July 22, 1907.]
EBMARKS.
(1.) Estimated at th of cost of returu passages. If families are not brought back, the cost of 2 establishments must be incurred. (2.) Includes Widow and Orphans' subscrip- tion.
(3.) A. The average rent at the Peak (with out taxes) is 130; but the cheapest houses are too small for a man with a family.
B. A 4-roomed cottage at Kowloon or Hongkong.
(4) 1% per mensem on (A) 82,000 and (B) $500.
"?
(5.) B. Free medical attendance and medicine, (6.) Teeth " go very badly in Hongkong and dentists' bills are very high.
(8.) Includes (A) Peak Tramway (B) Electric tram or the Ferry.
(9.) Includes all stores and tinned provisions, (13.) B. includes school material. (14.) A Boy $14; cook 814; wash amah $13; house coolie $10; market coolie 89; bathroom coolie $2.
B-Boy $10 cook $10.
(15.) A. & B. Wash-amah included with servants.
(17.) A. Inc'nded Hongkong Club $7, Peak Club $5.
and
B. Includes Cricket and Civil Service Clubs.
TABLE B,
Showing prices of commodities, wages and expenses of living generally other than rents and taxes in 1902 when the dollar was worth 1/8 and in October, 1916, when the dollar is worth 2/3.
I, COMMODITIES.
1905
Commodity.
1. Beef (lb).
2. Bread (lb)
3. Butter (tin),
$ £. B. d.
1906
3 £. 8. d.
5.4 16 1.6.9
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. MEDICAL OFFICER'S REPORT.
VITAL STATISTICS,
The Principal Civil Medical Officer has written an interesting report on the general sanitary condition of the Colony. He notes that during the year twenty-one houses and a of Victoria and these together with 30 others portion of another were resumed in the city
crowding. were demolished with a view to reducing surface It is also pointed out that a place in the matter of scavenging lanes, but considerable improvement is always taking the full effect of the Ordinance in this respect will not be noticeable for a consilerable number of years.
Coming to the vital statistics he reports that during the year the births numbered 1321, Of these 293 were and 132 females) and 1028 Chinese (681 males non-Chinese (161 males and 341 females), The birth rate amongst the Non-Chinese community was 14.06 per 1905 and 13-9 in 1904. The nationalities of 100 as compared with 17.03 per 1,000 in the Non-Chinese parents were as follows:-- British 117, Indian 43, German 17, French 3. American 3, Portuguese 78, Filipino and Malay 18, Japanese 3, Jewish 5, Dutch 2 Parsee 2, Aarabian 1, and Swedish 1.
the year
The deaths registered during numbered 8,379. The death-rate was therefore 25.06 per 1,009. These deaths include 842 from plague, and the death-rate has also been largely augmented by the tpphoon of September 18th, 1946, and by the burning of the steamship Hankow. The total number of deaths amongst the Chinese community was 8,087 which gives a death rate of 26.41 per 1,000, while the deaths registered amongst the Non-Chinese community numbered 292, of which 267 were from the civil population, 17 from the army and 8 from the Navy. This gives a death-rate for the Non- 5.4 Chinese community of 14.02 per 1,000. 1.6 The nationalities of the deceased were as 6.5 follows:-Britain 77, Indian 61. Portuguese 52, 6.5 German 13, Japanese 24, American 9, Malay :9. 7.8 | French 4, Italian 2, Norwegian, Swedish and 1.0.1 Danish 5, African 5, South American, Eurasian and Jew 2 each, Parsee 3, Russian, Turkish, and Bavarian 1 each and of unknown nationality 2. Malaria was responsible for half of the deaths among the British Troops.
.14
Kaa
.20
05 1
.06
.50 10
.70
4. Coals (ton)
9.50 15.10
15.00 1.139
5. Eggs (doz.),
.18
3.6
.20
6 Flour,
.05
1
7. Milk, fresh (pt.), .16
3.2
8. Milk, (tin}
.28
9. Mutton (Ib)
.20
10. Stout (same)
.38
.05 .24 4.6 .24 .26 7.6 .45
II.
Other items cannot be stated so exactly. SERVANTS.—The market rate of wages paid in dollars has increased at least 20 per cent. We can give individually figures in support.
TRANSPORT, The Star Ferry have increased their rate for a single trip from 10 cents to 15 cents since 1902.
The Peak Tram and rickshas are the same in dollars as in 1902.
TABLE C.
A comparison of the dollar and sterling rents of houses in 1902 and 1906.
N.B.-This return deals with the houses and those only which were in existence in 1902.
Thus the average dollar rental of European houses has increased as the lower levels by $25 or over 18 per cent, and the average ster ling rental has increased by £6.15, or 60 per cent. The percentage of increases for houses at the Peak are 8.3 per cent, and 40 per cent. respectively.
No. of House.
Average Rental per
mensen
Average Rental
per mensem 1902 at 1/8 1906 at 2/3.
$ £
P d. s £ Lower Levels. 135 11 5 0 160 (nearly) 18 (nearly), (48 houses). Peak,. (over houses).
HONGKONG LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
120 10 0 $ 130 (over) 14
The report for 1906 states that there were admitted during the year 134 males and 28 females, making with those remaining on December 31st, 1905, 15 males and 7 females, a total of 184 under treatment. Of these cases there were discharged on recovery or repatriated 157 (having been sent to Canton), 9 died, and there remained under treatment on December 31st, 1906, 18 cases. Acute mental diseases were not very prominent, there being only 24
cases of acute mania—17 males and 7 females. Chronic mental trouble and degenerative mental changes were more prevalent among the native population. Alcoholism again claims a large proportion of subjects—34.
Among the Chinese population the deaths of infants numbered 1,577, while only 1,428 Chinese births were registered. Taking the corrected birth figure to be 1,611 this gives an infant mortality of 979 per thousand, which proves conclusively that a large proportion of Chinese births must escape registration. The census return for 1906 showed 1,329 Chinese Chinese children between the ages of one year infants under one year of age, and 14,980
and five years.
Was
from
diseases for the year was 1,632, of which 55 The total number of deaths from respiratory were among the Non-Chinese community, leaving 1,577 among the Chinese population. The death-rate among the Chinese respiratory diseases 51 per 1.000 as compared with 44 per 1,000 in the previous year and that for phthisis alone was 26 per 1,00 as compared with 19 per 1,000 in 1903. No doubt a number of these deaths were sequel to the exposure experienced during the Typhoon as the deaths from drowning alone by that disaster. The deaths from phthisis certainly do not represent the entire toli levied amongst the Chinese were 98 per cent. of the total deaths amongst that community.
39
Departments has been specially directed towards the prevention of the formation of breeding pools for mosquitoes, and although the work proceeded very slowly for a year or two, yet much has been done by the famigation of the basements of Europan houses (with the consent of the occupants), by the training of nullahs, by the filling in of ground, and by the resumption here and there pools, by the subsoil drainage of swampy of a padi-field which approached too closely to a Police Station or other European dwelling, to ing of mosquitoes. One of the results of this considerably lessen the facilities for the breed- work is seen in the table showing the number of admissions for malaria, to our two largest Hospitals, during each of the past ten years. It 1,076 in the five years 1897-1901 to 551 in the will be seen that the average has fallen from
been an unfavourable oue in regard to malaria quinquenninu 1902-1906. The year 1906 has
as both cases and deaths show an increas, over the past few years, while the typ has been bers is partly accounted for by the large nonяnally malignant. This increase in num- number of cases occurring among the employees in the
The number of deaths noder the heading Nervous Diseases for the year 1906 is 746, of which 635 were of Chinese children under 5 years of age, 449 of these being infants of one year old or less, These deaths of Chinese in fants comprise 329 deaths from tetanus, trismus The total number of deaths from malarial and convulsious and deatba from meningitis. fever during the year was 448, of which 13 were Non-Chinese, 9 being from the civil population and 4 from the Troops. In the City
The districts in which there has been most
malaria are Health Districts 1, 2 and 9 with 22, 19 and 34 deaths respectively. The number for the whole City being 134. ln the whole of Kowloon there were 176 deaths. In Shaukiwan deaths from malaria. and Aberdeen there were respectively 37 and 64 Since the year 1899 the attention of the Medical and Sanitary
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medical
than as an
new Railway works in Kowloon. One remarkable feature which is brought out by this Table is the discrepancy beween the casa-mortality in the two Hospitals. The Tung maintained by voluntary contributions and Wa Hospital is a purely Chinese institution, supervised only by a Government officer. The reason however for the high case- mortality at this Hospital does not lie altogether in the treatment of the patients, but in the fact that the Hospital is regarded by the Chinese more as a "home for the dying institution for the treatment of the sick. Consequently, the great majority of the car-g of malaria that are admitted thereto are in a moribuud condition, and so near to dath that the hypodermic administration of quinine is of no aval. Could we educate the Chinese to seek medical ail on the first onset of the symptoms of fever, and conld we at the same time educate the many Chinese herbalists and native dators who ply their calling in this Colony, in the eff acy of quiuins, many lives would undoubtedly be saved indifference. which are now sacrificed to ignorance and
even
The figures showing Polios admissions to Hospital are even more striking fa len from an average of 32 per cent. of the than the foregoing, for these admissions have strength for the five years 1867-1901 to su average of 13 per cent, of the strength for the past five years, and to an average of 10 por cont of the strength during the past three year. It must, however, be borne in mind that during the first years of the occupation of the New Territories (April, 1899 to December, 191), malaria was extremely prevalent among the Po ice stationed there. Sine- 1932 the disease has been much less frequent due partly to the mre regular use of quinine as a prophylactic.
The total number of cases of infectious disease notified during the yar was 1,179 of which 893 were of plague and of typhoid ferer 66, as compared with 9) during 1905 and 129 in 1901. The Europe in cases numbered 43, of which 15 were imported. The Chinese cases numbered 12, while 11 cazes occurred amongst the other races in the Colony. Five of the Ear pesa cases, three of the other Non- Chinese cases and seven of th. Chinese cases that occur in this Colony the infection is died. In most of the cases of typhoid fever probably co tracted by eating sa'ads of raw regetables, which have been grown in Chinesa market-gardens, where it is customary to water and manure the plants with diluted human excreta-both arine and night-soil Residents in the Far East should carefully avoid such articles of food as water cress, lettuce, etc, ia view of this danger of contracting typhoid which diseases may be conveyed in this manner. fever, cholers or intestinal parasites, all of
It will be seen from the above figures that thie disease is much less prevalent aong the Chinese than among Europeras in this Colony. Two cases of cholers were recorded during tha year, both of them being Chinese employed on ships in the Harbour. One of the patients died.
During the year 192 cases of small pox were certified, of which 11 were European with one imported case, 168 were Chiness with two imported, and 13 were of other onses with one imported case. One of the European cases,
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