The-Hong-Kong-Weekly-Press-1904-07-25 — Page 2

58

-DRAINS AND THE PLAGUE.

· THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND where plague appears, continues, and in- creases during the four months prior to the rainy season, and afterwards diminishes and dwindles until it is encouraged by (as Mr. RUMJAHN would say) the unflushed condition of the drains. Authorities tell us that tem- perature alone cannot be called to account for it. In the thre· months after the over-

.

11

(Daily Press, 16th July) Mr. A. RUMJAHN believes that plague is not so prevalent when there has been plenty, of water to flush au cleanse the drains, and, like our Canton correspondent, sees therein an instance of cause and effect. The president of the Hongkong Sanitary flowing of the Nile, Dr. L. FRANE noticed Board (Dr.J. M. ATKINSON), we deduce, during six or seven years' investigations that beli-ves otherwise. At any rate, when Mr. plague was much rarer than at other times. KUMJAHN called his attention to a statement As he happened to be looking for evidence in the Hongkong Daily Press to the effect that the putrefaction of stagnant waters that the total disappearance of plague at produced plague, however, the connection Canton was attributed to the recent heavy we suggest did not occur to him. Finally, rains, he (Dr. ATKINSON) said he was un- one of the factors mentioned during a aware that any connection had been shown Parliamentary inquiry in the early 'fifties, between drains and plague. That, we take as likely to have been responsible in cou it, is tantamount to an expression of the spiring against an English recrudescence of contrary opinion to Mr. RUMJAHN'S, the plague, was "the introduction of public although we are aware that even scienti- sewers. There is, we believe, a distinc- fically logical minds will sometimes accept, tion in law between a

" gewer and a that which has not been favoured with the

“drain,” but that does not cause us much demonstration implied by Dr. ATKINSON'S | hesitation in coming to the conclusion that word "shown." Our Canton correspondent, if he mentally established the connection between plague and drought with no more data than the one co-incidence of rain and absence of plague, was not scientifically logical. There is an element of logic, of course, in the process by which a man con- cludes that it is summer when he sees one swallow. The advent of the swallows having always been coincident with sum. mer, one phenomenou having consistently been found associated with the other, he has logical reason to declare that it is swallow-time, or summer. More careful and more extended observation, however, has led to the discovery of diversities that in turn gave rise to the aphorism "One swallow does not make a summer." Dr. ATKINSON would perhaps paraphrase it for our Canton correspondent, and say "One

the President of the Sanitary Board has not all the authorities with him when he dis- avows the relationship between drains and plague.

THE SHANGHAI-NANKING

RAILWAY.

(Daily Press, 18th July.)

with

The attention of our readers is particularly drawn to the advertisement on page 4 of this issue, announcing that the public are at last offered the opportunity of subscrib. ing to the Shanghai-Nanking Railway Loau of £3,250,000, £2,250,000 of which remain The Hongkong and to be applied for. Shanghai Bank is offering £1,500,000 worth of sterling bonds at £97 108., and to-morrow (Tuesday) is the last day for local applica coincidence does not establish a fact." tions. We had begun to wonder, in Nevertheless, on this line of argument, the common

many others, whether fact that Mr. RUMJAHN and our correspon- the concessionaires were not after all going dent have separately reached a like conclu- to allow this important concession to lapse, sion points to the probability of there having and fall into alien hands. Of the two thou been more than one isolated coincidence sand eight hundred miles of British railway of facts to suggest the deduction indicated, that were announced, with so much eclat, and we do not for a moment think by Mr. BALFOUR in the House of Commons that either of them bas founded his in the month of February, 1899, not one belief on one season's observations. It mile, so far, has been inade, except the has always hitherto been understood that Northern State Railway. The original there was such connection between plague time of expiry of the option is now within and drains--the presence of the oue being fewer weeks than may be counted on the notoriously prominent in the absence of the fingers of one hand, and there are other other. This sounds Hibernian, or like the nations, for instance, Germany or Belgium, schoolboy's pins, which "saved thousands who would not hesitate a day to bid for of lives-by people not swallowing 'em," such an opportunity, were we to let it slip, but the sense of it is sober enough. All as we let slip the Peking-Hankow Railway. the localities of the historical epidemics We do not believe that it is any want of were stercoraceous. Egypt, Constantinople, enterprise in the British character, or any Spain, the London of 1665, were unsavoury conspicuous tightness of capital for that enough from the sanitary engineer's point matter, that has made us as a nation appear of view. The "Black Assizes' of 1577,

so phlegmatic in the matter of railway the trouble of which, we are told, was enterprise in China. The delay of the con. "owing to the filthy state in which the cessionaires in making use of this valuable prisoners were brought to trial," should, concession, valuable both commercially and strictly speaking, not be quoted as relevant; politically, is not to be explained on the but it is significant that the long list of out- ground of timidity as to the promise of the breaks should end early in the last century, enterprise; but simply, no doubt, to the co-temporaneously with the recognition of MICAWBCR habit of financiers of waiting on sanitation as an economic science. The the chance of a specially favourable state books of Moses are full of hygienic precepts, of the money market to turn up. The and would no doubt have contained some political advantages of this hardly-won hints on drainage, if Moses had then concession could scarcely, of course, be acquired the wisdom of a member of a expected to take precedence in the thoughts modern Sanitary Board. HIPPOCRATES of its holders; but so far as we can see, the seems to have had conceptions of the ills to omens which must primarily in fuence them be avoided by means of a good water supply, have all along been favourable. The ueces- During even a long spell of the disease it sity and advantages of the Shanghai-Nan was noticed that it would disappear some king Railway have been recognised since times altogether at certain seasons, and that the very early 'seventies, when Sir HARRY usually in or just after the rainy season. PARKES first mooted it. Six years ago, Sir This is precisely the case in Hongkong, | Claude MacDonald said officially that for

¦

[July 25, 1904.

a railway in China there was no more pay- ing district than the one to be tapped by this very line. The terms of the concession, regarded as favourable at the time it was granted, are now viewed with even greater satisfaction. As to the engineering outlook, the short two hundred miles through which the line has to run are, as the saying is, “as flat as a pancake," and the construction ought to be finished well within the four years allowed. There is perhaps no more pro. gressive or civilised corner of China than this strip of densely inhabited Kiangau. The line will establish connection between the latent business of the ancient capital of China and the wealthy and enlightened merchants of Suanghai. The present needs of that great emporium of Shanghai would alone justity this scheme, and with the railway, there is no telling what mighty world-market the northern port may become. With regard to the subscribers, the fortunate allotees will stand in a peculiarly favourable posi- tion. In addition to the five per cent. interest, and surplus twenty per cent., they have the security given by the guarantee of the Chinese Government, that the issue is regarded as a State loan re-payable in gold, It is not to be supposed, either, that our own Government will ever be indifferent to its duty in respect of according adequate protection to the interests of the bond. holders, which, in the present case, happen to be in a peculiar sense the interest of the nation.

DEATH OF PAUL KRUGER.

(Daily Press 18th July.) Public characters of a certain sort share in their lives somewhat of the semblance of play actors. Summoned into the glare of the footlights, it may be "for one night only," to play their part in the company they have joined, they move across the stage and hold all eyes upon them. Then they disappear behind the foolish pasteboard scenes, which in our allegory symbolise the other matters, the new wonder of the tenth day, to which the audience turns its fickle attention with unseemly speed. Sometimes they re-appear for a brief space, howing acknowledgment of applause, or in the case of the villain-passing through expera- tion to oblivion. So JOHANNES PAULUS STEPHANUS KRUGER, appearing in the chief role of a national tragedy, crossed the boards, and so, too, made his brief re- appearance, as a dying man; and passing, earns his meed of what? Only a small part of the audience is applauding, and but few hiss, because of that de mortuis saying which seals their lips. Of a truth, other tragedies now hold in thrall that same audience, and it is but a flicker of attention it has to spare for this one actor's curtain. tall. Yet in the time to come, when men open histories to learn of the doings of the most wonderful nation in the most wonder- ful century previously known, they will see the name PAUL KRUGER writ large upon the page, and will read on, curious to know what manner of man this was who dared to thwart the empire whereon no sun has ever set for ages, and haply never will. How will the story run, the story of this historic Will it character who died but last week? tell of a peaceful, gious, patriotic old man, shepherding his flock of gentle Boers in the pastures wrested with toil and sweat from the thorny wilderness, and gazing, anxious but determined, at an unscrupulous invader who comes first with cozening words and bogus messages, and later with angry mien and many guns? Or will the narration be of a shrewd Man with a muck-rake, clothed in a little brief authority, permitting

1

謝