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an ordinary fishing-port, the port of Liver-¡ pool has grown to be the largest and almost most important in the Empire. Glasgow has little less authority than Liverpool, and the powers conferred on each go from these in a diminishing scale. Between the ports by this means is kept up a wholesome rivalry, 80 that the highest efficiency of each is automatically secured. With a Government control none of this rivalry can be expected the interests of the Government, or of the particular service for which the harbour is kept up are, of course, attended to, but there is comparatively little attention paid to the interests of mere private trade.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND locally appointed or elected, and with powers to raise local revenue. Nor has the similarity ended there. The appointments to the Board are to be made in an almost identical manner, that is to say by the great Municipalities, and by persons selected by those immediately interested in the trade of the place. There is, however, one curious but instructive difference; while the Shaug- hai regulations provide for the Government at Peking being largely represented, those propounded by the Royal Commission in London propose that out of forty members only two shall be appointed by the Govern- ment. It would be impossible to give a more complete rebuff to the arguments put forward by the Chinese Government than is afforded by the Report of the Commission. As we have, however, already exceeded all reasonable length, we propose to revert to this interesting document more fully in a subsequent issue.
PLAGUE INOCULATION,
(Daily Press, 4th September.) Many reports have been published recently in these columns describing the measures to undertaken by various Governments combat the ravages of plague. Two weeks ago we drew attention to a very elaborate scheme which the authorities in the Punjab division of India are putting into operation this mouth for inoculating between six and seven millions of people. From this scheme the best results are expected by those who are responsible for it, but in consonance with British ideas of Government the inoculation is to be entirely voluntary aud therefore the success of the experiment depends largely on the way in which the native population falls in with the views of the authorities. We have now before us a record of an inoculation experiment which was actually carried through by another Government, namely by the Japanese in Formosa, and which was attended by a considerable measure of success. report on South Formosa for 1900.01 Mr. Consul KENNY describes the methods which the Japanese authorities there took. The 1901 outbreak of plague in South Formosa
In his
[September 8, 1902. “muscles of the back. The quantity injected is increased from 1 gramme on the first occasion to 1.5 grammes on the second "aud to 2 grammes on the third."
The result of the inoculation experiment was attended, as can be seen from the above
measure of success. by no small
from all quarters
The
same report comes where this prophylactic measure has been adopted. As we suggested the other day, it may come to pass in Hongkong that such a plan will necessarily be adopted, though it is hoped at present that this will not be the case. In view, however, of such a possibility, the previous trials of other places in the direction of plague-prevention are of immense value, and for this reason we now call attention to the labours of the Japanese medical authorities in Formosa.
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To
THE DESERT OF LOP.
[
(Daily Press, 6th Semptember.)
who has read the interesting anyone pages of the prince of mediaeval travellers old MARCO POLO (and who that takes any thought of the history and antiquities of Eastern Asia has not ?), the story of the great Desert of Lop must always possess a Lop," the old peculiar fascination. traveller tells us, "is a large town at the edge of the Desert which is called the "Desert of Lop, and is situated between "east and north-east. It belongs to the "Great Kaan, and the people worship "MAHOMMET. The length of this Desert is "so great that 'tis said it would take a year or more to ride from one end of it to the "other.
And here where its breadth is least, it takes a month to cross it. Tis "all composed of hills and valleys of sand, "and not a thing to eat is to be found on it.
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But after riding for a day and a night you find fresh water, enough mayhap for "some 50 or 100 persons with their beasts, but not for more. Beasts there are none; "for there is nought for them to eat. But "there is a marvellous thing related of this Desert, which is that when travellers are on the move by night, and one of "them chances to lag behind or to fall 'asleep or the like, when he tries to gain his company again he will hear spirits talking, and will suppose them to be his comrades.
៩
Such has been the experience of England hitherto. One partial exception occurred in the port of London, the port which has hitherto enjoyed the most valuable trade of the Empire, if not of the world. It might have been anticipated that as the most ancient, as well as being the Metropolitan port where the King had always his head. quarters, the port of London would have been mainly if no entirely care for by the Government. On the other hand London has always been the centre of civic freedom, and between these two opposing principles the affairs of the port proper came to fall in- to a curiously entangled mess of public and private interests; the result of which has been that there practically existed no con- trolling influence what ver, and London got on as best it could-which practically meant that it did not get on at all. Some years ago under the authority of Parliament, and in order to get rid of this state of stagna- tion, a body denominated the Thames Conservancy was constituted, and it was hoped that this neglect would be remedied. The result was instructive. The Parliament that constituted the board was too timid to grant full powers over the many private interests that claimed a part in the general trade of the port, and the powers of the Conservancy in raising revenue were like wise limited. As soon as it began to show any signs of activity, aud approached the private wharfingers and other bodies having any say in the river, all without exception refused to move unless bought out at prohibitory rates, and these the Conser adcy, as the severest on record, the number of hampered in its finance, was unable to look cases from January to August, when the at. The Conservancy, thinking that in the epidemic ceased, being 2,730, with 2,028" then temper of Parliament any application | deaths. The Japanese took stringent for further powers would meet with a measures to combat the disease and, well refusal, did what the Chinese Government up to date as usual, inaugurated a system would have itself done-nothing. Mean- of inoculation, which turned out while other ports were improving their successfully. Altogether 10,876 persons, position, and Hamburg and the other con. natives and Japanese, were inoculated. tinental centres took advantage to press these only .64 per 1,000 were attacked by on their Governments the opportunities plague, as against 2.661 per 1,000 among offered by the nonchalance of the Thames the non-inoculated population. For the authorities for pushing their own trade. sake of such readers as may be profes- Belgium and Holland, too, begun to see sionally interested in the question we quote their way to the expenditure of large sums the following passage from Mr. KENNY'S of money profitably, while London went report: According to a report by Dr. dreamily about her wn affairs; with the MAXWELL, the medical attendant to this natural consequence that at last the metro- Consulate, the preparation employed for polis commenced to see her supremacy inoculation purposes was one made by rapidly leaving her.' Ships were growing Professor KITASATO, and differs from bigger and bigger, and the river instead of "STAFFKINE'S HAFFKINE's] fluid in improving was gradually deteriorating — coutaining only the bodies of the bacilli he Thames in fact was becoming a second. "and not their toxines, at least to a very Whangpoo. Such was the position two years "much less extent. The fluid is prepared ago, when yielding to outside clamour, the from growths on agar-agar, not as in
STAFFKINE'S from Government felt itself compelled to appoin
cultures. a Royal Commission to take into considera- "From the agar the bacilli are scraped and tion the whole subject. That Commission suspended in a 5 per cent. solution of has just made its report, and it is curious "carbolic acid; the solution is then steri- to observe that it has joined in a recommen- lised by heat, and, thus prepared, is ready dation to do practically the same as the for inoculation, after the strength has protocol arranged should be done in the "been finally ascertained by animal experi- case of the Whangpoo. That is to place the "ment. The inoculations are performed entire harbour and its approaches in the "by the injection of the fluid by means of hands of a local Board of Conservancy, "a simple hypodermic syringe into the
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Sometimes the spirits will "call him by name; and thus shall a traveller of times be led astray so that he "never finds his way. Even in the day "time
one hears those spirits talking. "And sometimes you shall hear the sound of a variety of musical instruments, and still more commonly the sound of drums." The superstitions of the neighbouring inhabitants have always peopled these dreary wastes with supernatural indwellers ; but the e superstitions find their justifica- tion in the surviving traditions that these now solitary wilds were once the abodes of a civilised people who had raised large and important cities, surrounded with all the necessaries, and many of the luxuries of life, on sites long ago covered with the ever shifting sauds of the desert. In 1889 Lieutenant BowER obtained at Kuchar, on the northern flank of the Desert, an ancient manuscript written on birct-bark, which on investigation proved to be written in an old form of Sanserit; and to be, in fact, the oldest of existing Sanscrit manuscripts This proved but the pioneer of further discoveries, and Russian and French ex- plorers followed up the cue. Lately on his first journey of exploration to these regions Dr. SwEN HEDIN actually lighted on the ruins of one or more of these ancient buried cities, and in addition to some very remark able fiads in situ proved that a rich field
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