1456
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
down the mountain sides, gathering in their courses the sweetest properties of the earth's surface and carrying with them, as they descend, those natural mineral gifts which, in Japan and elsewhere on this globe, are so valued and prized-even so treasured as to be made the means of building up almost gigantio commercial concerns. You have in this! bodies. regretfully death-stricken Colony the most complete system, perhaps, of filtering those living streams that human ingenuity can devise. Yet with all this, you have two Europeans (whose combined pay does not amount to the salary and emoluments of an ordinary
15 Chinese No. 1") to superintend and take care of that colossal return for a large outlay of public funds.
Therefore deduce :-
(June 3, 1901:
Again, it has now come about that, notwith- The dead, too, should be made ready for standing all the police and military vigilance, immediable burial before removal from the the Chinese in the Colony have taken to dumping premises. If there is more than one family their dead bodies on the roofs of houses, and the in the house, disinfect and send the other Sanitary Inspectors have now been instructed, families elsewhere without altering the present (I believe) to mount all the cock-lofts of the arrangement, leaving the patient's own family houses in their districts to look after dead with him. Should he succumb to the disease, instead of removing his body in a half-open Therefore dednce :---
box to a place two or three miles off to ba prepared for interment, coffin it on the spot in the most approved style, and after it has been taken away, close the house for a month or two, or, if necessary, longer. The doctors, officers and undertakers are as liable to be infected as anyone else. Why can he not be left with his own people, who will take better care of him than strangers? By leaving him in his own house, without unnecessarily frightening him, and with his own family constantly in attendance, there is more chance of his recovery.
(d.) Would it not be possible for a dead body to be resurrected, get up with plague, frightened at the appearance of the man in uniform, jump over the verandah, and the man in uniform be called upon to answer a charge of "killing and slaying" a re- surrected bode ?
Moreover, and in conclusion, would it not be (a.) The water supply of this Colony is in well for the Sanitary Board or His Excellency, danger of being cut off should either one for that matter, to consider whether it is advis or Loth of these Europeans fall from sick-able to turn a family out of one house where a ness, and Victoris would, as far as its caso of plague is concerned, and permit water supply is concerned, be in the hands them (without any quarantine) to take of a few Chinese coolies.
refuge in another house? I know a Chinese family, not a long distance from the Sanitary Board offices, who were turned out of their dwellings, and were compelled to seek shelter in nother part of the city, after no end of refusals to receive them. Indeed, I know of one wealthy Chinaman, who has left the Colony because a plague-stricken family took quarters close by where he resided.
In the second place, it is conceded on all sides that the police of this Colony are undermanned. There is no question about it. Ask Capt. May, the Superintendent, the "Father" of the Colony, as the convicts termed him before our Chief Justice. He will tell you outright that he wants more men, yet two of his sergeants are "told off" at Government House-one to look after His Excellency, and the other to assist and wait upon Lady Blake during her shopping expeditions.
The Government have asked and obtained the aid of the military at the expense of $1 a day for each man, yet the purpose for which they have been called out goes on all the same.
Therefore deduce :---
(b.) Man our police force, and pay our European guardians of the peace suffici- ently well enough to enable them to regard the Colony with pleasure. Again, take the commerce of the colony, and as you, Sir, wisely remarked the other day, its boundless prosperity, equal, I believe you said, to any port in Asia, and, in many respects of the world.
It is also inhuman that, in some cases, the patient should be carried away against his own will and that of his relatives. On the slightest resistance, his relatives would be made to suffer for it, and the patient himself rushed into the fatal chair.
It is often the case that a patient, adult and child alike, after his removal from his house, is denied th cousolation of seeing his relative3 for the next twenty-four hours, and very often, too, is he kept waiting for hours before any (e) Do away with red-tape, and nine- food or medicine can begiven him, tenths of these evils will disappear. Yours, &c.,
Therefore deduce :-
TO THE EDITOR OF THE
**
PUBLICIST,
DAILY PRESS.
"
31st May. SIB, Your contributor Scrutator has made many valuable suggestions towards the evolution of civic life and organisation in this Colony, but to my mind there is none more valuable than that in the paragraph re a Municipal Council. It is that representation of Chinese subjects resident in Hongkong should be restricted, as in Singapore, to two members. It would be intolerable that subjects of a Government like the Chinese government should have the power to run a British Colony, opon as they are too all sorts of influences inimical to any form of good government. The past history of Hongkong is proof enough of this.
With regard to the action of the British retepayers, I would quote-
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small, Who fears to put it to the touch
To win or lose it all.
Yours, etc,
Yet, there are steamers arriving here dis- charging cargoes of flour, contributing to Hongkong's welfare, practically almost daily; indeed, the major portion of our imports is compris.d in the word "Flour," and has been so for many years. Sorrowful to speak, the five letters "Flour " are ignored, and you will, if you take the care, Sir, to examine the Harbour Master's returns, find that those five letters are excluded from his list. Our present Harbour-Master is too much engaged, I presume, in keeping the buoys in order, and seeing that No. (say 1) is open or shut. Why on earth he should exclude from bis return the word "Flour" when it con- tributes more to the wealth of this Colony than SIE, Mr. “T." has hit the right nail on the any other commodity is another piece of red-head. The present system of drainage is a tape cr, if it is not, is a thing, which, as great, if not the greatest, factor in nourishing Lord Dundreary said, "No fellah can under the many dreadful diseases in our midst. stand."
W.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY PRESS.
27th May.
Canton, known for its filth, has not been con- creted, nor are the houses there limo-washed twice a year under compulsion, and yet it does not fare worse than Hongkong as far as plague is concerned.
Furthermore, whose duty is it to guard the approaches to the only means we have of access to the other side of the river? Travel from Blake Pier to the Extension at any hour of the night, and if you are not careful enough to The sanitary authorities have apparently keep well to the right, you will assuredly go wasted labour and money in the wrong into the Harbour. To prove this, ask Capt. direction. Could they not know that the May, and he will tell you that almost nighty fountain-head of all the trouble lies in tha his police officers are reporting to him narrow drains? The perfume issuing therefrom is too escapes from death, and even the loss of life good even for the rats. Unless the defects be itself. There is no guard, no rail round Blake remedied at no distant date, those in charge Pier, or any other pier, or on the sea-wall. A of our sanitation may talk themselves hoarse well-known consulting engineer in business and sit down to frame bye-laws after bye-laws adjoining the Star" Ferry landing stage will to no practical good in the end.
Many will bear me out in saying that some patients perfectly sensible before removal, actually fainted at the sight of the ambulance and became delirious when inside, and in the case of children, they kept on howling for their parents.
Every patient when removed was not actually suffering from plague, but merely suspected. Apart from the effect the removal has on the poor fellow's mind and nerves, the bumping up and down in a covered cage like the ambulance, naturally with strong smells, carried by two stoical coolies who have no com. punction in throwing you down the moment they feel tired, is in itself sufficient to make a sound body sick.
Such measures are not only detrimental to the welfare of the patient himself but also injurious t the public health, for instead of checking the spread of the disease, they help it. They have been in foros for the last seven years. Have they done any good? Abundant scares and irritation have bɔon caused unnecess- arily. It is true we have sɔant respect for others' feelings, but it is time that we should have them modified.
At the present moment, there is an outery for municipal freedom. What has again revived this assertion of right? The death of a few Europeans from plague. In time of pɔace, even, some of us do not like to have the Chiness next door to us. Why should we, then, at a time when plague is in its height keep Chinese sick and dead amongst us? They are not so "sacred " that we want their dead to adorn our sweet home! Lot them go as they like. The Venice Convention does not apply to ancivilised China. Hongkong being at her door should also be exempted. Thanking you for the insertion of this.– Yours, etc.,
TRUTH.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS.”
27th May. SIE,-Please allow me a space in your paper to say a little on the subjects so much in the minds of the people of Hongkong at present. tell you that he himself saved a life only a The question of overcrowding is also impor. After so many cases of plague occurring among few days ago. They keep a policeman on tant, and deserves early attention. But Europeans, surely it is time enough to see that daty with a big rod in his hand, something as long as the surrounding air is charged all the cleaning, whitewashing, disinfecting like a fishing-rod, and you can see him at 6 with Bewage-gas, though the poor class and removing of patients to the Plague Hospital o'clock every evening walking to his post. He may be provided with nice ventilated houses is placed there (that is, on Blake pier) presum- to live in, the evil is still there. ably to fish out those, who, in the darkness are indiscreet enough to walk by the pier bank.
Therefore deduce :-
+
As regards the measures adopted for prevent- ing the spread of the dreaded disease, it is most ridiculous to carry the plague-stricken, dead (c.) Would it not be better for His Ex- or alive, through crowded streets from one end cellency, in order to better perpetuate his of the town to the other. I should say the name, and hand down to our coming Governor's suggestion to leave the patient to generation the gubernatorial existence of be treated in his own house is very sensible. our present Governor; that he should Sanitary precautions can be taken equally well himself take a walk down to his pier and in his house, and every requirement enforced inquire into the matter?
in strict accordance with law and science.
is not diminishing the disease. In the manner it is being done, it is only a waste of time and money, and is doing no good whatever. Some days ago I saw a house in which a case of plague. had occurred. The patient (Chinese)" was re- moved to Kennedytown early in the morning, and before the coolies got to the house to dis- infect and whitswash the place, to my surprise I saw bundles of clothes and trunks being carried away; the same were brought back about five o'clock in the afternoon from where they were sent to prevent them being disin.
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