at the Sanitary Board rather Yingkow, was that none could "that in every instance the dump was merely in June, 1899-"It is very desirable to have be spared. This is difficult to believe, a dip, as even while carcases were being this destructor. I have not the slightest but if it be true then there is yet another "thrown overboard some of them came up doubt we shall not get it"-will not be ap- proof of the inadequacy of our fleet on the again. Three cargo-boats were used on plicable for long in the future. Staion. British interests there are, or at
"the second occasion, and one suggestion is least were, undoubtedly at Newchwang. It that the Sanitary Inspector who was in seems that they are not worth much at the charge of the three boats could not super- present moment, Newchwang trade being intend the proper carrying out of the work practically at an end. We fear that little by the coolies. Of course he could not, trust will be put in the ahilities of the Government to foster its restoration. The bare denial of neglect of British interests will, we fancy, leave the public coid and unenthusiastic about the Government's paternal care of British commercial interests in North China. The fact is that Lord CRANBORNE was in the uncomfortable posi- tion of having to explain away what was not really susceptible of explanation. That he succeeded ill is little to be wondered at. Undoubtedly there has been neglect of Bri- tish interests at Newchwang. Whether it will be possible to make up for this in the "final settlement," of which we hear so much now, remains to be seen. Such a consummation will certainly not be attained by denying that such neglect has existed, and this is a point which ought to be brought strongly forward by those at home who are fighting the hard struggle on behalf of the China trade.
THE DESTRUCTION OF REFUSE.
(Daily Press, 8th December.)
The letter of Mr. J. J. BRYAN, Sanitary Surveyor, which was read at Thursday's meeting of the Sanitary Board, called atten- tion to a very unpleasant subject. Without going into details, it is sufficient to say that the Luspector visited the burial ground for the carcases of cattle and pigs, and fourd the burial to be little better than a farce, and in consequence the air was abominably polluted. To check this, Mr. BRYAN states that he has provided for deeper trenches, and suggests the use of lime; but the burial ground, he says, will at most suffice for three mouths only. Other disposal of the carcases being necessary, he proposes that after the exhaustion of the ground all condemned carcases should be taken out to sea, weighted under proper supervision, an! thrown overboard. There are altogether three alternatives at the disposal of the authori- ties for getting rid of these carcases burial, dumping in the sea, and cremation in a destructor. The first is only available in the present burial ground for three months more, and therefore it would become neces- sary to find a fresh spot for a cattle and swine cemetery, as the extension of the place now used is, to say the least, unadvisable. But Hongkong cannot afford to give up in- creasing plots of land for the inevitable pollution which follows on the use of ground for interring diseased animals in, even with the use of lime; and we cannot take dead carcases over to the other side of the har- bour to dump on the barren territory, as Mr. Onmeвy suggested would be a good thing to do with the general refuse of Hong- kong The second alternative is the com- mittal of the bodies to the sea. Mr. HAB- TIGAN on Thursday mentioned the experience of 1896 as being unfavourable to this me-
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people why one man was not placed in charge of each boat." The method, in fact, was not found to work well, and apart from
the question of expense, it can only effec- tively cope with an outbreak of cattle disease by the employment of a number of Euro- pean inspectors. But we have not in Hong. kong a large stiff of inspectors with little work to do. On the contrary, our Sanitary staff is none too large to cope with its present duties. The President of the Sanitary Board thinks it will be necessary to
resort again to this unsatisfactory "dumping" plan until a suitable crema- torium can be built. This seems certain, but we should like to know whether any provision will be made for proper supervision by inspectors in the event of outbreaks such as that of foot-and-mouth disease at Pokfulam, which might become serious at any time and is in any event difficult to deal with.
There remains the disposal of the carcases by means of a destructor, of which we heard a good deal at the Sanitary Board's last meeting. Opinion on refuse-destructors is divided. As the President said on Thurs- day, they have been a success in some places and a failure in others. The Public Works Committee will shortly have before it a great mass of correspondence on the subject from the Straits, from India, and elsewhere. Mr. ORMSBY is awaiting plans and estimates from England and Bombay for a suitable crematorium for cattle and pigs, and a German tender and plan are also expected. The question of expense, however, is re- garded by many as an insuperable obstacle. Afr. MAY stated that he believed that the reason for the invariable rejection of the proposal by the Public Works Committee was that this refuse-destructor recommended from time to time was not put forward as a refuse-destructor for the whole of the city, but only as an experiment by the Public Works Committee. They thought that if this one succeeded there would be various other refuse-destructors wanted, and they might be landed into very heavy expense. He suggested that the number required might not be so great as supposed, and de- clared himself in favour of a destructor. In characterising the dumping of refuse in the sea as "slovenly" he certainly did not use too strong a word. At home where this method is employed, as, for instance, off the east coast, care is taken that the refuse is carried well out to sea and sunk out of con- tact with any of the senses. To secure this result in Hongkong we should have to spend a great deal of money and enlarge our staff of inspectors. The question is whether in the long run a destructor will not prove cheaper, as the amount of refuse to be dealt with grows regularly greater. We must await the figures now expected, for it must be admitted that the former
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current year, dated Sanitary- Board Offices, 31st October, is now made public. It con- tains four pages of actual report, including the already published memorandum of the Sanitary Board on the method adopted for dealing with the outbreak, nineteen pages of tabular lists of cases, and three charts. The total number of cases reported up to the date when the report was written was 1,082. Since then but two have occurred, which only very slightly affect the statistics. Of report, all but 28 were among the Chinese, the previous 1,082 cases mentioned in the while of the total of 1,034 deaths all but 15 were among the Chinese. The case-morta- while the Chinese case mortality was no less lity, therefore, was as high as 95'5 per cent, than 96.6 per cent. For purposes of coin- parison, Dr. CLARK gives the figures for the previous epidemic years, 1894, 1896, 1898, and 1899. These were as follows:--
Cases Deaths Percentage Mortality
189-4 1896 1898 1899
2,679 1,204 1,320 1,486 2,485 1,078 1,175 1,428 02'7 89'5 89-0 96.1
From this table it will be seen that the
present year has been marked by the smal- fest number of cases and deaths of the five, but the mortality percentage has been high- est but one, namely that of the great plague year.
Analysing the returns, Dr. CLARK found that the non-Chinese cases comprised 6 Europeans, 5 Portuguese, 9 Indians, 7 Japanese, and one Filipino, of whom one European, 4 Portuguese, 7 Indians, aud 3 Japanese died. The non-Chinese mor- tality was therefore 53.6 per cent. The one European who died was the English em- ployee at the Naval Yard who died after some six week's stay in the Colony, having come out from England. It has been ob served before, remarke Dr. CLARK, that new arrivals from temperate climates are far more liable to contract the disease and to succumb than are residents of some stand- ing. Two of the European cases were im- ported by the Coromandel, which left Bom- bay on the 10th April with a general cargo, including grain, reached Hongkong on the 28th, left next day, lay at Shanghai for about three weeks and left for Hongkong again on the 21st May. On the 22nd May the two Europeans, a steward and a waiter occupying the same cabin, developed fever and on the 25th they were landed here suffering from plague. The infection in this case was probably to be traced to rats, two being found dead in the infected cabin, which was close to the hold where the grain was stored. A native fireman was landed from the Coromandel, also suffering from plague, on the 27th May, and died of the disease. Turning to the Chinese cases, Dr. CLARE found that in the 1,054 cases there were 720 males and 334 females, giving a percentage
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